Life
Construction on International African American Museum in South Carolina expected to commence in 2015
“One thing that all of us board members understand and profoundly is that in many ways, Charleston was the gateway to American history,” said Wilbur Johnson, the local attorney who is the chairman of the museum board. “The influx of African Americans through the shores of Charleston and Gadsden’s Wharf has had a profound effect on American culture.”
Riley said the museum won’t be a museum in the ordinary sense with simply a lot of historic artifacts. Instead it will focus on telling the story of black Americans with the use of interactive displays and changing exhibits.
Ralph Appelbaum, who designed the exhibits for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the new Visitor Reception Center at the United States Capitol, is designing the exhibits for the museum.
With the spot where slaves were brought ashore only a couple hundred feet from the site of the museum “we realized this was an emotional place and we had to find a way to capture it,” the mayor said.
“Eighty per cent of the African Americans living in the United States today can trace at least one ancestor back to this harbor, this water, this place,” Riley said.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
