Charleston

Despite Everything, People Still Have Weddings at ‘Plantation’ Sites

Despite claims by many estates that weddings and events pay for educational programming that addresses the history of slave labor on the property, many still debate the ethics of using plantation properties for celebrations. 

The Erasure of the History of Slavery at Sullivan’s Island

by Roy E. Finkenbine

Some 40% of the nearly 400,000 Africans imported into British North America and the young United States passed through this place.  It has been termed the “Ellis Island” of African Americans.

‘It’s art activism’: Charleston artists gather at Calhoun monument, urge its removal

The Make It Right Campaign helped bring down the Silent Sam Confederate statute in Chapel Hill, N.C., in August, and campaign supporters are eyeing nine more — including Charleston’s Calhoun monument.

Charleston Apologizes for City’s Role in Slave Trade

Charleston, the South Carolina port city where about 40 percent of enslaved Africans who were brought to North America landed after being taken from their homelands, has become the latest city to apologize for its role in the slave trade.

Condo built on Charleston's last slave trading wharf markets history — without mentioning slavery

Miller Harper, managing partner of East West Partners, said his firm wrestled with how to present the site before deciding to leave the historical interpretation to the experts.

Charleston Needs That African American Museum. And Now.

For millions of African-Americans today, the site is “ground zero,” as the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has put it, for “blackness, black culture, the African experience, the African-American experience, slavery — however you want to slice it.”

Charleston's International African American Museum's big plans

Since the idea for the International African American Museum was publicly announced almost two decades ago, the project has swung on a pendulum of uncertainty. Until now.

Charleston and the Amok Syndrome

by Thomas Fleming

While there is a connection to the so-called Lost Cause on the surface of Dylann Roof’s disturbed mind, it is not an explanation for the tragedy. The reason for the bloodshed is psychiatric, not racial or political.

Bring down the Confederate flag, not memory of Civil War fallen

by Jonathan Zimmerman

In the wake of the Charleston murders, the campaign against the Confederate flag has morphed into attacks on other historical vestiges of the Confederacy itself. And anyone who cares about history should be alarmed by that.

The Myth Behind What Happened in Charleston

by David Lee McMullen

It’s the the Myth of the Lost Cause and it’s still potent propaganda for those who refuse to accept change.

South Carolina’s warped public display of its white-supremacist history confronts South Carolinians, white and black, with a stark message about who rules the state.

by Eric Foner

The burgeoning movement to take down the Confederate flag in South Carolina and other states is an important first step. Even after it is gone, however, the public display of history in South Carolina will remain biased and one-dimensional.

What We’ve Overlooked in the Debate About Charleston: The Connection between Guns and Racism

by Robert McWhirter

Historically, the South was where guns were most regulated.

Eric Foner says the face of racism now isn’t a slaveowner (interview)

In an interview with Salon he puts Charleston in perspective.

Chad Williams Crowdsources a Syllabus on the Charleston Shootings

What prompted him? Public conversations about the shooting were generally devoid of the kind of historical knowledge that frames contemporary racial violence and its deep roots. Twitter's helping.

The Charleston shooting shows the growing globalization of white nationalism

by Morris Dees and J. Richard Cohen

Americans tend to view attacks like the mass murder in Charleston as isolated hate crimes, but many are connected to a broader movement, says the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Faith in Charleston

by Steve Estes

The complex history of religion in Charleston serves as both a cautionary tale and a reason for hope.