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From frond to rose, Devyn visits Charleston’s City Market to learn how to fold a Palmetto Rose.
Briggs v. Elliott
African American History
Learn about the achievements of African Americans who have shaped South Carolina and American history.
Black History Month is celebrated every February to honor the achievements of African Americans who have shaped American history. Historian Carter G. Woodson hoped to raise awareness of African American's contributions to civilization by establishing Negro History Week. The event was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that included both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass' birthdays. The week was later expanded to a month in 1976 during the United States bicentennial.
PHOTO: On March 20, 1969, Black hospital workers at the Medical College of South Carolina in Charleston went on strike to protest the firing of twelve employees and to call for higher wages and union recognition.
Within this Collection
Friendship Nine
The Friendship Nine consisted of a group of nine African American young men who were sent to jail after staging a sit-in at a segregated McCrory's lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1961.
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This Avery Research Center photo gallery features the following images: The Avery Center Avery Normal Institute Reverend Charles Avery Avery students in library African sculptures Book collections...
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The Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture is located on the site of the former Avery Normal Institute. It was a hub for Charleston’s African American community from 1865–1954...
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The Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture is located on the site of the former Avery Normal Institute. It was a hub for Charleston’s African American community from 1865–1954...
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In 1866 a new Republican Congress defied President Andrew Johnson and began the period known as Radical Reconstruction. Southern states created new constitutions that gave the right to vote to all men...
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The flowers used in this vignette were purchased for the scene and aren’t necessarily native to Alabama. Native wildflowers are sometimes considered weeds, but they play an important role in natural...
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A fugitive slave and an abolitionist, Frederick Douglass sailed to Britain in 1845 and stayed for 19 months. He was a powerful orator, and his antislavery speeches attracted huge crowds...
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These little chalkboards would be used by the students in this class to practice reading, writing and arithmetic. They are a type of tablet, a solid, flat surface that can be written on...
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The Freedmen’s Bureau supported African American education. Although the bureau didn’t operate schools or hire teachers, its agents helped build schools and supply them with books, and they sometimes...
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The American Missionary Society and other private benevolent societies from the North helped to establish more than five hundred schools and colleges for formerly enslaved people in the South...
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Freedpeople often had difficulty finding appropriate school buildings, and Black students regularly attended school in churches. Ministers were often happy to host schools in their churches, and...
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The school's new teacher has recently finished her training and this is her first teaching assignment. Black men and women were eager to teach in schools for freedpeople, and African American...
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This community member, the leader of a local mutual aid society , has been instrumental in raising funds to hire a new teacher. Black communities often pooled their money to build schools and pay...
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A popular book for teaching spelling and reading was Noah Webster’s Elementary Spelling Book, known as “the blue-back speller” because of its binding. Many enslaved people, including Frederick...
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Although this school has only a few students, many schools for freedpeople were overcrowded. Like most newly emancipated people, these children believe that education is the key to maintaining freedom...
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On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, making him a symbol of Black freedom for years to come. As the war dragged on he began to recruit Blacks, free and enslaved, to the...
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After the U.S. Army occupied Memphis on June 6, 1862, thousands of enslaved people escaped nearby plantations and took refuge in the city. They were often penniless, bringing with them only the...
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This soldier is a member of the 16th U.S. Infantry Regiment stationed at Fort Pickering, who has been sent to take freedpeople to safety. Union forces captured Memphis on June 6, 1862 and took over...
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The daughter of this family exemplifies a young freedwoman who has learned to read and write, and assists in one of the twelve missionary schools for freedpeople in Memphis. Most of the twenty-two...
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In 1866 the Irish population of Memphis numbered in the thousands. Many Irish immigrants had arrived in the U.S. in the 1840s and ‘50s, escaping famine in their native land. In the months before the...
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This woman represents a member of the family who is living with her kinfolk. Memphis was crowded and expensive, and extended Black families frequently shared living spaces. Black families in Memphis...
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For three days - from May 1st to May 3rd, 1866 - a white mob violently assaulted Memphis’s Black community, burning Black schools and churches and attacking the homes of African Americans. Forty-six...
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In 1868 Ulysses S. Grant was elected president with the slogan, “Let us have peace.” But across the South, white resistance to Black citizenship during Reconstruction often turned violent, leading to...
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At a congressional investigation Black women came forward and testified before the committee, making a courageous, detailed statement against sexual violence. Nevertheless, no one was convicted and no...
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