The Office of Institutional Diversity and other C of C faculty and students are working to produce a documentary exploring the lives of enslaved people who built Randolph Hall. Dr. Bernard Powers, CSSC director and Emeritus Professor of History, appears in this trailer for the film, which the filmmakers hope to complete in 2020.
On Feb. 27, 2019, CSSC took part in the Gullah Society’s “Rise Up” event at the Cannon Street Art Center, where numerous Charleston residents received the results of the analysis of their DNA conducted by the same research team that has been analyzing the remains of African and African-descended people in a burial ground discovered under the Gaillard Auditorium complex.
Community members were thrilled to receive their DNA test results suggesting who their ancestors were and what parts of the world they came from.
https://www.postandcourier.com/multimedia/local-african-americans-receive-dna-test-results-as-part-of/collection_a368138e-3afa-11e9-97ab-231d3bf15811.html
https://www.postandcourier.com/news/the-dead-have-been-woke-plans-shaping-up-to-reinter/article_9972ea00-3912-11e9-9cc8-f3cef799f75e.html
In February, CSSC Director and Emeritus Professor of History, Dr. Bernard Powers, delivered a lecture entitled “Denmark Vesey, South Carolina and Haiti: Borne, Bound, and Battered by the Common Wind.” This was the keynote address for the first evening of the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World’s academic conference, “The Vesey Conspiracy at 200: Black Antislavery in the Atlantic World.”
After the remains of 36 African and African-descended people were discovered near the Gaillard Auditorium during renovations in 2013, The Gullah Society worked with city officials to study the remains and decide how they should be honorably reinterred.
DNA and isotope analysis established that these individuals were all of African descent. This research, conducted with scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and C of C student Yemi Udowole, was supported by a National Geographic Society grant.
Students in Nathaniel Walker’s Architecture of Memory course imagined designs for a memorial honoring the individuals in this burial ground.
The Center for the Study of Slavery was honored to support and participate in events in which research was discussed with community members and the students’ proposed designs were displayed. One event, “Rise Up,” was held on campus in Randolph Hall on November 7, 2018.
Read the story in The College Today
Student Exhibit Explores Proposed Memorials to Honor Remains
More from The Post & Courier.
https://www.postandcourier.com/news/what-sort-of-monument-would-best-honor-african-americans-buried/article_c6a2ff54-f70b-11e8-a587-bf4780d4f3ac.html
The Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) program hosted a three-part film series exploring links between Gullah people and the country of Sierra Leone, Africa. Simon Lewis, CSSC Executive Board member and director of the CLAW program, organized the series and the discussions that followed, including one with author Edward Ball (Slaves in the Family) and Thomalinda Polite, whose film “Priscilla’s Legacy” documents her reconnecting with her ancestors in Sierra Leone. Priscilla is the name of a child Edward Ball encountered in his research for Slaves in the Family, and he managed to identify some of her living descendants, including Polite.
Dr. Grant Gilmore, chair of the Historic Preservation and Community Planning program, and Dr. Julia Eichelberger, director of the Southern Studies program, represented the College at the Fall 2018 meeting of the consortium Universities Studying Slavery, held at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. They participated in 2.5 days of discussion at Tougalou College with representatives from dozens of universities. They also toured the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Medgar Evers House.
In 2018 when the College announced the formation of the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, this op-ed was published reflecting on the need for all Charlestonians to understand our shared past, which is profoundly shaped by slavery. The author, Julia Eichelberger, an English professor at the College, directs the program in Southern Studies and serves on CSSC’s Executive Board.
https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/commentary-charleston-must-own-its-slavery-wrongs-if-it-hopes/article_38c27ffc-c02e-11e8-af57-3f508a89293e.html
AAST professor Dr. Anthony Greene explains the history of Juneteenth.
African American Studies Professor Explains History of Juneteenth
CSSC Board member and director of the program in Historic Preservation and Commuity Planning, Dr. Grant Gilmore, worked with the African American Historic Settlement Community Historic Association and Mt. Pleasant officials to begin work on the relocation and preservation of Long Point Schoolhouse.
Please read this commentary piece published in the Post & Courier: https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/charleston-s-landscape-of-memory-putting-history-in-perspective/article_d782da88-0ad4-11e9-9ae2-93cbc27f6418.html.
