Exhibit to Highlight African American Experiences in the Lowcountry after the Civil War
For Immediate Release, July 2008 http://www.charlestonmuseum.org
The Charleston Museum will present an original exhibition to commemorate the bicentennial of the abolition of the international slave trade in the United States and the British Empire. From Slave to Sharecropper: African Americans in the Lowcountry after the Civil War, on exhibit June 12, 2008 - February 28, 2009, will be centered around the recollections and memories of Lowcountry descendants of slaves and sharecroppers. The exhibit will include artifacts and images of African American experiences in the Lowcountry after the Civil War from the Museum's collection.
The Civil War brought an end to slavery, giving free African American men and women the opportunity for a new life. "However," explains exhibit curator Carl Borick, "discrimination in the post Reconstruction era and the economic decline that hit Charleston and most of the South after the war prevented many from climbing out of poverty." Numbers left the state to seek a better life, but the majority stayed, and continued to work the land as they did before the end of slavery. From Slave to Sharecropper will trace the range of experiences of Lowcountry African Americans, from rural to urban and from struggle to triumph.
Exhibit Highlights
Drawing from the Museum's vast photography archives, From Slave to Sharecropper will introduce museum-goers to the people and living conditions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The powerful images demonstrate the austere circumstances under which African Americans lived during this period, but also reveal the strength of character of the subjects that allowed them to overcome these tough times. Artifact highlights, meanwhile, include period farm equipment such as plows, scythes and burlap "croaker" sacks used to gather cotton, a large Spartina grass basket used as a bassinet, a "red shirt" worn by a supporter of Governor Wade Hampton, who helped hasten the end of Reconstruction in South Carolina, and a fire helmet worn by a member of an African American fire company.
