Charleston, S.C.- A long, shallow pool shimmering in the sun reflects the horrors of what happened at Gadsden’s Wharf, the site of the city’s new International African American Museum that opened this week.
“Now what you’ll see on the ground are outlines of these human bodies,” says museum public historian and tour guide Brandon Reid.
Reid points to engraved figures along the pool’s bottom, evoking the earliest experiences of Africans taken from their homes to lives of slavery. Each figure represents a man, woman or child who was packed in the hull of a slave ship, chained for weeks or months.
So many Africans were brought to the U.S. through Gadsden’s Wharf, an estimated 100,000 at the height of the transatlantic slave trade, historians believe 90 percent of African Americans can trace at least one ancestor to Charleston.
The museum is lofted above the ground on 13-foot pillars to honor the lives lost there. Its opening Tuesday was celebrated with a weekend dedication that featured poetry, storytellers, West African drumming and passionate speeches.
“Truth sets us free,” said former Charleston mayor Joe Riley before a crowd Saturday gathered beneath the museum.
" Free to understand, free to respect."
The former long-time mayor explained he was inspired to build the museum more than 20 years ago after reading Edward Ball's book, Slaves in the Family. It recounts the author's search for the descendants of slaves his family once owned.
Riley has long said he wanted the museum to teach what he was never taught as a child in Charleston schools; that Africans were brutalized and forced to build a nation's wealth they did not share. The truth of their lives, he believes, is important to the nation's narrative.
The new International African American Museum shares the untold stories of Africans who were brought to Gadsden’s Wharf, the lives they lived and how their labor shaped America. It is a story of bondage but also resilience.
"90 percent of African Americans can trace at least one ancestor to Charleston."
Not far from the reflecting pool, several kneeling sculptures line a walkway.
“You will notice they’re facing the water,” Reid says as he continues giving a tour. “They’re pointing towards back home.”
The sculptures are surrounded by bricks that mark where a storage house once stood. 700 Africans froze to death there during an unusually cold winter, as they waited to be separated and sold.
But the museum is about more than slavery.
Inside, visitors are met with powerful music set to a series of towering video screens flashing photographs. The pictures show Africans and African Americans around the world, past and present.
This is the museum’s largest gallery, and it explores the transatlantic experience through a mix of gut-wrenching depictions of the Middle Passage as well as joyous scenes of contemporary life.
"It shows individuals just being themselves," says Reid. "It showcases the talents that have been passed down to them through generation to generation."
In all, the museum features nine galleries with more than 150 historical artifacts.
One room displays the names and ages of Africans found on cargo lists. The lettering is white and written on black walls.
The names listed for Africans as they left their homeland include Jegway, Jimby and Jeery. Some are as young as 6-years-old.
The names of the same group of Africans as they arrived at Gadsden's Wharf are shown in another room. They include Rachel, Eve and Jacob.
A particularly poignant exhibit sits in a glass case. It’s worn and tattered and called “Ashley’s sack”. The small bag was given to a 9-year-old girl by her mother before the child was taken from her family.
The sack once held a dress, some nuts, and a lock of the mother’s hair. It's a reminder for the girl of who she was before being forced to begin a new journey.
Museum CEO and President Dr. Tonya Matthews says that while the history the museum tells is difficult, it's important. And the museum’s opening is an achievement.
“When I stand on the edge of the wharf and look at what we’re doing, I’m reminded that this is likely something we survived for,” says Matthews.
She hopes the museum will create dialogue about race and inequality at a time when teaching those subjects in classrooms has become intensely controversial.
“Learning something new is never the enemy,” says Matthews.
Outside the museum, a black granite wall displays part of the Maya Angelou poem, “And Still I Rise,” which visitors can see as they arrive and leave.
“Yes, yes, yes, and still I rise, still I rise,” says Dr. Bernard Powers as he nods. He's the museum’s lead historian and chairman of its programming committee.
Powers says the museum offers stories that may challenge what visitors think they know. For instance, how musician Dizzy Gillespie played a role in the civil rights movement, the connection between slavery and the American Revolution, and why many fugitive slaves fled south, not north.
When Powers walks into the new museum, he says he can still vividly see the giant hole from excavation where he came across remnants of the original wharf.
“A lot has arisen here so far and there’s much more to come.”
He hopes the museum will educate and inspire future generations.
