Former Gov. David Beasley, 68, looks fondly at a copse of loblolly pines on the other side of a Pee Dee field near a barn where seven chickens skittered.
Back in 1973 when Beasley was 16, his father told him that his job for the summer was planting pine trees — 7,000 of them — on the 700-acre family farm just outside of Society Hill.
Backbreaking, sweaty work. Years later, Beasley designed the barn and helped to build it with about 200 of the very same trees he planted before a life of public service.
The barn has several bunks where people can comfortably stay — just like the nearby lodge-like pool house has more space for guests. Not many folks realize it, but both are used regularly to accommodate leaders from all over the world. They quietly land in G7 jets and other aircraft about two miles away on a 5,500-foot runway at the Darlington County Airport.
These visitors may be from war-torn nations or places where hunger is rampant — or both. Beasley and his wife, Mary Wood, welcome them to de-stress and talk about ways to reduce the violence and hunger. Removed from a world pounded by electronic invective, Beasley says his guests often relax enough to open their ears and listen to — and better understand — other perspectives.
This is the former governor’s modern version of a Camp David to help people come together. It’s the latest incarnation of what he did for more than six years as executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, the international aid organization for which he accepted a Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its efforts to combat world hunger. As its leader, he raised more than $55 billion to fight food insecurity in 80 nations.
“Two hundred years ago, 85% to 95% of the people in the world were in extreme poverty and the world’s population was 1.1 billion,” he said in a recent interview. “Today, the world population is 8 billion — and less than 10% of the people are in extreme poverty.”
Why? Because the world’s leaders over decades built institutions to share wealth and help. But in current political times when people want to cut aid for others, Beasley says the answer isn’t to reverse the succor provided by those institutions. And the answer isn’t to say the job of helping people is finished.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t change some systems, improve some systems, but we’ve got to reach that 9% out there who are struggling … Come with me for a couple of days. Let me show you what it’s like in Chad. Let me show you what it’s like to be in the hinterlands of Niger. You don’t know how lucky you have it.”
Looking back
Beasley, first elected to the state House as a Democrat at age 20 before later switching parties, gives a surprising answer when asked about the best thing that happened when he was the state’s Republican governor from 1995 to 1999.
“My loss was one of my greatest victories,” he said recalling the brouhaha that exploded when he endorsed taking down the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome and the fallout that contributed to his 1998 loss. It had to be done, he explained, to remove an impediment that would bring back Black leaders into debates over policy.
“I had solid poll numbers out of the roof,” he said. “All I had to do was something that was out of the extra-ordinary to destabilize my reelection. … I had already successfully passed every major piece of legislation I wanted, from tax cuts to basic education to welfare reform to criminal justice reform.”
But the times also were fraught with some burnings of Black churches, the fracas over a KKK museum in the Upstate and racial incidents in the news. Beasley said he knew that for the state to move forward, the flag had to be dealt with.
“It took somebody losing [an election] and taking a bullet [on the flag] to realize how much that issue was plaguing our future.” Beasley lost to Democratic nominee Jim Hodges, but later won the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2003 for his advocacy for removing the flag.
By 2000, the flag was off the Statehouse, but displayed in front of it until 2015 after the shooting of nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.
The future
Beasley is recovering this month from shoulder surgery. He knows he should keep his arm in a sling most of the time, but feels it constrains him too often.
Driving in a four-wheeler across the family farm past ponds and fields where cotton is grown and where there once was space for an equestrian yard and an old motocross course, Beasley seems relaxed. But his mind races, exploring political and global topics as he did for years meeting with world leaders.
With a governor’s race this year in South Carolina, he shared thoughts on issues candidates should address.
“Number one is, people are struggling with housing costs. And the cost of living, housing costs, health care costs. the cost of higher education. These things are totally out of control now. And they have to be addressed, and it’s going to have to be Democrats and Republicans coming together on these issues.”
Second, he said is to protect South Carolina’s environmental splendor. “We have such a beautiful state with the mountains to the coast, and we’ve got to do more.” Later, he added, “When you consider any industrial or major manufacturing decision, you’ve got to look at a comprehensive perspective. You don’t want jobs at the expense of destroying your environment, destroying your quality of life you have. So you’ve got to factor in this.”
But Beasley also has been thinking more broadly about how blessed Americans are and how incongruous it is for the country to be so polarized.
“If we have another 10 years like the last few years, we will be a Balkanized nation and democracy,” he said. “I don’t think we have got 10 years. I think we have got a few years and both parties need to get out of the extreme and into the middle.”
Part of the solution, he said, is getting control of the Internet.
“If you shut television off and internet off for about five days, I bet you every American community would calm down so much, it wouldn’t even be funny.”
The Internet and technology are negatively impacting children, here and across the world, Beasley said.
“This is probably one of the top issues — how we tame the wild beast of the cyberworld. Our children are literally being torn apart and destroyed by the Wild West of the Internet.”
He believes solutions lie in people getting out of their tribal comfort zones and meeting over meals with people from other tribes. It’s worked at his farm with guests. It’s worked in tense negotiations around the world among people of different faiths. Having a meal. Talking about common values, common solutions.
“I’ve seen more starvation, more suffering than anybody. And I’ve seen what happens when people don’t work together.
“What’s the answer? We’ll, it sure as hell is not more technology. We’re more connected than any time period in world history, and we’re more divided. The answer is going back to these fundamentals of people breaking bread together, sitting down together.”
These days, Beasley spends a lot of time talking with groups around the nation, listening to people.
“Go break bread with somebody of a different perspective, different politics, different religion, different race. Don’t talk politics, just get to know each other. And you will find out, wow, we have so much in common.”
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