Watch: Dr. Tonya Matthews on Charleston’s new African American Museum
The new African American museum in Charleston is a beautiful work of art that everyone should want to experience.
The African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina is a breathtaking monument dedicated to preserving the rich and diverse history of African Americans. Dr. Tonya Matthews talks about the grandeur and determination it took to build the new museum. She and others who stepped in during the process inspire us to embrace the power of knowledge, empathy, and unity that is within our great history.
Matthews discusses the development of the historical museum below:
“The following is a transcript of that conversation.”
Matthews: [00:00:00] I realize I am a descendant and I am standing at that space where we were enslaved, where we were never supposed to survive….On the banks of the same shore, where between 40 and 50% of enslaved people first set foot in America. Now stands a museum devoted to telling our stories. [00:00:24][9.2]
Matthews: [00:00:25] This is not just building, a new park or a development or a restaurant. This is about building a museum, a space that’s here to tell the stories that made the space so sacred in the first place, but also talk about why that makes a difference today. We’re a first voice museum, so we’re telling the story of the African American journey from the African American perspective and through African American voices. [00:00:50][24.9]
Matthews: [00:02:05] this is a community of African-Americans who have maintained extraordinary cultural ties to our West African and central West African heritage. There are many reasons for that. Part of that was the level of isolation of the plantations and plantation living here. It’s suspected that that allowed the enslaved peoples to maintain and to to cultivate and to even hide that they were maintaining and cultivating in that way. [00:02:31][25.8]
Matthews: [00:03:33] One of the things that differentiates us is our international lean and the depth. So we do that from origin stories, but also intentional connections to the diasporic community. Right. So we’re talking about Haiti. We’re talking about Barbados in a real sort of cultural, geographic kind of way…[00:04:02][29.6]
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