Historical and Cultural Landmarks

"Bench by the Road" at Sullivan's Island / Fort Moultrie

Beyond military defense, Fort Moultrie tells the story of Sullivan's Island’s role as an entry point and quarantine station for West Africans who were brought to the Carolina colony during the Middle Passage. Historians estimate that slave ships brought 200,000 to 360,000 West Africans into the Charleston harbor until the international slave trade was abolished in 1808. Author Toni Morrison led an effort to place a “Bench by the Road” to memorialize this history when no monuments or museums marked it.

Address: 1214 Middle St. Sullivan's Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Alonzo J. Ransier House

In 1869, this became the home of Alonzo J. Ransier who served in the SC legislature 1868-1870, as SC lieutenant governor, 1872, and in Congress, 1873-1875. Born a free African American in Charleston in 1834, he criticized political corruption while he was a legislator. Ransier was also the associate editor of the South Carolina Leader and secretary of the black-owned Enterprise Railroad. His fortunes declined in the late 1870s, and tragically, Ransier was living in a boardinghouse and working as a day laborer a decade later. Today, this is a private residence.

Address: 33 Pitt St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Alston Graded School

Alston Graded School, one of the first schools for black children in Dorchester County, stood here from 1910 to 1953. Named for its founder, Dr. J. H. Alston, it included grades 1-11 until 1949, when grade 12 was added. In 1953 the two-story wood frame building was moved to Bryan Street and a new brick building was added. When all the county’s schools were desegregated in 1970, Alston High School was merged with Summerville High School, and the old Alston campus was replaced with a new middle school, also on Bryan Street, that still bears the historic name.

Address: Summerville, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture (formerly Avery Institute)

Founded by Francis L. Cardozo in 1865 as the Saxton School, the Avery Normal Institute was a private teacher-training school for African Americans.  Three years later, the American Missionary Association purchased a lot on Bull Street and built this three-story brick building.  By 1880, Avery Institute boasted nearly 500 students, many of whom became prominent African American educators, professionals, politicians, and civil rights activists.  After stints as a private high school and the former site of Palmer College, the building is now home to the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, a museum and archives supported by the College of Charleston, SC.

Address: 125 Bull St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Berkeley Training High School

Berkeley Training High School, first called Dixie Training School, stood here from 1920 until the 1980s. The first public school for blacks in Moncks Corner was founded in 1880. It held classes in local churches until its first school was built in 1900. The three-room school built here was one of almost 500 in S.C. funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. Rev. James Van Wright led a local effort to fund and build the school, with its slogan “A Dollar or A Day.” It became Berkeley Training High School in the 1930s before it closed in 1970.

Address: Moncks Corner, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Bethel AME Church, McClellanville

Bethel AME Church was one of numerous churches established by the AME denomination in Reconstruction-era South Carolina. It was the first church established for African Americans in McClellanville. Likely built by Samuel Drayton, a formerly enslaved carpenter, the church is both an excellent example of late-19th century Gothic Revival church architecture and a tangible expression of former slaves' newfound freedom.

Address: McClellanville, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Boone Hall Plantation

Nine slave houses still remain at Boone Hall and form one of the few remaining slave streets in the state. The houses date from 1790 to 1810, and two of them display exceptional brickwork and feature diamond shaped patterns unusual in South Carolina. The nine slave houses are survivors of approximately 27 slave houses at Boone Hall, and the nine survivors are believed to have been for house servants. Tours of the slave houses are available at Boone Hall Plantation and Gardens.

Address: 1235 Long Point Rd. Mount Pleasant, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Bowen’s Corner

Bowen’s Corner, an African American farming community from the mid-19th century through the late-20th century, was originally part of a rice plantation established along Goose Creek in 1680. By 1785, the property was acquired by John Bowen, a state representative. Bowen and later absentee owners through the antebellum and post-Civil War era often employed slaves and freedmen as overseers or managers, giving them an opportunity to work toward self-sufficiency. “Bowen’s Old Place” was subdivided into small farms after the war. By 1936 the Bowen’s Corner community was centered on Bethel AME Church and Bowen’s Corner School.

Address: Hanahan, SC, USA

Historical & Cultural Landmarks

Cainhoy Historic District

The Cainhoy Historic District, while listed for its collection of buildings that date from the 18th to the 20th centuries, also derives significance from its association with black history and Reconstruction politics. During the heated gubernatorial election of 1876, which eventually led to the end of Reconstruction, a political meeting between blacks and whites dissolved into violence resulting in the Cainhoy massacre. Seven men were killed and 16 wounded in the conflict. This incident was unusual among Reconstruction-era racial confrontations in South Carolina because the black group won.

Address: Cainhoy, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Calvary Episcopal Church

This church, located on Beaufain Street, was organized in 1847 to give free blacks and slaves in antebellum Charleston an Episcopal congregation of their own. The church acquired a lot at the corner of Beaufain and Wilson Streets where the stuccoed brick church was completed and consecrated in 1849. In 1940, the Charleston Housing Authority bought the historic church and lot to build the Robert Mills Manor housing project. The congregation bought the lot from the city and dedicated this sanctuary in 1942. Three African American cemeteries have been on this site: one “Colored,” one Baptist, and one Calvary Episcopal.

Address: 106 Line St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Camp of Wild's "African Brigade," 1863-1864

Folly Island was occupied by Union troops April 1863-February 1865. Gen. Edward A. Wild’s “African Brigade,” consisting of the 55th Massachusetts, made up largely of free blacks, and the 1st North Carolina, made up of former slaves, camped nearby from November 1863 to February 1864. A cemetery was laid out nearby for soldiers in Wild’s Brigade who died here in 1863-64. Most graves were removed after the war. In 1987 relic hunters discovered additional graves of U.S. Colored Troops. In 1987-88 archaeologists removed 19 burials, these soldiers were reburied with full military honors at Beaufort National Cemetery in May 1989.

Address: 55 Center St. Folly Beach, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Cannon Street Hospital

The Cannon Street Hospital, a three-story brick building, once stood on this site. Established in 1897, its primary mission was to serve the African American community of Jim Crow era Charleston. Its official name was the Hospital and Training School for Nurses. Dr. Alonzo C. McClennan was one of its founders. It closed its doors in 1959 when a new hospital, McClennan-Banks Memorial Hospital, was constructed on nearby Courtenay Street. In 1961, the Cannon Street Hospital was torn down.

Address: 135 Cannon St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Centenary United Methodist Church

Built in 1842, it was originally the Second Baptist Church. In 1866, African American members of Trinity Methodist Church bought it for $20,000 in gold from the Baptists and gave it its present name. In its congregation were many members of Charleston’s African American upper class including the Westons, Wilsons, Johnsons, Millses, Browns, Sasportases, Hamptons, McKinlays, Ransiers, Holloways, Ryans, and Wigfalls. These were among the wealthiest black families in Charleston. Congregation member Septima Poinsett Clark, renowned educator and NAACP civil rights leader, conducted citizenship schools for Dr. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference here.

Address: 60 Wentworth St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Central Baptist Church

Designed and built in 1891 by John P. Hutchinson and paid for solely by African Americans. It was organized by a group from Morris Street Baptist Church. The wood frame church is an example of the Carpenter Gothic style of architecture, which features a square tower topped by an octagonal belfry. The interior is distinguished by folk art murals depicting the life of Christ and scenes from the New Testament including the Procession to Golgotha, the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene, and Peter. The altarpiece depicts the Baptism of Christ, while in the apse is the Ascension, and in the gable above is the Resurrection.

Address: Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Cherry Hill Classroom

Located in the historic Cherry Hill community is a one-room schoolhouse built c.1876. The building served as both a school for African American students and as a church for the Cherry Hill community. The one-room school from first grade through sixth grade became a public school within the Berkeley County school district in the early 20th century. The school closed after the 1954-55 school year, when rural schools in Berkeley County were consolidated. It was rededicated as Cherry Hill Community Center in 2011. Cherry Hill Classroom is a rare example of one-room schools in Berkeley County

Address: Moncks Corner, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Cigar Factory : Birthplace of "We Shall Overcome"

Built c.1882, this five-story structure was the commercial site of the Charleston Manufacturing Company and later the Charleston Cotton Mills. In 1903, the American Tobacco Company leased it and purchased it outright in 1912. Known as “the Cigar Factory,” it produced cigars until 1973. Employing some 1400 workers in 1945, 900 of whom were African American women, the Cigar Factory workers struck for higher wages and an end to discrimination. Strikers sang the gospel hymn “I’ll Overcome Someday.” Later this song was revised as “We Shall Overcome,” and became one of the most popular Freedom Songs of the Civil Rights Movement.

Address: 701 E. Bay St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Constitutional Convention of 1868

In January 1868, delegates met to rewrite the South Carolina Constitution. They convened at the Charleston Club House, which once stood nearby.  Before the Civil War, the Club House was reserved for Charleston’s planter elite, but a majority of the delegates in 1868 were African American, some of them former slaves. The election of delegates to the convention was the first time that African American men voted in South Carolina.

Address: 69 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Cook's Old Field Cemetery, Copahee Plantation and Hamlin Beach

Pre-dating the American Revolution, this plantation cemetery was the burial site for members of the Hamlin, Hibben and Leland families. Generations of both white and black families are interred here. Thomas Hamlin established Copahee Plantation here in 1696. In 1881 African American farmers bought 31 10-acre lots from the Hamlins and founded the Hamlin Beach community. White and black descendants still live here today.

Address: Mt. Pleasant vicinity, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Cooper River Historic District, include Cypress Gardens

The Cooper River Historic District includes approximately 30,020 acres along the East and West branch of the river. The district includes many historical buildings and intact cultural landscapes from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Slaves cleared the forests, managed crops, and performed countless domestic services. Archaeological evidence of slave houses, streets and settlements provides an insight into the lifeways of enslaved African Americans. Open for tours is the Cypress Gardens, originally a part of the 1750 Dean Hall rice plantation that relied on the Cooper River. This site provides evidence of slave labor contributions to the rice plantation economy.

Address: Moncks Corner vicinity, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Denmark Vesey House

The orphanage was established in Charleston in 1891 by the Rev. Daniel Jenkins, an African American Baptist minister, who founded it for black children with city assistance. More than 500 lived there by 1896. Its band played concerts across the US and Europe to help fund the orphanage, it was prominent in early jazz history. Alumni played for Duke Ellington, Count Basie and others. Jenkins Orphanage moved here in 1937 but its historic buildings burned in the 1980s. Presently, the organization is actively in business as the Daniel Joseph Jenkins Institute for Children. The state marker is located at the entrance.

Address: 56 Bull St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Dixie Training School

The first public African American school in Moncks Corner was founded in1880. The three-room school was built 1918-1920 with funds raised locally by the community and from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. The school first included grades 1-11, and became Berkeley Training High School in the 1930s. The school stood here from 1920 until the 1980s.

Address: Moncks Corner, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Drayton Hall

Historic Drayton Hall near Charleston is renowned for its architectural sophistication and high standards of preservation, and is quickly gaining attention for its interpretation of African American life and contributions from 1738 to the Civil Rights era. The plantation offers guided tours that focus on rice production, plantation life, the African American cemetery (the oldest documented cemetery still in use) and African American contributions to the development of Charleston.

Address: 3380 Ashley River Rd. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Edisto Island Baptist Church

The original core of Edisto Island Baptist Church was built in 1818 to serve the island’s white planters. Enslaved African Americans attended the church with their owners, and the original slave gallery still lines both sides of the sanctuary. After Edisto Island was occupied by Union troops during the Civil War, most of the white plantation families left the island. In 1865 the trustees of the church turned it over to the black members. Edisto Island Baptist Church has operated as an African American church since that time.

Address: Edisto Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Eliza's House at Middleton Place

Eliza’s House is a small frame building named for Eliza Leach (1891-1986), who worked at Middleton Place for more than 40 years and was the last person to live in the house, and is one of several structures on the grounds that interprets African American life. The original occupants of the house are not known, but in the 1880s it was apparently the home of Ned and Chloe, former slaves of Williams and Susan Middleton, who worked on Middleton Place. The plantation chapel, a room above a spring houses dairy, was used by slaves as a house of worship.

Middleton Place recently produced a documentary film of life on the plantation before and after the Civil War, called “Beyond the Fields – Slavery at Middleton Place.” While the film is available on BluRay disc at Middleton Place’s gift shop, you can view the trailer for the documentary here.

Address: 4300 Ashley River Rd. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Mother Emanuel AME Church

The congregation of Emanuel AME was organized c. 1865 with Rev. Richard H. Cain as its first pastor. The church was built on the legacy of an African Methodist Church, which had thrived in the early 19th century, but had been banned after the Denmark Vesey conspiracy. In addition to his work with the AME Church, Cain held several political offices including serving two terms in Congress (1873-1875 and 1877-1879). In 2015, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who also held office as a State Senator, and eight other worshippers were killed at the church when a gunman opened fire during Bible study.

Address: 110 Calhoun St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Faber House

Built in the late 1830s, Faber House is an Early Classical Revival mansion located in Charleston's historic Hampstead Village neighborhood.  Although some local structures incorporated aspects of Palladian style, the Faber House showcases the purity of this form with its strict symmetry, soaring portico, pediment roof, Classical detailing, and use of the Greek orders.  In addition, Faber House is one of the few extant antebellum suburban mansions on Charleston's East Side.  Renamed the Hemetic Hotel, it was one of the only Charleston hotels that served black travelers from 1920 to 1932.

Address: 635 East Bay Street, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Former Site of Howe Hall Plantation

Robert Howe established an inland rice plantation after moving to S.C. in 1683. Howe Plantation was later owned by several prominent lowcountry families. James Vidal owned the home prior to the Civil War. During Reconstruction Vidal sold parcels to African American societies and to individual freedman. This area became an African American community made up of small family farms in the 1870s.  Today, the site is now home to Howe Hall Elementary School.

Address: Goose Creek, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Gadsden’s Wharf

Gadsden’s Wharf is the last and most important disembarkation point for enslaved Africans in North America. Completed in 1772 by slave labor, the wharf was most active between 1783 and 1808 when an estimated 100,000 African men, women, and children arrived and were sold into slavery. The 840-foot wharf, at the time the largest in North America, could accommodate up to six ships at once. It stretched between today’s Calhoun and Laurens Streets and from the harbor to East Bay Street. Visitors to the wharf today will see the South Carolina Aquarium, Gadsden’s Borough Park, the Charleston Maritime Center, and the National Park Service’s visitors’ center from which ferries carry passengers to historic Fort Sumter. There are a series of waysides that interpret the historical significance of Gadsden’s Wharf, the work of the noted blacksmith Philip Simmons, and contributions of the civil rights activist Septima Clark. Gadsden’s Wharf is the future home of the International African American Museum, currently in the planning stages. See more at this video

Address: 340 Concord St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Harmon Field: Home of the 1955 Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars

Harmon Field was created with support from the philanthropic Harmon Foundation, 1927. State law mandated that it be segregated, it was for African Americans only until 1964. In 1953, the Cannon St. YMCA established the first black Little League in SC, it played games here. The YMCA entered a team in the state Little League tournament, 1955. White teams boycotted rather than integrate, the Cannon St. All-Stars became state champions by forfeit. The team was invited to the Little League World Series, but not allowed to compete. The state marker is on the President St. side.

Address: 201 President Street, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Historic Charleston

The South Carolina African American Heritage Commission suggests the following trip itinerary through Charleston and surrounding islands and communities to enrich your vacation in South Carolina. Trips like this are outstanding, day-long excursions suitable for family reunions, fraternity / sorority get-togethers, meetings and other gatherings. Tour companies to consider – Gullah Tours, 843-763-7551 or [email protected]; Gullah Gullah Tours. For details about other day-trips, including best practices for trip planning, click here.

Address: 325 Country Club Road, James Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Historic Mosquito Beach

Located 1.5 miles SW from here, Mosquito Beach is a .13 mile strip of land that served African Americans during the Jim Crow era, when nearby Folly Beach was segregated.  The beach began as a gathering spot for workers at a nearby oyster factory in the 1920s and 1930s.  A store selling seafood and drinks first opened in the 1930s.  Other businesses followed in the 1940s and 1950s.

Mosquito Beach lies along a tidal marsh historically known for the large mosquito population that gave the beach its name.  By the 1960s, the beach provided African American leisure-seekers with music venues, pavilions, restaurants, and a hotel.  Mosquito Beach's businesses as well as the land were owned by African Americans.  Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.

Sponsored by Historic Charleston Foundation and Mosquito Beach Business Association, 2019.

Address: 2225 Mosquito Beach Road, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Howe Hall Plantation / Howe Hall

Robert Howe established an inland rice plantation after moving to S.C. in 1683. Howe Plantation was later owned by several prominent lowcountry families. James Vidal owned the home prior to the Civil War. During Reconstruction Vidal sold parcels to African American societies and to individual freedman. This area became an African American community made up of small family farms in the 1870s.

Address: Goose Creek, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Hutchinson House

Built by Henry Hutchinson around the time of his marriage to Rosa Swinton in 1885, the Hutchinson House is the oldest intact house identified with the African American community on Edisto Island after the Civil War. Hutchinson was born enslaved in 1860, and according to local tradition, he built and operated the first cotton gin owned by an African American on the island from about 1900-1920. Hutchinson lived here until his death in 1940.

Address: 7666 Point of Pines Rd. Edisto Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

James Simons Elementary School: The Desegregation of Charleston Public Schools

The school was built in 1919. In 1955 the Charleston Branch of the NAACP petitioned the school board to desegregate all public city schools. In 1960, nine parents, with support from the NAACP, applied for their children’s transfer to four white schools, including this one. Denied by the board and on appeal, they sued in federal court in 1962 and won their case in 1963. On September 3, 1963, 11 black students entered James Simons plus three other schools. The renovated school is currently in use, the state marker is located on the Moultrie St. side.

Address: 741 King St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Jenkins Orphanage

The orphanage was established in Charleston in 1891 by the Rev. Daniel Jenkins, an African American Baptist minister, who founded it for black children with city assistance. More than 500 lived there by 1896. Its band played concerts across the US and Europe to help fund the orphanage, it was prominent in early jazz history. Alumni played for Duke Ellington, Count Basie and others. Jenkins Orphanage moved here in 1937 but its historic buildings burned in the 1980s. Presently, the organization is actively in business as the Daniel Joseph Jenkins Institute for Children. The state marker is located at the entrance.

Address: 3923 Azalea Dr. North Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

John Schnierle Jr./Alonzo J. Ransier House

This house was constructed by John Schnierle, Jr. c.1849. In 1869, this became the home of Alonzo J. Ransier who served in the SC legislature 1868-1870, as SC lieutenant governor, 1872, and in Congress, 1873-1875. Born a free African American in Charleston in 1834, he criticized political corruption while he was a legislator. Ransier was also the associate editor of the South Carolina Leader and secretary of the black-owned Enterprise Railroad. His fortunes declined in the late 1870s, and tragically, by 1880 Ransier was living in a boardinghouse and working as a day laborer.This is a private residence.

Address: 33 Pitt St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Jonathan Jasper Wright Law Office

Jonathan Jasper Wright (1840-1885), was the first African American to sit as a justice on a state Supreme Court.  He practiced law here from 1877-1885.  Wright, from PA, came to SC in 1865 to teach, and he worked as a Freedmen’s Bureau attorney.  He was a delegate to the 1868 SC constitutional convention and was a state senator, 1868-1870. Elected to the SC Supreme Court in 1870, Wright resigned in 1877 due to political pressure.  Afterwards, he practiced law, helped Claflin College found its Law Department then became its Chair. The state marker sIts in front of a restaurant.

Address: 84 Queen St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Judge J. Waties Waring Statue

The Honorable Julius Waties Waring became a federal judge in 1942.  Waring, an eighth generation Charlestonian and son of a Confederate veteran, made a number of important rulings that confounded his contemporaries and advanced the civil rights aspirations of African Americans nationwide. During his tenure, Judge Waring issued decisions that ordered equal pay for African American school teachers in South Carolina, gave African Americans access to a state-funded law school, and permitted African Americans to vote in the state’s party primaries.  He also integrated his courtroom staff.

Waring's most important ruling was his dissenting opinion in Briggs v. Elliott (1951), one of five cases combined into the landmark public school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education (1954).  “Segregation in education can never produce equality.  It is an evil that must be eradicated,” Waring wrote.  He and his second wife, Elizabeth, were shunned by Charleston society.  Locals smashed the windows of their home with bricks and planted burning crosses on their front lawn.  Although his rulings in support of equality led to his estrangement from family and friends, Judge Waring has since been recognized as an important figure in the civil rights struggl

Address: 83 Broad Street, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Kress Building: The Sit-In Movement in Charleston, SC

On April 1, 1960, the lunch counter at this former S.H Kress five-and-dime store was the site of the city’s first civil rights sit-in.  Black students from Burke High were denied service but wouldn’t leave.  They were arrested, convicted and fined. Former Woolworth’s and Grant’s stores, also on King St., were other sit-in sites.  This youth-led protest started a broader civil rights movement in Charleston.  Built in 1930-31, the 3-story Art Deco-style Kress closed in 1992.  An H&M dept. store is housed there now, and the state marker is located in the front of the store.

Address: Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Laing School

Founded in 1866 by a Quaker who was a Union Army nurse during the Civil War, she housed the school initially in Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church. The 1868 school was destroyed by the 1886 earthquake and was replaced by a building which eventually became Laing Industrial School. Instruction combined academics with vocational training. The high school remained here until a new school opened on US Hwy. 17 North in 1953 for grades 7-12. That school closed in 1970 due to desegregation. Laing Middle School was housed there from 1974-2009. The state marker sits in front of a community center.

Address: Mount Pleasant, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Liberty Hill

Established in 1871, this is the oldest community in what is now the city of North Charleston. In 1864, Paul and Harriet Trescot, free persons of color living in Charleston, owned 112 acres here. They sold land to Ishmael Grant, Aaron Middleton, and Plenty and William Lecque for a Freedmen settlement. These African American men donated an acre to St. Peter’s African Methodist Episcopal Church. St. Peter’s, founded in 1861, is at 4650 Sanders Ave. and is an active member of the Liberty Hill church community. The state marker is at Felix Pinckney Community Center, 4790 Hassell Street.

Address: North Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Magnolia Plantation

The plantation was established in 1676 by Draytons who migrated from Barbados. The family and its descendants prospered from the success of agricultural products cultivated by the family’s enslaved population. Since the Civil War, the extensive gardens have drawn patrons regularly to enjoy their breathtaking beauty. Five restored former slave cabins, occupied from the 1850s -1990s, are the focus of a program that highlights African American life on the property. Magnolia offers various areas of the plantation for touring, is open daily and charges admission.

Address: 3550 Ashley River Rd. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Maryville

The town of Maryville, chartered in 1886, included the site of the original English settlement in S.C. and the plantation owned by the Lords Proprietors 1670-99. When the old plantation was subdivided into lots and sold to local blacks in the 1880s, they established a town named for educator and community leader Mary Mathews Just (d. 1902). Though Maryville was widely seen as a model of black “self-government,” the S.C. General Assembly revoked the town charter in 1936.

Address: Maryville, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

McLeod Plantation Historic Site

McLeod Plantation Historic Site features a plantation house and a fully intact row of extant slave dwellings. In 1860, 74 slaves lived in 26 cabins on this Sea Island cotton plantation. Five of those wood frame slave cabins remain today. During the Civil War the plantation served as unit headquarters for Confederate forces. When they evacuated Charleston in February 1865, the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiments and other Union regiments camped onsite. The McLeod Plantation House served as headquarters for the Freedmen’s Bureau for the James Island district during Reconstruction. The Sankofa Burial Site of our African Ancestors features nearly 100 graves of former inhabitants. McLeod Plantation offers guided tours about African American life from slavery to freedom.

Address: 325 Country Club Rd. James Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church

This church was erected about 1854 and was originally a Congregational Church affiliated with Old Wappetaw Church, founded about 1699. It served as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War, then briefly housed the Laing School for Freedmen during Reconstruction. The church was accepted into the Charleston Presbytery as a mission church and renamed Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church in 1870.

Address: 302 Hibben St. Mount Pleasant, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Old Bethel United Methodist Church

African American members of this church, including Denmark Vesey, left in 1817 to form Charleston’s first African Methodist congregation. When that congregation was forced to disband after Vesey was arrested for plotting a slave rebellion, many members returned to Bethel. By 1852, the original building was used for African American class meetings only, then donated to the black congregation in 1876. In 1880, it was moved to its current location and renamed Old Bethel Methodist Church. Bishop Francis Asbury preached in the church several times in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Address: Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Old Marine Hospital

The orphanage was established in Charleston in 1891 by the Rev. Daniel Jenkins, an African American Baptist minister, who founded it for black children with city assistance. More than 500 lived there by 1896. Its band played concerts across the US and Europe to help fund the orphanage, it was prominent in early jazz history. Alumni played for Duke Ellington, Count Basie and others. Jenkins Orphanage moved here in 1937 but its historic buildings burned in the 1980s. Presently, the organization is actively in business as the Daniel Joseph Jenkins Institute for Children. The state marker is located at the entrance.

Address: Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Old Slave Mart

The Old Slave Mart is the only known extant building used as a slave auction gallery in South Carolina.  Once part of a complex, the Slave Mart building is the only structure to remain.  When first constructed in 1859, the open ended building was referred to as a shed, and used the walls of the German Fire Hall to its west to support the roof timbers.  Slave auctions were held inside.  The interior was one large room with a 20-foot ceiling, while the front facade was more impressive with its high arch, octagonal pillars and a large iron gate.

Address: 6 Chalmers St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Philip Simmons House and Workshop

Born on a barrier island in 1912, Philip Simmons became an apprentice blacksmith at the age of 13.  Simmons created many of Charleston's finest 20th century wrought iron gates, fences, balconies, window grilles, and other decorative pieces.  Local businessman Jack Krawcheck commissioned Simmons' first gate and placed it behind his clothing store on King Street. His work is also on display in the Charleston Museum, the South Carolina Museum and the Smithsonian.  Many of his gates incorporate elaborate designs such as hearts, trees, and a variety of animals.  Simmons' workshop lacked electricity and many of the tools he used were handcrafted at least a century earlier.  The National Endowment for the Arts awarded him its highest award, a National Heritage Fellowship, in recognition of his life's work in 1982.  His home and workshop, at this location, have been converted into a museum that is open for public tours.

Address: 30 1/2 Blake Street, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Seashore Farmers' Lodge No. 767

The Seashore Farmers’ Lodge No. 767 (circa 1915) is significant as an illustration of the importance of fraternal orders in the cultural life of the Lowcountry African American community in the early 20thcentury. The Lodge provided, as its creed mandated, support for its members and a celebration of life with music and recreation. Lodge members were small farmers, bound together by familial and community ties.

Address: James Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Seaside School

This Seaside School, which was built c. 1931 as its second building, is reported to be the oldest African American school remaining on Edisto Island. From 1931 until the construction of a consolidated school in 1954, black residents of Edisto Island received their primary education in this building, a one-story, two-room rectangular frame. In 1930, the Edisto Island school district had planned to merge Seaside with Central African American school, but the community, affected by the Great Depression, could not raise enough money for the lot and school supplies. This smaller structure was built instead.

Address: Edisto Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Septima Clark Birthplace

Septima Poinsette Clark, who Martin Luther King Jr. called "the Mother of the Movement," was a nationally influential Civil Rights activist. She was born at 105 Wentworth St. on May 3, 1898 to Peter Poinsette, a former slave, and Victoria Anderson, who was of Haitian descent. Clark earned her teacher's certificate from Charleston's Avery Normal Institute and her master's from Hampton Institute. She taught for nearly 40 years.

In 1953, Clark visited the Highlander Folk School in TN, which was dedicated to training community organizers and pursuing equality for all. Here she developed the "citizenship school" model, which promoted literacy and political education. By 1965 Clark had helped to organize nearly 900 citizenship schools, including the first one on nearby Johns Island, and had helped to register more than 50,000 Black voters.

Sponsored by College of Charleston Teaching Fellows, 2018. 

Address: 105 Wentworth Street, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Shady Grove Campground

Established about 1870, this is the largest of four Methodist campgrounds in Dorchester County. Tradition holds that a group of Freedpeople stopped in a grove here for shelter from a storm. Rice planter S. M. Knight asked them to help harvest his fields and after they did so he gave them this spot as a place of worship. They named it Shady Grove. Typical of 19th-century evangelical campgrounds are the “tents,” rough-hewn cabins where worshippers live during several days of services, and a central “tabernacle.” The original tents burned in 1958 and were replaced. Services still take place in late October.

Address: St. George vicinity, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Simeon Pinckney Homestead

Born a slave in Manning, Simeon Pinckney enlisted in the 3rd S.C. Infantry (Colored) in 1863.  He also served in the 21st U.S. Colored Infantry.  After the war, Pinckney, his wife Isabella, and their three children settled on James Island.  In 1874 he purchased twenty acres of land for $350.  He built a house and farmed the land at this site.

Simeon Pinckney died in November 1921 and is buried near Fort Johnson.  Remarkably, he was not only able to purchase land during Reconstruction but the family was able to retain ownership of much of the property for nearly 150 years.  The Town of James Island purchased 7 acres of the Pinckney homestead for use as a public park in 2016.

Sponsored by the Town of James Island in 2017.

Address: 461 Fort Johnson Road, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Slave Auctions in Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston was one of the largest slave trading cities in the United States. In the 1800s, the area around the Old Exchange Building was one of the most common sites of downtown slave auctions. Along with real estate and other personal property, thousands of enslaved people were sold here as early as the 1770s.  Most auctions occurred just north of the Exchange, though some also took place inside. Merchants also sold slaves at nearby stores on Broad, Chalmers, State, and East Bay streets. Enslaved Africans were usually sold at wharves along the city harbor. Some Africans were sold near the Exchange, but most people sold here were born in the U.S., making this a key site in the domestic slave trade. In 1856, the city banned auctions of slaves and other goods from the Exchange. Indoor sales grew elsewhere, and Ryan’s Mart, a complex of buildings between Queen and Chalmers streets, became the main downtown auction site.

Address: 122 East Bay Street, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

St. Mark's Episcopal Church

This church was organized in 1865 by Charlestonians who had been members of the free black elite of the antebellum period. The congregation included some of Charleston’s most prominent African American families including the Walls, Maxwells, Mushingtons, Kinlochs, Elfes, Leslies, Dacostas, Greggs, Houstons, and Bosemans. Rev.Thaddeus Saltus, an African American assistant minister at St. Mark’s, was ordained to the priesthood in 1881. He was the first African American in South Carolina to be ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church. The present church building was designed by Charleston architect Louis J. Barbot and constructed in 1878.

Address: 16 Thomas St. Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

St. Paul Campground

Freedmen in this area held services in a brush arbor at the “Old Prayer Ground” nearby as early as 1869. In 1880 the trustees of St. Paul AME Church purchased 113 acres to establish a campground for annual revivals. They erected an open-sided “tabernacle” and simple cabins, called “tents,” where worshippers stayed during a week of services. The property also includes two stores, a storage building, and privies behind some of the tents. St. Paul Campground is still used for camp meetings for a week in October each year.

Address: 940 St. Paul Rd. Harleyville vicinity, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

St. Stephen Colored School / St. Stephen High School

The first public African American school in St. Stephen was built in 1924-25. A three-room frame building, it was one of almost 500 schools in S.C. funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. It opened with grades 1-7, but burned in 1935. A brick elementary and high school with grades 1-10 replaced it. Grades 11 and 12 were added in 1936-1937 and 1948-1949. A nine-room brick high school was constructed in 1944-45 and the school closed in1954. The buildings were torn down in 1965 and their bricks and lumber donated to Allen AME Church.

Address: St. Stephen, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Stono River Slave Rebellion Site

On September 9-10, 1739, an Angolan slave named Jemmy led a slave rebellion involving some 80 slaves enlisted from area plantations. After attacking a warehouse and seizing weapons, the slaves marched toward St. Augustine, Fla., burning homes and buildings and killing whites. The militia apprehended the group, and almost 40 slaves were killed in the resulting fighting. This slave rebellion played directly into the fears of the white population and led to the passage of the most comprehensive slave codes in the English colonies, which remained in place until the end of the Civil War.

Address: Rantowles vicinity, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Sullivan's Island Bench by the Road / Fort Moultrie

Beyond military defense, Fort Moultrie tells the story of Sullivan's Island’s role as an entry point and quarantine station for West Africans who were brought to the Carolina colony during the Middle Passage. Historians estimate that slave ships brought 200,000 to 360,000 West Africans into the Charleston harbor until the international slave trade was abolished in 1808. Author Toni Morrison led an effort to place a “Bench by the Road” to memorialize this history when no monuments or museums marked it.

Address: 1214 Middle St. Sullivan's Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

Sweetgrass Pavilion

The Sweetgrass Pavilion is an exceptional special event and meeting space that showcases one of the Lowcountry's largest collections of sweetgrass basket merchandise. Hands-on basket making classes are often held at the venue.

The coiled sweetgrass basket is an historically significant African art that was brought to America in the 17th century by enslaved Africans from the Windward and Rice Coasts of West Africa. These baskets were originally designed as a winnowing tool used in the production and processing of rice. Today, they are popular souvenirs found along the South Carolina coast.

Address: Rantowles vicinity, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

The Parsonage / Miss Izard's School

“The Parsonage,” the home of Rev. James B. Middleton, stood here at 5 Short Court (now President’s Place) until 1916. Middleton and his siblings, born slaves, were taught to read and write by their father. After the Civil War, Rev. Middleton, his father and brother organized and served as pastors of many Methodist churches in the Lowcountry. The home at 7 Short Court (now President’s Place as well) was built in 1872 and belonged to Rev. Middleton’s niece, Anna Eliza Izard. She was a graduate of the Avery Normal Institute and taught school here for many years.

Address: Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

The Progressive Club

The Progressive Club Sea Island Center is significant for its association with events and people important in the Civil Rights Movement, beginning with the building’s construction in 1963 until the death of the Club’s founder Esau Jenkins in 1972. It served as a vital community center for legal and financial assistance, adult education, dormitory lodging, childcare services, recreational programming and even groceries. The building is the only remaining structure of the era in South Carolina built to house a “Citizenship School” where adult education classes and workshops enabled African Americans to register to vote, vote, and learn political processes.

Address: Johns Island, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

The Seizure of the Planter

Early on May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls (1839-1915), an enslaved harbor pilot aboard the Planter, seized the 149 ft. Confederate transport from a wharf just east of here.  He and six enslaved crewmen took the vessel before dawn when its captain, pilot, and engineer were ashore.  Smalls guided the ship through the channel, past Fort Sumter, and out to sea, delivering it to the Federal fleet which was blockading the harbor.

Northern and southern newspapers called this feat "bold" and "daring."  Smalls and his crew, a crewman on another ship, and eight other enslaved persons including Smalls' wife, Hannah, and three children won their freedom.  Smalls was appointed captain of the U.S.S. Planter by a U.S. Army contract in 1863.  A native of Beaufort, he was later a state legislator and then a five-term U.S. Congressman.

Sponsored by the Historic Charleston Foundation and the African American Historical Alliance, 2012.

Address: 40 East Bay Street, Charleston, SC, USA

Historical and Cultural Landmarks

United States Courthouse and Post Office: Briggs v. Elliott Historical Marker

This Renaissance Revival building, opened in 1896, is notable for its association with U.S. District Judge J. Waties Waring (1880-1968).  Waring, a Charleston native who served here 1942 to 1952, issued some of the most important civil rights rulings of the era.  Briggs v. Elliott, the first suit to challenge public school segregation in the U.S., was heard here before three judges on May 28-29, 1951.

Thurgood Marshall and other NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyers represented Harry and Eliza Briggs and 19 other courageous parents from Clarendon County. In a bold and vigorous dissent opposing the prevailing doctrine of separate but equal, Waring declared that segregation “must go and must go now.  Segregation is per se inequality.” The U.S. Supreme Court followed his analysis as a central part of its unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

This historical marker was sponsored by the Charleston County Bar Association, 2014

Address: 83 Broad Street, Charleston, SC, USA