Language of Land and Water When people move, they carry with them cultural knowledge, symbolic ties, and physical pieces of lands left behind. In designing the African Ancestors Memorial Garden, Walter Hood thoughtfully considered multifaceted ways to link Charleston to a network of global sites of memory connected by the history of slavery and its legacies. From its Palm Grove studded with Canary Island Palms, a reflection of the African Diaspora, to its Sweetgrass Field filled with waist-high grasses that serve as the foundation of Lowcountry basket weaving traditions, each feature of the African Ancestors Memorial Garden tells its own story.
Tide Tribute One of the most defining elements of the gardens is the Tide Tribute, an ephemeral presentation of the “Brookes” slave ship diagram, a now-famous depiction of the Transatlantic Slave Trade’s profoundly inhumane transport conditions. The Tide Tribute is grounded in relief figures, each representative of a man, woman, or child who laid shackled in the bellies of ships that were once anchored steps away in Charleston Harbor. As the tide changes, the shallow pool of water fills and empties, covering and revealing the shapes of those it honors. Bordered by the historic line of Gadsden’s Wharf, the tribute emphasizes the fluidity of the past, present, and future.