Linda G. Ketner papers

Linda G. Ketner was born to Ralph Wright Ketner (1920-2016) and Ruth Jones Ketner Hope (1926-2018) in Faith, North Carolina, on May 12, 1950. Ketner’s father Ralph co-founded the Food Town (later Food Lion) grocery store in Salisbury, North Carolina. Ketner received a bachelor of the arts degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1972 and a Masters degree in sociology from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Ketner worked as an activist on women’s issues, racial issues, and housing issues, and was involved in many different charitable organizations. She was chair of the Coastal Community Foundation, a nonprofit grant funding organization serving the Lowcountry, from 1991 to 1992. In 1998 Ketner co-founded the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA) in Charleston, South Carolina, to be a public-facing social justice organization in contrast to private social LGBTQ groups that existed at the time. She served as board president from 1998 to 2004. In 2002 Ketner co-founded SC Equality, then known as the South Carolina Equality Coalition (SCEC). The group advocates for legislative change to benefit LGBTQ people at the state level in South Carolina. In 2008 Ketner ran as the Democratic nominee for United States Congress in District 1 of South Carolina, losing to Republican incumbent Henry Brown. As of 2020, Ketner is the president and CEO of KSI Corporation and lives with her partner Beth Huntley in the Charleston, South Carolina, area.