Plans discussed for SC black history museum

Plans discussed for SC black history museum
August 26, 2009
By BRUCE SMITH
The State

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Nearly a decade after the project was proposed, Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., architects and designers are discussing how a building to house a planned International African American Museum might look.

The $69 million museum, first proposed in 2000, is planned for a site near the South Carolina Aquarium on the edge of the historic district in this city where the Civil War began.

The setting is fitting, as historians estimate nearly 40 percent of the slaves brought to North America during the slave trade passed through Charleston and nearby Sullivans Island.

Noted exhibit designer Ralph Appelbaum and architect Antoine Predock meet with Riley late Wednesday to discuss ideas for the planned 60,000-square-foot museum.

Organizers project the museum could attract nearly 88,000 visitors a year and produce $700,000 in revenue.

The museum will deal with the black experience from slavery, through the Civil War and to the struggle for equal rights during the 1960s.

Preliminary plans for the museum include three core galleries as well as changing exhibits, a roof garden, a theater and a memory wall where visitors can see videos recorded by others telling of the black experience.

Work on collecting those stories began years ago.

Back in 2003, storyteller, writer and National Public Radio contributor Lorraine Johnson-Coleman was in Charleston. Residents came by a storefront where they could write down stories, bring in old photos and recipes, and record stories from their lives.