COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - The law diploma earned by the University of South Carolina’s first African-American faculty member is back at USC.

Richard T. Greener’s diploma, along with his license to practice law in South Carolina, was discovered in an abandoned Chicago home scheduled for demolition. The documents and some old books were found in a steamer trunk stored in the attic, and were removed from the house by a construction worker just before the house was torn down.

The discovery was exciting news for USC officials, who jumped at the chance to obtain a piece of the university’s history during Reconstruction, the four years from 1873 to 1877 when the school was open to African-American students. University archivist Elizabeth Cassidy West and history professor Bobby Donaldson traveled to Chicago in 2012 soon after learning about the find, anxious to see what had been saved from the building....