Afrrican American Museum, Charleston

There was so much to see at the International African American Museum, that I was disappointed that I had so little time to take it in properly.

In fact, from all appearances, it appeared to have a far more comprehensive history than many others I have visited. For as it promises; it tells the unvarnished stories of the African American experience across generations, the trauma and triumph that gave rise to a resilient people.

The pictures and story boards I was able to see during a limited period, were really good.

So, below I have recorded all the pics and stories I was able to take, in the hope that soon I will be able to return to them and educate myself thoroughtly. 

section of thesculpture garden outside the museum

If I ever visit Charleston again, I will certainly put aside an entire day to spend inside this beautiful and educational museum.

 

Charleston, S.C

On visiting a new city, I usually take the hop on hop off bus tour, but none was available in Charleston, so I took a city tour with Adventure Tours.

After that tour, I concluded that  Charleston remains a solidly segregated city. (You never get a second chance to make a first impression !).

Beautiful Charleston was established in 1670,  and is named in honor of King Charles 11. It is the oldest city in South Carolina. 

During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, about 40 percent of enslaved Africans brought into the country passed through Charleston Harbor, and while many were sold around the south, a great number were kept there to enrich the greedy and brutal land owners.

It is today a very beautiful city with magnificent architecture, emphasizing the affluence of its bloody past.

It is today a very beautiful city with magnificent architecture, emphasizing the affluence of its bloody past.

 Of course, as Christianity has always walked hand in hand with slavery and oppression, on my visit there in 2024, I wasn't surprised at seeing the vast number of Churches that this one city had! (It's recorded as 400 churches).

All buildings have to maintain their original look on the outside but inside can be used for anything.  

A private dwelling

Even through my visit was so many centuries after slavery was allegedly abolished,  I had no difficulty imagining how it must have been during that horrible period and the Jim Crow era, as the disparities are still so obvious. 

For where the multi-million dollar mansions were located (average price $7 million for one of those residences, we were told), you would see the white people lolling around, tanning, walking their dogs, jogging, enjoying a leisurely life, while the black people were outside tending the lawns, cleaning and fixing the roads.

I had to shake my head in disbelief at the disparities which were so obvious today!

Interestingly, Charlson was voted seven times as the best tourist destination in the world by Travel and Leisure, we were told. And yes, you see hundreds of tourists on the streets.

 Of course, they are mostly white, and I learnt at the African American Museum, that most who visit that city, come to see if they can experience some of the 'Scarlett Ohara' lifestyle, as portrayed in Gone with the Wind!

On the table in front, roses made from sweetgrass which young afro American boys sell on the streets as they hustle to make a buck.

It was pathetic scene in such a wealthy place.

I don't know what the racial situation is in offices is, but that's what I saw on the streets outside.

The regular market where you get great Gullah art and craft.

Everything about Charleston still seems to revolve around color, I concluded.

This is the Citadel, which was established in the early 1820's with the formation of a militia and state arsenal, to defeat a slave revolt.

 In 1842, it became an academy, establishing it as the South Carolina Military Academy.

 In 1910 it was renamed The Citadel, but it took sixteen years after legal segregation ended in public schools, for this important institution to admit its first black student!

An actual aircraft on the lawn at the Citidel

You can get a tour of the city in a horse drawn carriage

This elegant jail was originally built for white prisoners!  

Senator Tim Scott

Considering its history and present appearance, Charleston is naturally a solid bastion for the Republicans. 

So, who better to try to hide the troubling realities other than the one and only Tim Scott, who is now striving to be Donald Trump's vice president!

 Despite its current distasteful racial situation and troubling past, I must commend the local authorities there for necessary futuristic action!

 For it was there at the Visitor Center that I found a restroom where women don’t have to wait in long lines while no one uses the men’s restrooms!

 You see, there, both women and men use the same restroom.

Just close your bathroom door.

I have always wondered why architects don't just design buildings with twice as many female rest rooms as men’, but this is also a solution to our problem!😆.

Yes, pretty city and fururistic, but Charleston still left me feeling depressed and uncomfortable!

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Religion and crime

I hate upsetting my christian friends, but many years ago, I developed a theory that wherever you see an over-abundance of churches, it's a sign that there is also an overabundance of wicked people there!

And most are described as the 'good' church-going folk.😊

After living for over half century in the land of my birth, Jamaica, where people have told me many times, that the Guinness Book of World Records, singles us out as having more churches per square mile than any other country on the planet, it wasn’t difficult to find evidence that this is so.

Since that theory is always at the back of my mind,  I remember with great amusement, how on visiting Sicily, the home of the bloody mafia, on seeing the numerous church steeples around, I immediately started to count.

Covering around three blocks as we walked there, and counting as we went along, after recording around twenty five huge structures, I decided that I had better things to do with my time. This was so in contrast with Switzerland (from where we were traveling) with  it's low crime rate  and almost non- existent churches!

My theory  came flooding back as I recently visited Charleston S. Carolina, where just around everywhere you turn, you see  huge church steeples hovering over the city.

I  subsequently learned, that because there are over 400 places of worship of different denominations throughout that city, it was once dubbed "The Holy City.” 

Even the powerful  Southern Baptist Convention, (then considered "an institution of heaven" ) which is the basis of so much of Donald Trump’s religious support today,  had its genesis in Charleston during the 19th century.

 Of interest too, is the fact that the most most ostentatious church buildings date back to the 16th and 17th centuries, when slavery and brutality towards Africans was at its peak!

In 1816, free blacks and slaves, realizing that there was no regard for them in white churches, established the African Methodist Episcopal Church under the leadership of a pastor named Morris Brown.

Naturally, this was objected to by the good white folk and Brown and other ministers of the church were jailed for violating laws that prohibited slaves and free blacks from gathering without white supervision.

 In 1822, the church was burned to the ground, and the authorities, claiming a slave revolt was being planned there, arrested 313 members of the congregation and executed 35.

In 1834, all black churches were banned by the authorities.

Undeterred, members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church continued to meet in secret until the end of the Civil War in 1865, when they formally reorganized. 

 They adopted the name ‘Emanuel,’ meaning “God with us.”

At that time, the church was a wooden structure. 

This is it today.

Interestingly, it is situated on Calhoun Street, a street named after the notorious John Calhoun (1782-1850), who violently opposed the abolition of slavery and who  black Carolinians refer to as Killhoun, up to today.

It was at this church  that in June 2015, a white supremacist killed nine people including the senior pastor and a South Carolina State Senator, during a prayer service.

At the funeral on June 26, 2015, President Barack Obama gave the eulogy for the pastor who was killed in the attack and after a moving tribute, sang "Amazing Grace."

Today, that area is renamed " Mother Emanuel Memorial District " and a plaque 

has been erected on the church with the names of all who were killed and declaring their forgiveness of the murderer.

Yup, with a few exceptions, Charleston definitely confirms the theory about religion and crime.

At least in my mind.😊

 

The Gullahs

The first time I ever heard of the Gullahs, was several decades ago when I was on a cruise which made a stop in Charleston. 

Gullah perfection. A display in the African American Museum.

I had visited the craft market there and in talking to a vendor who sounded very Caribbean, as a Caribbean person myself, I naturally asked her which island she came from?

Imagine my shock when she said she was born in South Carolina and had never been to the Caribbean!

Shock, as I had no idea any born Americans spoke anything but American!🌝

Tourists flock the market to get Gullah craft

Naturally I questioned her about their ancestry, language etc, but not being satisfied, determined to one day I would get to the bottom of who the Gullahs were, their language and lifestyle in the USA.

It took me many moons to get around to it, but I did, on a recent visit to Charleston, S. Carolina.

Incidentally in the interim I did meet a lady at my bank, who told me she was from S. Carolina which she told me was a 'must visit,' but alas, she misinformed me as to the origin of the Gullahs and their language! 

Anyway, it was her intervention which caused me to remember the project.😀

 In short, on visiting  S. Carolina, I learned that like our ancestors,  the Gullahs were brought as slaves from West Africa and because they brought their rice growing skills with them, many slave owners in S. Carolina found that very useful for their huge plantations.

Gullah iron craft

Because of their relative isolation from whites while working on large plantations in rural areas, they developed a creole culture that has preserved much of their African linguistic, artistic and cultural heritage.

 Their language which is called Geechee, evolved just like our Jamaican patois, Barbadian creole etc. 

No wonder it sounded so Caribbean when I met my first Gullah decades ago!

 Gullah traditions remain very strong in Charleston and even when they migrate north to places like New York,  I hear, like us Jamaicans, second-and third-generations often maintain many of their traditional customs and still speak the Gullah Geechee language.

They are also extremely artistic people, best known for their baskets and other creations made from Sweetgrass.

These are beautiful products which can last a lifetime, I was told. 

Because they are time consuming and delicate to make, the tend to be very expensive, some for home decorations, costing up to US$10,000 I was told! 

I thought of buying a basket myself, but on seeing the US$450 price tag, departed quickly.😁

There is  a lot of info about the Gullahs at the Afro American Museum in Charleston and I highly recommend the Gullah Tour there, to get a good feel of their interesting but somewhat similiar culture.