Washington Post: At ‘ground zero’ for slavery, a new museum helps rewrite history

In 1999, Joseph P. Riley Jr., the mayor of Charleston, S.C., proposed a groundbreaking idea of establishing a museum about slavery in the city. Despite being a popular tourist destination for those seeking traces of the Old South, Charleston’s historical significance as a port where nearly half of enslaved Africans were first sold and as the starting point of the Civil War had been overlooked. For about two centuries, slavery had played a central role in Charleston’s economy, politics, and culture, but its legacy had been trivialized or neglected. Riley’s suggestion aimed to shed light on this crucial aspect of the city’s history that had been ignored for too long.

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