Black History Month-- February 2008: Charleston’s African American Heritage Honored
For Immediate Release, December 2007
Black History Month-- February 2008: Charleston’s African American Heritage Honored
National Black History month has a special significance in Charleston, SC. The historical influence of African Americans in the South Carolina Lowcountry is reflected in the culture and customs found throughout the area. While many of Charleston’s earliest citizens came for economic, political and religious freedom, slaves were taken from Africa for intensive agricultural and constructive labor. Not all Africans remained slaves. Many of these citizens were able to carve out a niche for themselves as artisans, farmers and business owners.
Both free and enslaved Africans helped shape Charleston’s economic and cultural life. Their agricultural knowledge is largely responsible for Charleston’s success. Ironwork, handmade sweetgrass baskets, she-crab soup and benne seed cookies are just a few of the well-known artistic and culinary contributions. Gullah, the Sea Island culture and language, continues to survive today. This February, Charleston celebrates Black History Month by highlighting special events.
AVERY RESEARCH CENTER FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE:
Located at 125 Bull Street, Avery was established to collect, preserve, and make public the unique historical and cultural heritage of African Americans in South Carolina and the Lowcountry. Contact: Leila Potts-Campbell at 843.953.7609.
BOONE HALL PLANTATION:
Tour one of the few remaining slave streets in America. Built around 1800, these cabins were home to the skilled and house slaves of Boone Hall Plantation. Nearby, a sweetgrass artisan demonstrates the sewing of baskets, a skill brought from Africa. Contact: Jennifer Westmoreland at 843-856-5361.
Experience the Past (a living history program): This program, designed for groups and offered during the month of February, features hands on as well as demonstrative activities. Visitors will tour the original slave cabins, pick and deseed cotton, and assume the roll of a runaway slave through an interactive and educational game. Before leaving, each group will attend the Gullah theatre and hear Gullah story telling and interactive songs.
CAW CAW INTERPRETIVE CENTER:
Contact: Mandi Starnes 843.762.8089.
This 654-acre site, rich in natural, cultural and historical resources, is comprised of several former rice plantations that operated during the 18th and most of the 19th century. Here and throughout the South Carolina Lowcountry enslaved Africans were forced to apply their West and Central African agricultural experience, technology and skills to rice cultivation. Out of vast Lowcountry swamps these men, women and children successfully converted thousands of acres to rice fields. Still evident today are the earthen dikes, water control structures called rice trunks, and canals - all fruits of their slave labor.
CHARLES PINCKNEY NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE:
This historic site was established to interpret Charles Pinckney's plantation, Snee Farm, his role in the development of the United States Constitution, and the transition of the United States from a group of colonies to a young nation. Interpretive exhibits highlight these areas as well as the influences of African Americans in the development of Snee Farm. Contact: Michael Allen at 843.881.5516.
Gullah Traditions Scavenger Hunt
Children and families can pick up this special themed scavenger hunt at the front desk of the Museum all month long. After completion of the scavenger hunt stop back at the front desk for a prize.
Kid Tours- African American Inventors
Do you know who invented the stoplight, the potato chip, or the gas mask? Learn about these inventors and other figures in African American history. Kid Tours is a series designed to highlight artifacts from our collection that have fascinated children for years. Kid Tours meet the first Wednesday of every month at 3:30 p.m. and include a craft project or activity.
FREE for Museum members and FREE with admission ($10/adults, $5/children, under 3 free).
February 6 at 3:30 p.m.
Sweetgrass Basket Workshop for Children
Learn about the history of these beautiful baskets and how to make your own. Each child will be taught how to begin a sweetgrass basket, all materials are included. Reservations are required. $8/Museum members, $10/Nonmembers.
February 21 from 3:30-5 p.m.
African American Heritage Group Tours
This signature tour of the Museum's permanent exhibitions with a Museum curator will focus on African and African American contributions to Lowcountry history. Learn about the plantation system, particularly rice and cotton producers, and discover artifacts such as slave badges and slave-made pottery unique to this area.
DRAYTON HALL:
This National Trust historic site was built between 1738 and 1742. It is the oldest preserved plantation house in America open to the public. Contact: Vera Ford at 843.769.2608.
Connections: From Africa to America at Drayton Hall
Offered at 11:15am, 1:15 pm, and 3:15pm every day and included with gate admission, Connections: From Africa to America, is an interactive program about African American life that traces the story of Africans from Africa to the Lowcountry and beyond. The program focuses on African American history, contributions of African Americans to American culture, and specific individuals and historical events at Drayton Hall.
February 2nd and 16th: Special Saturday Program – A Day in the Life of a Plantation
(Included with Regular Admission) Offered at 10:00 a.m. and 12 noon. Drayton Hall visitors will observe and participate in practices illustrative of historical plantation daily life, such as blacksmithing, coopering, and rice culture. Through hands-on activities and by examining the tools and equipment in each area, visitors will feel as though they have stepped back in time and are living and working on a Lowcountry plantation. Limited space is available. To make reservations, contact Natalie Titcomb by phone, (843) 769-2638, or by email, Natalie_titcomb@draytonhall.org.
February: Widening Our View: How Archaeology Has Revealed The World Of African Americans In Charleston (Date: TBA)
Drayton Hall will present an illustrated discussion on how archaeological investigations across the Lowcountry and at Drayton Hall have offered new ways to understand the roles of African Americans and their interactions with white and Native populations. www.draytonhall.org
February 9: Peopling The Landscape: An Interactive Walkabout
Director-led tours guide groups through almost 300 years of history and offer insights from the perspective of Drayton Hall's African American population. Light refreshments will be provided. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for Friends of Drayton Hall. Call (843) 769-2638 for information and reservations. For group rates and information, call Debbi Zimmerman at (843) 769-2630.
From Plantations To The City
Drayton Hall's African American history package, From Plantations to the City, provides groups with a comprehensive look at Lowcountry African American history from the 17th century to the present. Tours begin on the Ashley River at Drayton Hall, where participants learn about African and African American life through the interpretive program Connections: From Africa to America. After learning about life on a rice plantation, groups travel to Charleston's Historic District for an African American history walking tour.
African American Cemetery
After hearing the stories of specific African Americans who lived and worked on Drayton Hall's grounds, guests can visit Drayton Hall's African-American cemetery. This sacred spot is the resting place of at least 33 hard-working men and women. Richmond Bowens, a descendent of slaves owned by the Drayton family, is buried here along with his family members. In keeping with his wishes, the cemetery has been left natural, not restored or planted with grass or decorative shrubs.
MAGNOLIA PLANTATION AND GARDENS:
Learn more about the unique African American experience at Magnolia Plantation, from slavery to the Civil War and beyond. Also, visit a rare African American plantation graveyard at Magnolia's Audubon Swamp Garden. Contact: Jane Knight at 843.571.1266.
Slave Cabin Renovation
After working as slaves in indigo and rice fields for generations, freed slaves were employed in Magnolia's garden as gardeners, porters, and tour guides. Six slave cabins still stand -- many were occupied continuously from the 1840s through the 1930s. Visit a cabin on Slave Street that is being restored.
MEPKIN ABBEY:
Contact: Father Guerric Heckel at 843.761-8509
African American Lecture
Mepkin Abbey will have a lecture on the painting, "Seeking" done by Jonathan Green. The painting now hangs in Claremont Cemetery on the grounds of the monastery, where it is believed slaves are buried on the Mepkin Property. After the lecture, visitors have the chance to walk through the Slave Cemetery. Every Wednesday and Saturday during February and the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month thereafter.
MIDDLETON PLACE:
Just off Highway 61, this carefully preserved 18th century plantation with 65 acres of America’s oldest landscaped gardens offers craft demonstrations, exploration of slave life, horse back riding, hiking, biking, kayaking and on site dining. Contact: Pat Kennedy at 843.556.6020. pkennedy@middletonplace.org. www.middletonplace.org
AFRICAN AMERICAN FOCUS TOURS
This one-hour interpretive tour focuses on the African American slaves and freedmen that lived and worked at Middleton Place and their contributions to the Lowcountry culture. Trained interpreters discuss domestic life at Eliza’s House (a freedmen’s cabin), rice cultivation at the Rice Mill and Demonstration Field where Carolina Gold rice is growing for its sixth successful year, and religion and spirituality at the Plantation Chapel and Slave Cemetery. Interpreters also discuss the role of the slaves in creating and maintaining the landscaped Gardens and in providing domestic service for the Middleton family. The African American Focus Tour will be offered daily at 1 p.m.
BEYOND THE FIELDS
A permanent exhibit, Beyond the Fields: Slavery at Middleton Place, opened in February, 2005. This exhibit is mounted in Eliza’s House and focuses on the daily lives of slaves and their work beyond the fields in the Middleton plantation system. Beyond the Fields richly illustrates with rare images, archeological artifacts and historical documents, and presents the Foundation’s latest research. Stories of individuals, recreated from family letters and documents, are told and over 2,600 names of Middleton slaves can be searched by visitors.
OLD SLAVE MART MUSEUM
Contact: Nicole Green (843) 958-6467.
Email: osmm@ci.charlston.sc.us
One of the most recent additions to Charleston’s long list of museums is the Old Slave Mart Museum located at 6 Chalmers Street in downtown historic Charleston. The Old Slave Mart was once part of a complex of buildings known as Ryan’s Mart. It is the only known South Carolina building still standing that is a former gallery for slaves. This past October, the City of Charleston re-opened this historical treasure as a museum that documents the story of the trans-Atlantic slave trade between the 15th and early 19th centuries as well as the lesser-known domestic slave trade, which gained momentum after a ban on importation of slaves took effect in 1780. Exhibits in the main area explain how the trade had a modernizing effect on South Carolina, how it strengthened Charleston’s financial, social and political networks within the state, and how it extended the city’s influence throughout the world. In its upstairs gallery, the Old Slave Mart Museum features a portion of Lest We Forget: The Triumph Over Slavery and includes eighteen of the original thirty-one full-color panels that reflect the experience through topics including slave labor and systems in the Americas, the struggle against slavery and its abolition, and the triumph over bondage. Closed on Sundays.
THEATRE CHARLESTON
Contact: Emily Wilhoit at 843.813.8578
The Footlight Players’ Crowns by Regina Taylor
A moving and celebratory musical play in which hats become a springboard for an exploration of black history and identity. Hats are everywhere, in exquisite variety, and the characters use the hats to tell tales to a young Northerner come South to stay with her aunt. There is a hat for every occasion, from flirting to churchgoing to funerals to baptisms, and the tradition of hats is traced back to African rituals and slavery and forward to the New Testament and current fashion. Gospel music and dance underscore the narratives that concern everything from the etiquette of hats to their historical and contemporary social functioning. Jan 25, 26, 31 and Feb 1, 2, 7, 8, 9 at 8pm, and Jan 27 and Feb 10 at 3pm at the Footlight Players Theatre.
WANNAMAKER COUNTY PARK
Contact: for more information: 843-797-4FUN or register at www.ccprc.com
African American Heritage Days
On February 28th and 29th at Wannamaker County Park, the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission will be hosting “African American Heritage Days” for Elementary and Middle schools. Principals and teachers are invited to bring their classes to the park for a celebration of African American heritage from its roots in Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas – especially South Carolina. Students may immerse themselves in a celebration of African American culture and history through a variety of activities including demonstrations, re-enactments, performances, hands-on experiences and more!
