Bernard Powers, CSSC director, was on his way to do field research in the Caribbean when he was contacted by a BuzzFeed news reporter. “This is an article on the recent debate over weddings at plantation sites,” Dr. Powers notes. “Early this a.m., I was responding to the reporter on my phone on a small ferry plying the choppy waters between St. Kitts and Nevis.”
Here’s an excerpt from BuzzFeed News:
Dr. Bernard Powers, the director of the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, told BuzzFeed News that the inherent beauty of plantations must be contextualized.
“If these places looked the same and had a different history, no one would object and they would simply be recognized for their beauty. And they are beautiful today because in part due to the knowledge of slave gardeners who tended [to] them,” he said. “Recognize the people who did the work and contrast the beauty with the brutality. Both occurred and must be recognized and reconciled.”
This country, Walcott-Wilson added, was built by slaves. Finding a wedding venue anywhere that hasn’t been touched by slavery would be difficult.