12/23/2025
Discover the remarkable stories of revolutionary African Americans in the newly released 2026 South Carolina African American History Calendar.
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Our Story
The Orangeburg Times and Democrat (1881-present) serves as a portal into Orangeburg and surrounding counties.
The Times and Democrat traces its history to the October 1881 merger of The Orangeburg Democrat and The Orangeburg Times. It also has ties to four other newspapers born in the aftermath of the American Civil War: The Southron, The Tax-Payer, The Edisto Clarion and The Orangeburg News and Times. Like most newspapers of the South during Reconstruction, the Orangeburg publications were embroiled in political doctrines. The Orangeburg News, for instance, was organized as a newspaper of the Democrats but later made the bold move of becoming a newspaper of the Republicans.
Into this milieu came James L. Sims. The Charleston, South Carolina, native learned the printing trade at The Charleston Courier and subsequently purchased an interest in The Spartanburg Herald. When his wife died, Sims sold his interest and moved to Orangeburg. In 1878, he purchased The Edisto Clarion, successor to The Tax-Payer, and changed its name again, to The Orangeburg Democrat. Sims' editor at the Democrat was Stiles R. Mellichamp, who after a short period left to start his own newspaper, The Orangeburg Times. In 1881, Sims and Mellichamp came together again to merge their newspapers into The Times and Democrat.
A close Orangeburg newspaper colleague of Sims in those early days was Hugo S. Sheridan. Some years later, Sims married Sheridan's daughter. From this marriage came four sons, three of whom were involved in the paper. James Izlar Sims, the oldest, dropped out of school at age 14 to work at The Times and Democrat.
