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Voices from the past
Public historian Brandon Reid demonstrates the interactive video displays in the Black South Carolinians exhibit. The monitors are part of the self-guided museum experience that allows visitors to explore topics at their own pace and direction.
Photo by Alexander Fox
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The power of place
The museum is built on the site of Gadsden's Wharf, the slave-trading port where it’s estimated that nearly 50% of African slaves arrived in America. The City of Charleston donated the waterfront land to the museum in 2014.
Photo courtesy of the International African American Museum
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Telling the story
Before cotton was king, African slaves brought their knowledge of rice cultivation to Lowcountry plantations, a story told in the Carolina Gold/Memories of the Enslaved exhibit
Photo by Alexander Fox
Take a moment to consider a woman called Rose. Although we know very little about Rose’s life—even her name is probably her enslaved name, not her birth name—we do know that, at some point in the mid-1800s, Rose’s nine-year-old daughter Ashley was sold into slavery and the two never saw each other again. Consider, though, Rose’s departing gift to her daughter—a simple cloth sack, which contained “a tattered dress,” “3 handfulls of pecans,” “a braid of Roses hair,” and “my Love always.”
We know this story because Ashley’s granddaughter, Ruth Middleton, embroidered these details of family history onto the sack in 1921. And 86 years later, in 2007, someone found the sack in a flea market and donated it to Middleton Place, which, in turn, loaned it to Charleston’s recently opened International African American Museum, where it is now on display in the Carolina Gold/Memories of the Enslaved exhibit.
Take a moment to consider how far Ashley’s sack, and the story it contains, has traveled through time and space. A story of grief and departure, now transformed into a story of resilience and love, for all the world to remember.
Dr. Tonya Matthews, the museum’s president and CEO, puts it this way: “The greatest gift of interacting with the African American journey is being able to understand African Americans’ ability to simultaneously hold the sensations of trauma and joy. Not trauma on Tuesday and joy on Thursday. It’s woven in here together. Yes, the losses and missteps, but the victory and the impact … which is why the museum leans into storytelling—big picture stories but also individual stories.”
Brandon Reid, the museum’s public historian, adds, “It’s easy to romanticize history. But understand—as we look through the stories of individuals like Ashley and her mother Rose—how detrimental the transatlantic slave trade and plantation system was to these individuals, their worldview, and their cultural identity.”
Consider, then, how Ashley’s sack is a fabric that makes up a larger fabric, like a patch in a quilt. And like many generational quilts, the museum tells a family story—an expansive, stunning, solemn, 400-plus-year story of what Reid refers to as the Black Atlantic World.
“Oftentimes, when we think about the transatlantic slave trade, we think of millions of lives impacted, and it’s really easy to get swept up in that number,” Reid says. “But if I tell you a story about an individual who is impacted by the slave trade, it’s more immersive. You’re more easily able to understand what this journey means to us all.”
The power of place
The museum, too, has had a long journey. In his 2000 inaugural address, then-Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. put forward the idea of a world-class museum in Charleston that would honor the historic and cultural contributions of African Americans.
Charleston, after all, was the right spot for such a museum because it has what Dr. Matthews calls “the power of place.”
“This is a community of storytelling and stories,” she says. “People have a real reverence and joyfulness about history here.”
Charleston was also home to Gadsden’s Wharf—the slave-trading port where it’s estimated that nearly 50% of slaves arrived in America. In 2014, the City of Charleston donated the waterfront land to the museum so that it could, in a way, reclaim a physical piece of a terrible history.
Developed by world-renowned architects and landscape designers, and funded with over $100 million in contributions, the museum finally opened in June after years of construction and pandemic-related delays. But the wait was worth it.
“A museum like this helps Charleston, helps South Carolina, double down on our brand of history,” Matthews says. “This is what folks come here for. To see the historic streets and buildings and stories.”
An interactive journey
When you visit the museum, the first installation you come across is the African American Ancestors Memorial Garden. Located in a public park directly below the museum, the space shows the cramped and contorted silhouettes of bodies as they would have been packed inside the slave ships that brought them to the wharf.
“This is heavy content,” Reid admits. “It’s a place for visitors to reflect and prepare themselves before they venture up into the museum.”
Inside, the tours are self-guided (what Reid calls “a choose your own adventure”), and you can begin by making your way through a chronological timeline in the American Journeys exhibit, or you can take a more thematic approach as you venture through exhibits like the Transatlantic Experience, the Gullah Geechee, the African Roots & African Routes, the Atlantic Worlds, the Carolina Gold/Memories of the Enslaved, or the Orientation Theater.
Each exhibit contains more than art on the walls and artifacts in the display cases. Interactive touch screens and QR codes allow visitors to connect objects with a deeper story. “This is such an expansive story that not everything can fit in the museum physically,” Reid says.
Rev. Linda Titus and Paul Black, who drove down from Waycross, Georgia, one morning shortly after the museum opened, spoke about appreciating the “depth” that the technology provided.
“You can really relate to what happened,” Titus says. “I’m really impressed with how this museum is put together, and I’m impressed with the variation of people coming here. It makes me proud.”
Family history
For many visitors, exploring the museum’s Center for Family History is a highlight of the tour, Reid says. There, you can go to one of four kiosks and get an introduction to genealogical research. You can also book time to record oral family histories through video and audio in the storytelling sound booth.
“The museum is not only about preserving this information and interpreting this content but creating change agents as well,” Reid says. “We want individuals to understand that these are their stories. And they can come in and be very active in preserving their stories.”
Matthews also sees the Center for Family History as vital to the future of the museum.
“We’re positioned to be a hub for genealogy and ancestry for Americans looking outward,” she says. “I can see us growing into the kind of genealogy center where our international cousins and relatives can look to us to see where their descendant cousins have landed.”
The story-quilt of the museum will always be a work in progress. The next Ashley’s sack could be discovered. And the next change agents—the artist or filmmaker or historian or public leader—might be among the many visitors reflecting on the hard but triumphant story the museum tells.
“History keeps happening,” Matthews says. “So, I hope that part of our origin story actually will prepare us to pivot in whatever direction we need to, as history is being created around us.”
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Get There
The International African American Museum is located at 14 Wharfside Street in Charleston.
Hours: The museum is open Tuesday–Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Last entry time is at 4 p.m.
Admission: $19.95 for adults (17+), $9.95 for youth (6–16), seniors (62+), and military with ID. Children ages 6 and under are admitted free. For the rest of 2023, South Carolina residents will enjoy discounted admission prices. Tickets can be purchased in advance online at iaamuseum.org/plan-your-visit.
Details: Visit iaamuseum.org.