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Opened in June 2023, the long-awaited landmark has landed Charleston on where-to-go lists by the likes of and . The museum, which was more than 20 years in the making, is also a testament to the city’s willingness to more fully reckon with its harrowing past.

Today, Charleston is a place of romantic cobblestoned streets and old-money elegance; pastel-shaded historic houses with impeccably manicured greenery; a celebrated food and drink scene with award-winning restaurants; and a harbour where, with any luck, you might spot dolphins splashing around at sunrise. It’s one of the most beloved destinations in the U.S.

All of that is true, and this jarring fact is, too: Charleston, founded in 1670 as Charles Town, is a place built on slavery. That’s what enabled its lucrative rice plantation economy and made this the richest city in British North America by the late 1700s.

This part of history has not been well presented, because it has been “a source of shame and embarrassment,” said the longtime former mayor of Charleston, Joseph P. Riley Jr., in his inaugural address in 2000. But it’s important to reckon with this past, he believed. He was the first to publicly call for the creation of a museum to this end.

The museum stands on historically sacred ground — or rather, it’s elevated on cylindrical columns over it, out of respect for the site. This is Gadsden’s Wharf, once the most active port of entry in North America during the Transatlantic slave trade. Estimates vary, but it’s believed that approximately 40 per cent of all enslaved Africans forced to travel the brutal Middle Passage to North America arrived here.

Inside IAAM, the facts flash on large-scale video panels that greet visitors: “It is estimated that 1.8 million died during the journey of the Middle Passage across the Atlantic.” “Enslavement of African peoples continued in the Americas for nearly 400 years.”

The video doesn’t stop there, though, because the story doesn’t end there: Images of the vibrant African diaspora tell us resilience is part of the focus here, too. One gallery spotlights the achievements of groundbreaking Black South Carolinians, like Wimbledon winner Althea Gibson, whose tennis rackets are on display.

The museum’s explicit aims include fostering empathy and understanding, which requires knowing the past — not just the big-picture historical context but also the individual human stories.

One of the most heart-rending artifacts is “Ashley’s Sack, ca. 1850.” A simple cotton seed bag, it was the parting gift to a nine-year-old named Ashley from her mother, Rose, when the girl was sold to another slaveholder. Its contents included a tattered dress, handfuls of pecans, a braid of Rose’s hair, and the mother’s wish that “It be filled with my Love always.” They never saw each other again. This line and the story of their separation were embroidered on the cloth decades later, by Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth.

Ranging from historical objects to contemporary art, there are 12 permanent exhibitions and a gallery devoted to rotating exhibitions. One visit isn’t enough to absorb it all.

“The most frequent refrains (are): ‘I didn’t have enough time.’ ‘There’s so much information, I have to come back.’ ‘This is overwhelming … in a good way,’” says Malika N. Pryor, chief learning and engagement officer at IAAM, when I ask how visitors have responded to the museum. This is a space for real, honest conversations, she adds. “There’s plenty of work to be done,” Pryor says, “(but) my hope for this museum is that it moves that discourse forward.”

My next stop on this trip also takes me back in time. About a half-hour drive from downtown Charleston, is home to the oldest landscaped gardens in America. The lush grounds, dreamed up in classical Versailles-inspired style, date back to 1741. Enormous live oaks drip with atmospheric Spanish moss; summer will have azaleas blooming throughout. It’s undeniably beautiful. It’s also a former rice plantation that prospered off the backs of slavery.

Plantation tourism is controversial, particularly when the sites gloss over the horrors that happened and focus instead on, say, the picturesque architecture. But Middleton Place, now a national historic landmark owned and operated by the not-for-profit Middleton Place Foundation, is making education a part of its mission.

“When it comes to slavery, we feel this is the perfect place to talk about it — a place where it existed, on the very land you and I are walking on right now,” says Jeff Neale, director of preservation and interpretation at Middleton Place.

Reconciliation requires trying to tell stories as completely as possible. And here, that also means surfacing the experiences of individuals and humanizing history.

The most memorable truth-telling exhibition at Middleton Place is in the dwelling-turned-museum dubbed Eliza’s House, a small clapboard cottage built around 1880. Inside, visitors will find a permanent exhibition on slavery.

The centrepiece is a panel that names every African and African American man, woman and child known to have been enslaved by the Middletons on their numerous plantations from 1738 to 1865. The list spans generations. Based on many years of research by historians and last updated in 2022, it’s still incomplete.

Learning that the family enslaved 3,200 people feels coldly factual. But seeing the names of 3,200 people, most listed with a monetary value (“Bella … $1”), has a devastating clarity.

Back in the heart of Charleston, I walk around the pretty, palm-tree-dotted French Quarter near my hotel, . On what otherwise looks like an ordinary cobblestoned street, a prominent sign demands my attention.

“Slave Trading Complex,” it reads. “Behind this lot was a large ‘slave pen,’ kitchen house, four-story ‘jail’ building, and a small structure later recalled as a ‘deadhouse.’ None remain.”

I’m standing on Chalmers Street in front of the , the building’s name almost entirely faded on its weathered façade. On this site, humans were auctioned off beginning in 1856.

The historical marker was erected only in 2023. If I had travelled to Charleston before then, I could easily have wandered past this place without realizing its significance. It’s a sign of the times, startling, eye-opening and thought-provoking, as it should be.

Wing Sze Tang travelled as a guest of and the , which did not review or approve this article.