Harriet Hancock

Hancock died on 23 September 2026 in Columbia, aged 89, days before her 90th birthday. The Harriet Hancock Center announced her death that evening with profound sadness and gratitude. PALSS, Famously Hot South Carolina Pride, SC Black Pride, Senator Tameika Isaac Devine, Historic Columbia, and former Pride president Tony Snell published tributes. At the family's request, memorial gifts were directed to the center.

Harriet Daniels was born on 25 September 1936 in Columbia, South Carolina, to Elizabeth and Harry Daniels. She was one of four children in a working-class family with deep local roots. She attended Columbia High School, learned cosmetology, married at 18, and had her first child at 19. Her husband's engineering work moved the family through New Jersey, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Maryland before she returned to Columbia in 1978 after their separation.

After her son Greg came out around 1980, she founded the Southeast's first PFLAG chapter in 1982 and cofounded PALSS in 1985 during the AIDS crisis. In 1990 she helped organize South Carolina's first Pride march of about 2,000 people to the State House, earning the lasting title Mother of SC Pride.

As an attorney she did pro bono LGBTQ work and helped push Columbia nondiscrimination measures. The Woodrow Street community space purchased in 1994 was renamed the Harriet Hancock Center in 2005, becoming South Carolina's first LGBTQ resource center serving all ages. She later focused more on transgender advocacy.

She received the South Carolina Bar Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year Award in 1991 and the Human Rights Campaign Equality Award in 1997. She served on the South Carolina Progressive Network board (1997-2000) and in 2011 received a White House Pride Month invitation for her work.

After returning to Columbia, Hancock enrolled at the University of South Carolina. She earned a sociology degree and later completed law school there, graduating in 1988 and joining the bar in her early fifties. She had studied while raising children and working, including years as a hair stylist. Legal training became a tool for LGBTQ clients who had few local advocates, including people living with HIV who needed representation and estate planning.

Hancock practiced as a later-in-life attorney with a focus on LGBTQ clients, often pro bono. She helped people who had lost jobs or insurance because of HIV stigma and advised families navigating coming out. In 1991 the South Carolina Bar named her Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year. She also worked with the Greater Columbia Community Relations Council so the City of Columbia added sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination employment policy in the early 1990s.

After her son Greg came out around 1980 to 1981, Hancock founded Columbia's PFLAG chapter in 1982, the first in the Southeast. She became a public spokesperson against stereotypes on local radio and in newspaper letters. In 1985 she cofounded Palmetto AIDS Life Support Services (PALSS), which grew into the Midlands' primary AIDS service organization. She visited hospitalized patients when families stayed away and later served on advisory efforts such as youth HIV prevention.

In 1989 Hancock helped organize what became South Carolina's first Pride March. In June 1990 more than 2,000 people marched from Main Street to the State House; she walked at the front with Greg. Activists later secured a Woodrow Street building as a community center. Renamed the Harriet Hancock Center in 2005, it remains the state's first LGBTQ resource center open to all ages. Allies including Gary Price helped finance the purchase when conventional lenders would not.

Hancock married Marion Hancock after high school. They raised three children: Karen, Greg, and Jennifer (later Jennifer Tague). After separating in 1978 she rebuilt life in Columbia with extended family support. Greg's coming out transformed her public work; Jennifer later recorded a 2024 StoryCorps conversation with her mother at South Carolina ETV. Friends such as Ed Madden, Bert Easter, and Tony Snell described her as chosen family as much as colleague.

Hancock argued that LGBTQ young people were not broken and that society's attitudes needed fixing, a line she used at early Pride gatherings. She insisted allyship meant standing in public, not only accepting people in private. In later interviews she urged younger LGBTQ South Carolinians to vote, organize, and defend hard-won rights. She lived to see marriage equality and kept mentoring organizers focused on transgender safety and belonging.

Hancock's institutions still structure LGBTQ life in the Midlands: PFLAG support for families, PALSS care and prevention, SC Pride's statewide conversation, and the Harriet Hancock Center as a physical home. Civic leaders and groups including SC Black Pride, Historic Columbia, and South Carolina Equality credited her with modeling public allyship. The center said every visitor who discovers they are not alone continues her work.

Recognition included the South Carolina Bar Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year Award (1991), the Human Rights Campaign Equality Award (1997), the South Carolina Progressive Network Thunder and Lightning Award, and the Key to the City of Columbia. She attended a White House Pride Month reception and signed a commemorative photograph with President Barack Obama. The community center's 2005 renaming remains her most visible honor.