Hartsville City Council District 1 candidates

Look in Friday’s edition of The Messenger for coverage of Tuesday’s City Council Forum.

Adlena Graham

Hartsville native Adlena Graham has served on Hartsville City Council since June 1993 when she became the first African American elected to council. She represents District 1.

Her election followed the adoption of single member election districts for council seats.
She grew up in Hartsville and was educated at Butler High School.

Graham, who is retired from the former Hartsville Manufacturing Co., has been involved in politics for about 30 years. She is a former state executive committee representative for the Darlington County Democratic Party. She has served as a delegate to both the Democratic State and National Conventions.

She has served as treasurer of the S.C. Black Elected Officials organization. Graham has also served on the boards of Darlington County Habitat for Humanity, Christmas in April and as political action committee chair for the Hartsville Branch of the NAACP. She has been involved with the Darlington County League of Women Voters in the past and with People to People.

She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Darlington County Community Action Agency.

Graham is a member of Jerusalem Baptist Church, where she sings in the gospel choir and is involved in other activities.

She has two sisters and three deceased siblings.

Jannie Harriot

Jannie Harriot is the retired executive director of the Allendale County First Steps to School Readiness program.

Born in Wilmington, N.C., Harriot grew up in Hartsville and graduated from Butler High School. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in business education from Fayetteville State University and did graduate study at the University of South Carolina and Montclair State College in Montclair, N.J.

She taught in the public schools of North Carolina and at Mayo High School in Darlington early in her career. Harriot also worked for two years with the Darlington County Head Start Program before relocating to New Jersey. 

Upon returning to Hartsville in 1990, she was instrumental in the founding of the Butler Heritage Foundation and served at its first chairperson. She designed and implemented the Butler Heritage’s Teen Life Center and the Society Hill Neighborhood Council’s Family Life. She also worked in the Low Country Healthy Start Program as a coordinator before becoming executive director of the Allendale County First Steps to School Readiness program.

Harriot currently serves as vice-chairperson of the S.C. African American Heritage Commission, co-chairman of African American Historical Alliance of South Carolina and a member of the Darlington County Historical Commission.

She is a member of the Household of Faith Holiness Church No. 3 in Hartsville. Her family includes seven sisters and brothers and 103 nieces, nephews, grand and great nieces and nephews.