Travel: Beyond Charleston’s charm

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Travel: Beyond Charleston’s charm
April 10, 2011
By Robyn Norwood
Sign On San Diego

HARLESTON, S.C. — The first night Joseph McGill spent in a slave cabin, he sat up with a start in the darkness.

“I woke up about 3 a.m. to the sounds of dogs barking,” said McGill, a program officer with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Charleston, S.C. “I thought back to that time period, that it could have been slaves escaping, being chased by dogs.”

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War when Confederates fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, McGill and others are drawing attention to parts of American history that at times have gone unmentioned.

Travelers cannot easily duplicate McGill’s Slave Dwelling Project, a venture in which he has spent a dozen nights in former slave quarters by special arrangement with plantations and homes that are open to the public, as well as at other properties in private hands.

But the South Carolina native recommends other Charleston area sights and tours that reach beyond the lovely old port city’s genteel mansions, horse-drawn carriages and boat tours to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

At the Old Slave Mart Museum in town, visitors stand in a building where enslaved people were bought and sold before the domestic slave trade ended in 1863. A 20-year-old woman named Lucinda is remembered as the first person sold at the site.

On uninhabited Morris Island, reachable only by tour or private boat, visitors can imagine they hear the sounds of battle of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the African-American regiment of the Union Army depicted in the 1989 movie “Glory,” with Denzel Washington.

At former plantations such as Magnolia Plantation, Boone Hall Plantation and Middleton Place, there is increased focus on former slave quarters and interpretive exhibits. A sign near brick cabins at Boone Hall Plantation says simply, “Slave Street.”

“Some African-Americans and some whites, too, would rather not go there and experience that, but I don’t come from that line of thought,” McGill said.

“I think if people go to any plantation, look beyond the big house. Of course, the big house has a story, too. But if questions aren’t answered in the canned presentation and they’re still curious to know about the outbuildings, they should ask.”

It is all a complex mix in South Carolina, where flowers are still placed on monuments to remember the Confederate dead.

In 1962, a year after the 100th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, South Carolina began flying the Confederate flag on the statehouse dome in Columbia in the midst of the civil rights movement. The flag was removed in 2000. But in a compromise to the long-running and divisive controversy, a version of it still flies beside a Confederate monument in front of the capitol.

“There is conflict,” said McGill, who is in the process of learning more about his African-American roots.

“The camp I’m in is I want to commemorate it for all that it was. More importantly, I want to commemorate and tell the rest of the story, the part of the story that wasn’t told when we celebrated the centennial.

“Approximately 200,000 African-Americans served for the Union Army during the Civil War,” said McGill, who often plays the role of an African-American soldier in Civil War re-enactments. “That story wasn’t told 50 years ago. Now we can tell that story and tell it proudly.”

In downtown Charleston, Alphonso Brown, the great-grandson of slaves, operates Gullah Tours, escorting tourists on his 21-seat minibus.

He intersperses his tales with the sounds of the Gullah language, a rhythmic patois indigenous to the low country and sea islands that has been preserved over generations.

“My grandmother was born in 1886 and my granddaddy was born in 1888,” said Brown, 65. “Their parents were slaves as children who got their freedom.

“My three sons, they understand the language but no, they don’t know it. It’s not going to fade away, but it’s more novelty now.”

Brown tells visitors the stories of such men as Denmark Vesey, hanged in 1822 for plotting a slave insurrection that never took place. Passing the city’s lovely homes, Brown points out iron gates made by Philip Simmons, a local blacksmith whose work is in the Smithsonian Institution. Until Simmons’ death at 97 in 2009, Brown sometimes stopped by his home to introduce his customers to the artist.

One story Brown said fascinates tourists is the tale of Richard Dereef, a dark-skinned man said to be of Indian descent who owned slaves but, despite his wealth, was not accepted into society.

“He had money, and unlike other free blacks, he didn’t have to pay the free blacks tax,” Brown said. “A woman said to me, ‘They had to pay a tax to be free?’ And I say, ‘Lady, we all pay a tax to be free.’ ”

In a city known for shrimp and she-crab soup, it is easy to eat well in Charleston’s sophisticated dining scene. The upscale restaurant Husk is a semifinalist for the 2011 James Beard Foundation best new restaurant award with a menu that includes pork chops and catfish.

For the wallet-friendly, down-home fare widely recognized as soul food, McGill and Brown recommend Gullah Cuisine, located in a nondescript building in Mount Pleasant. Think shrimp and grits, okra gumbo and a one-pot dish known as Gullah rice — rice with shrimp, chicken and sausage.

For a stylish, lighter take on soul food — minus the ham hocks commonly used to flavor vegetables in the South — Brown recommends Alluette’s Café, where owner Alluette Jones-Smalls presents “holistic soul.” Think of it as 21st-century soul prepared in Le Creuset cookware, with no pork and no sugar. Lightly fried local shrimp and organic lima bean soup are among the specialties, and vegan dishes are available.

History buffs — particularly genealogy researchers mindful that 40 percent of Africans who were forcibly shipped to mainland North America between 1700 and 1800 arrived through Charleston — might want to visit the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture. Another valuable genealogy resource is

lowcountryafricana.net, funded in part by Magnolia Plantation.

For a comprehensive list of events surrounding the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, go to

www.sccivilwar.org.

“They’re saying this is not a celebration. It’s a commemoration,” Brown said. “It’s about education, not trying to celebrate a war we lost or people who fought for slavery.

“We know some people are going to fly some Dixie flags. My take is, hey, make sure we have a voice. They’re going to have a voice, so why not get in there and have a voice so everybody can have one.