2025 Monthly Speaker Sessions - Dr. Bernard Powers

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens is proud to welcome Dr. Bernard Powers, director of the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston and professor emeritus of history at College of Charleston, on May 14 for our Speaker Series.

Dr. Powers will explore the complex and dynamic period immediately following the Civil War and emancipation. Freed people created new lives through the establishment of churches, schools and new paths through labor. How did these developments forge new layers of status among Black Carolinians and what did these mean for patterns of race relations? We look forward to you joining us for our Speaker Series.

This event is free with advance registration.

Powers earned his Ph. D in American history at Northwestern University. He is professor emeritus of history at the College of Charleston and director of its Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston. His Black Charlestonians: A Social History 1822-1885, was designated an “Outstanding Academic Book” by Choice Magazine. Powers is co-author of We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel, about the city’s 2015 racially motivated murders. He also edited 101 African Americans Who Shaped South Carolina.

Powers appeared in documentary films, including, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross and Emanuel: The Untold Story of the Victims and Survivors of the Charleston Church Shooting. He has been active in the area of public history, serving on the board of Historic Charleston Foundation, the South Carolina Historical Society and as a consultant to historic sites and museums.

For many years Powers served on the board of Charleston’s International African American Museum which opened in June 2023. In 2019 the Association for the Study of African American Life and History recognized his “research, writing, and activism in the field of African American life and history” with the Carter Godwin Woodson Scholars Medallion.