Famous People Born in South Carolina
See our top list of the most famous people from South Carolina. We’ve chosen people like athletes, actors, civil rights activists, scientists and people from other walks of life that have come from “The Palmetto State” .
Whispering Bill Anderson songwriter, Columbia
Bernard Baruch statesman, Camden
Mary McLeod Bethune educator, Mayesville
James Godfather Brown singer, Barnwell
Joseph H. Burckhalter inventor, Columbia
James F. Byrnes senator, jurist, Charleston
John C. Calhoun statesman, Calhoun Mills
Joe Frazier prize fighter, Beaufort
Althea Gibson tennis champion, Silver
Dizzy Gillespie jazz trumpeter, Cheraw
DuBose Heyward poet, playwright, author, Charleston
Charlayne Hunter-Gault journalist, Due West
Andrew Jackson U.S. president, Waxhaw
Jesse Louis Jackson civil rights leader, Greenville
Eartha Kitt singer, North
Francis Swamp Fox Marion general, Berkeley County
Robert Evander McNair governor, Cades
Ronald McNair astronaut, Lake City
John Rutledge jurist, Charleston
Strom Thurmond politician, Edgefield
Charles Hard Townes physicist, Greenville
William Westmoreland army chief of staff, Spartanburg
Vanna White TV personality, North Myrtle Beach