New history museum delves into contributions of African American diaspora

For more than 20 years, historians, politicians and advocates have worked to build a museum exploring the African American and African diaspora in Charleston, S.C.

On Saturday, the International African American Museum (IAAM) will open its doors, offering museum-goers nine galleries detailing the history, culture and impact of Black Americans.

The museum was first pitched by former Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. in 2000. 

In 2002, a steering committee was formed to explore the development of the museum, and in 2005, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) became the museum’s first chair of the Board of Directors. 

But the new museum will open at a time when African American history is being censored and politicized around the nation. Over the last three years, policymakers in 45 states have proposed 283 laws restricting what teachers can say about race, racism and American history, according to The Washington Post.

Some of these laws include language that would forbid lessons that could cause a student to feel “anguish, guilt, or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race.

But Clyburn said that the museum can show a history that is untaught — as well as parallels between things that happened in the 1800s and events happening today. 

“What we just experienced on January 6 was taken from a playbook written from what happened in 1876 when the so-called Redeemer Democrat brought in the Reconstruction and ushered in Jim Crow and those experiences,” Clyburn told The Hill. “That’s what this museum is all about, and I think that the extent to which this can help people, Black and white, understand that January 6 did not happen in the vacuum.” 

The Redeemer Democrats were a wing of the Democratic Party that arose after the Civil War. Espousing white supremacy rhetoric and ideals, Redeemers believed in reclaiming their states and using intimidation and force to keep newly freed Black Ameicans from participating in everyday society, including voting and elections.

One of the exhibits in the museum, the “Carolina Gold” and “Memories of the Enslaved” exhibits, will delve into the lived experiences of enslaved men and women to demonstrate the “importance of memory, violence, family, and culture.” But others will show the resistance and revolutions Black Americans led as they secured their freedom and rights, despite the intimidation and violence they experienced along the way.

One of the most important aspects of the museum, Clyburn said, is that the new museum will chronicle the Middle Passage and address the perseverance of those who came through it.

“It will talk about the enslavement, the spirit of being enslaved or the experience of being enslaved,” Clyburn explained. “We’ll talk about overcoming Jim Crow and highlight the significant contributions made by these people and their descendants to the greatness of this country.”

Despite delving into the Middle Passage and slavery in America, Clyburn was insistent during the development that the museum could not simply be a “slavery museum.”

“I resisted that push because to glorify in any way — or even be thought of as glorified — slavery is something that I was just not going to be a part of,” the lawmaker said. “This museum, that museum had to be about the African American experience here in the United States — all of its trials and tribulations as well as its triumphs and victory.” 

Everything from the location to the galleries to the names of the exhibits carry a special meaning. The museum has been built at the site of Gadsden’s Wharf, the largest of several ports along the Charleston Harbor that took in enslaved African Americans.

Many historians believe that at least half of all of the enslaved Africans came through the Charleston Harbor, Clyburn said, adding that some even believe that more than 70 percent of African Americans today can trace their lineage back to Charleston. 

“It’s also important that we named it as we did, the International African American Museum, because it is a museum made possible by the international slave trade and the fact that so much of what made South Carolina is built upon the skills that these enslaved Africans brought with them,” Clyburn said. 

The nine galleries of the museum will include multimedia exhibits meant to showcase hundreds of years of the African and African American diaspora.

The entry point gallery, titled the “Transatlantic Experience,” will take visitors on a video journey through hundreds of years of history of African cultural roots through the Middle Passage to local and international diaspora scenes and traditions. 

In the “Gullah Geechee” gallery, visitors will learn about the history of the community as well as contemporary issues facing Gullah-Geechee communities. This gallery is especially important to Clyburn, whose late wife was Gullah.

“One of the importance of this museum is to get that history right and even the culture right,” Clyburn said. The Gullah-Geechee culture is a combination of West African heritage that mixed with European culture, particularly German merchants.

Though some may try to separate the Gullah culture from the Geechee community, Clyburn, who helped create the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor, said he named this gallery the Gullah-Geechee Heritage Corridor to share the truth about the two communities. 

The Gullah-Geechee nation expands from Jacksonville, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla. The Gullah-Geechee people declared themselves as a nation on July 2, 2000. 

But Clyburn said his favorite gallery will be the “American Journeys Gallery,” which will show visitors key moments, figures and movements in African American history, including Robert Smalls. 

Smalls was born enslaved but went on to serve in the South Carolina state legislature for 10 years before heading to the United States House of Representatives. For Clyburn, Smalls is the “the most consequential South Carolinians to have ever lived.”

The museum will also highlight the story of Scipio Rhame — the great-great-grandfather to the late Rep. Elijah Cummings. Rhame was born a slave, but three years after his slavery ended, he registered to vote. 

“We broke ground on the same day that Elijah Cummings was funeralized,” Clyburn said.

As Cummings lay in state, Clyburn spoke of Rhame: how his children grew up on the same land he had been enslaved upon; how his great-great-grandchild would go from being placed in special education to law school to serving in the United States Congress. 

“That’s what this museum is all about,” he said.