At International African American Museum opening, a reclaiming of sacred ground for enslaved kin

Malika N. Pryor gives a tour in preparation for the opening of the International African American Museum on Friday, June 23, 2023, in Charleston, S.C. Overlooking the old wharf at which nearly half of the enslaved population first entered North America, the 150,000-square foot museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans' labor, perseverance, resistance and cultures shaped the Carolinas, the nation and the world. CHARLESTON, S.C.

“Show me a courageous space, show me an open space, show me a space that meets me where I am, and then gets me where I asked to go,” said Dr. Tonya Matthews, the museum’s president and CEO. The screens are angled as if to beckon visitors towards large windows and a balcony at the rear of the museum, revealing sprawling views of the Charleston harbor.

“Truth sets us free — free to understand, free to respect and free to appreciate the full spectrum of our shared history,” said former Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley, Jr. who is widely credited for the idea to bring the museum to the city. The land is now part of an intentionally designed ancestral garden. Black granite walls are erected on the spot of a former storage house, a space where hunched enslaved humans perished awaiting their transport to the slave market. The walls are emblazoned with lines of Maya Angelou’s poem, “And Still I Rise.”

Walter Hood, founder and creative director of Hood Design Studios based in Oakland, California, designed the landscape of the museum’s grounds. The designs are inspired by tours of lowcountry and its former plantations, he said. The lush grounds, winding paths and seating areas are meant to be an ethnobotanical garden, forcing visitors to see how the botany of enslaved Africans and their descendants helped shape what still exists today across the Carolinas.

“This is such an incredibly expansive history, there’s room for 25 more museums that would have opportunities to bring a new curatorial lens to this conversation,” she said.

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At International African American Museum opening, a reclaiming of sacred ground for enslaved kinThe International African American Museum will soon open in Charleston, South Carolina, at one of the country’s most historically significant slave-trading ports.
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