Learn about some of the contributions and facets of African American culture.
For more information about the various tribes, visit the African American History collection.
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This grave of an African American is near St. Andrews in Richland County. The African custom of decorating a grave with items that their former owner might need in the spirit world was widespread in...
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West African religious traditions varied widely, ranging from Islam, to various tribal faiths, to some Christianity. The different tribal faiths had a number of common patterns. These included a...
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The music slaves brought with them from Africa came from a variety of different cultures, and it is impossible in the caption for a single image to recount the history of the blending of those...
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An unknown man, Charleston County, playing the fiddle, around 1900. By rights this photograph should be of a banjo, whose origins are indisputably African. As early as the late 17th century, records...
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A 1930 photograph of a group of African American laborers cultivating with hoes. Hoe culture was the predominant method of working the soil in traditional African agricultural societies, and the hoe...
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"Head-toting" of bundles is a distinctly African method of transporting bulky materials, whether it be firewood for the home, cotton from the fields, or produce carried to market. Courtesy of the...
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An Alice Huger Ravenel Smith watercolor of African-American workers loading rice on a ship to send to market. Note the use of "head-toting" as a way of moving the heavy rice sacks. Courtesy of the...
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Richard S. Roberts (1880-1936), a talented photographer, left an enduring film record of Columbia's African-American middle class community during the 1920s and 1930s. This self portrait was taken in...
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John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (1917- ), a native of Cheraw, began playing the trombone and the trumpet in 1929. He studied harmony and music theory at Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina before...
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During the exhibition,Twiggs traveled back to his native Saint Stephens. There, met by his brother George, he ventured inside the house where he grew up. The brother had the house built for their...