Beaufort resident who helped revive Beaufort County NAACP chapter dies at 50
A Beaufort resident known as a leader in northern Beaufort County's African-American community who helped revive a dormant NAACP chapter died suddenly last week.
Friends and colleagues of Darryl Murphy, 50, said Monday they were shocked to find out he had died Jan. 20 in Greenville.
Murphy, a Buffalo, NY, native, reorganized the Burton-Dale-Beaufort NAACP chapter in 2012 after a four-year spell of inactivity, serving as its first president.
His death last Wednesday "came out of the clear blue," current NAACP chapter president Ken Fields said. "Everyone was taken off guard by it."
The two had worked closely on a number of issues around the county with the NAACP. Murphy led the on-going push for Beaufort City Council to adopt voting districts instead of at-large voting, an issue central to the group's revival in 2012 and one that continues today.
Fields said Murphy was a prolific writer and a powerful speaker, in addition to being a talented baritone singer.
"Darryl was the first to get the revived NAACP chapter up and running to be recognized," Fields said. "He was very diligent, very articulate, and very hardworking. He was very involved in community efforts and he's going to be sorely missed."
Murphy was well-known throughout the northern county long before he helped revive the NAACP chapter. He was known as a champion for the improvement of the area's African-American community and a historian with a vast knowledge of local African-American history, Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce president Larry Holman said.
Murphy was an active volunteer with the black chamber for almost 15 years and was a proud ambassador of the African-American community, Holman said. In recent years, Murphy had assisted efforts to sign up locals for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act through the black chamber.
Murphy was also an advocate for the black community, making sure to keep local groups appraised of rising issues and verifying that minorities were getting the necessary consideration for government contracts, Holman said.
The two had recently spoken ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. Day; Murphy had participated in two parades in Beaufort that weekend, Holman said.
"Darryl was a soldier," he said. "He was a great person. He did everything. He represented the black community well, and he was very concerned about the community."
Murphy used his knowledge of local African-American to lead seminars at the Penn Center and was formerly a curator there, executive director Dr. Rodell Lawrence said.
"Darryl was an absolute mainstay here at Penn," Lawrence said. "He was a curator for many of our art exhibits and he was just a major, major supporter for the Penn Center. In my estimation, Darryl was the consummate volunteer for Penn.
"He will be sorely, sorely missed. We are just devastated by his passing."
Murphy is survived by his wife Connie Singleton-Murphy and son Wesley Singleton-Murphy.
Funeral services at a to-be-announced location will be held at 12 p.m. Saturday in Heath Springs, S.C. Crawford Funeral Home of Lancaster is handling the arrangements.
Follow reporter Matt McNab on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Matt.
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This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 2:53 PM with the headline "Beaufort resident who helped revive Beaufort County NAACP chapter dies at 50."