Charleston Middle Passage Remembrance

Join the Charleston Area Branch ASALH on Saturday, June 13, 2026, from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island for the 29th Annual Remembrance Ceremony, honoring those who perished during the Middle Passage.

Grounded in this year’s theme, “A Century of Black History Commemorations,” the morning will feature an insightful panel discussion at 9:30 AM, followed by a powerful procession to the beach and a memorial service at 10:30 AM. At 12:00 PM, Mama Ifetayo will lead the sacred Libation and Offering Ceremony at the water's edge.

This community gathering is free and open to the public. Attendees are highly encouraged to wear white and to bring their own lawn chairs, drums, shekere shakers, and music makers to help lift up the spirits of the ancestors. For more information, visit www.chsasalh.com or connect on social media Charleston Middle Passage Remembrance

While in town for Charleston Middle Passage Remembrance explore the Lowcountry!

LibGuides: Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture: Tourism (Entertainment) This guide will provide researchers and visitors to the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture information about our collections, interpretation, genealogy, and about local attractions relating to Blacks/African Americans.

June 13th in a city near you.

7th Annual Reinterment Anniversary Ceremony
Sat, May 02 2pm - 3pm | Anson Street African Burial Ground, 4 George St, Charleston, SC 29401

After we can will walk over to the main library for the opening reception for an exhibition called "Kingdom of Gold: Photographs of Ghana" by Ellen Kaplowitz. 🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭

See: https://www.asabgproject.com/upcoming-events

Hey peeps. We have a huge ask of you. Click the Google link to Fort Moultrie visitors center. Upload any pictures of our Annual Remembrance Ceremony. I was on there, and I see very little to no representation of us, nor our event. Flood them with our presence. Thank you in advance.

Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park Visitor Center · Sullivan's Island, South Carolina Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

SULLIVAN’S ISLAND — Stories about the history of slavery in South Carolina, firsthand accounts from former enslaved people and the story of a Mount Pleasant Freedmen’s school are among the works flagged by National Park Service staff for review — and potential removal — at three historical sites in the Charleston area.

Staff at Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park and the Charles Pinckney National Historical Site in Mount Pleasant specified 10 titles sold in the parks’ gift shops as needing review for compliance with Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum’s May 2025 order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” according to internal records obtained by the National Park Conservation Association and reviewed by The Post and Courier.

At the Fort Sumter Visitor’s Center in Liberty Square, where visitors board a ferry to explore the Civil War-era fortress, shelves are stocked with postcards, miniature South Carolina flags, pocket copies of the Constitution and other mementos.

An entire wall in the gift shop is dedicated to literature, featuring works on the Civil War, reprinted speeches, cookbooks, photo books and children’s books.

Much of the information on display at the Fort Sumter Visitor’s Center doesn’t shy away from the role slavery played in American history, nor some of the influential Antebellum figures who fought to preserve the institution in the South.

“South Carolina and Georgia cannot do without slaves,” reads one quote from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney on a towering display. Featured at the bottom of this sign is information about Olaudah Equiano, the son of an Ibo tribal elder who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Equiano later escaped and documented his experiences in an autobiography.

But the story of his life, published in 1789, is on the list for review, flagged this month by staff at the Charles Pinckney National Historical Site. “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano” was one of six books listed by park staff for review.

Alongside Equiano’s autobiography, NPS staff also included Harriet A. Jacob’s autobiography, “Life on a Plantation” by Bobbie Kalman and “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” by Deborah Gray White.

Smashing Obstacles & Building Legacies: Laing School and Freedmen's Schools” by Lynette Jackson Love, a book about the history of the Laing School, a Freedman’s school in Mount Pleasant founded in 1866, was also marked for review.

Love attended Laing for her elementary school years, according to her website. Today, the Charleston County school operates as Laing Middle School of Science and Technology.

“Shackles” by Marjory Wentworth, is a children’s book set on Sullivan’s Island and is based on a true story about a group of children who discovered shackles while digging for buried treasure in their backyard. In the book, the children learn about the history of slavery on the island.

Wentworth said she was shocked, but not surprised, when she learned her book was among the 10 listed for review. “Shackles” was borne out of an effort to educate both her children and herself on South Carolina’s ties to slavery, she said.

The award-winning book has been used to teach hundreds of children about that history in Sullivan’s Island. To remove “Shackles” from the parks’ shops would be dire, Wentworth said.

“There's something about a picture book being brought into question that really indicates how far this government is willing to go to erase history. That has terrifying implications for all of us,” Wentworth said.

Five other books flagged for review at Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie include:

“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet A. Jacobs, a firsthand account detailing Jacobs’ life as an enslaved woman in North Carolina

“Stolen Charleston: The Spoils of War” by J. Grahame Long

“The 1619 Project: Born on the Water” by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watson

“Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory” edited by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton

“What Your Ribbon Skirt Means to Me: Deb Haaland's Inauguration” by Alexis Bunten, a children’s book about the first Native American to serve as U.S. Interior Secretary

The reviews are part of a nationwide effort to scrub what the president deemed a "distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth" from national historic sites in his March 27 executive order.

“In accordance with Secretary’s Order No. 3431, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, all interpretive signage is currently under review, including those at Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, and the Charles Pinckney National Historical Site. At this time, we have nothing further for you specific to these national park sites,” NPS said in a statement to The Post and Courier.

The National Park Service did not respond to specific questions about why the 10 titles identified at Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie and the Charles Pinckney site were flagged for review.

In June, signs asking visitors to report any information they spotted at NPS sites they felt was “negative about either past or living Americans” or fails to “emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features."

The appearance of the signs at Charleston-area sites was met with deep concern from historians, former employees and parks advocates.

“If some of these proposed changes are made, visitors may miss out on the full picture of history and nature that they deserve at our parks. Americans count on our parks to tell truthful stories and accurate information. The public can handle the truth,” NPCA Senior Director for Cultural Resources Alan Spears said in a statement.

Burgum’s order also directed staff at all NPS sites to review all public-facing monuments, memorials and markers to catalog anything inappropriate or that disparages any American, alive or dead, including those that lived in colonial times, by Aug. 18.

Thirty days after that deadline, or on Sept. 17, that content must be removed and replaced by content that focuses on American achievements and progress, according to the directive.

Autobiographies and books on slavery at risk for removal from Charleston historical site gift shops National Park Service staff marked 10 books sold at gift shops in the Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie and Charles Pinckney historic sites for content review.

Exhibit removals at SC historical sites are concern for former park employees after Trump directive
By Anna Sharpe [email protected]
Jul 14, 2025

SULLIVAN’S ISLAND — A former National Park Service employee spent four decades at Fort Moultrie, transforming how the national historic site conveyed the stories of the Revolutionary War-era grounds.

But in light of recent directives from the Trump administration, he's worried that effort could be undone.

Michael Allen worked at the Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter historical sites for roughly 40 years. His work shaped much of how the National Park Service site looks today.

Recently, signs were posted at all National Park Service sites seeking feedback from visitors. The signs ask for comments related to any areas that need repair or services that need improvement.

They also instruct visitors to report any "signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans," including messaging that fails to "emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features."

The first two requests are standard, Allen said. It's the third and final line on the signs he has trouble with.

The National Parks Service is asking the public for feedback from visitors who heard, saw or experienced anything that put America in a "negative" light at the Charles Pinckney House on Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Mount Pleasant.

"Being in this environment and climate that we're in now, I'm concerned," Allen said.

He said he's worried the feedback could be used to remove installations about people and events that have often been untold.

Allen helped push for the inclusion of information on the experiences of enslaved Africans who were brought to the United States and quarantined in pestilence houses in the 18th century.

A bench was installed at the site in 2008, placed and maintained by the park service to provide a space for visitors to reflect on the arduous journey from Africa to Charleston that hundreds of thousands were forced to take.

The Bench by the Road is tucked near the Intracoastal Waterway at the Fort Moultrie Visitor’s Center, inspired by the words of famed poet Toni Morrison. It was the first of 20 benches installed as part of the Toni Morrison Society’s Bench by the Road Project.

The bench helps to tell a fuller, more inclusive — and often more accurate — rendition of well-known slices of American history, Allen said.

“A Bench by the Road” poem is seen at Fort Moultrie, Thursday, July 10, 2025, on Sullivan’s Island.

"Having that bench there helps to convey a message, helps to tell a story," Allen said. "But it also fills a narrative that has not always been presented."

Allen, as well as park advocates and historians, worry that exhibits and installation like the Bench by the Road at Fort Moultrie, could go away.

A directive from Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on May 20 gave staff at all national historic sites a 90-day deadline to review all public-facing monuments, memorials and markers, and catalog anything inappropriate or that disparages any American, alive or dead, including those that lived in colonial times. That deadline expires on Aug. 18.

Thirty days after that deadline, or on Sept. 17, content fitting that criteria must be removed and replaced by information that focuses on American achievements and progress.

"I would just not want that bench that's there, the first one that was placed as part of (Morrison's) program, to be gone," Allen said. "Just as well as I would not want African passages taken out of the Visitor Center at Fort Moultrie."

The directive quickly received pushback from historians and the National Parks Conservancy Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.

"The Trump administration is trying to erase and rewrite history. But that’s not what the American people want," Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement. "Our national parks should reflect the full complexity of the land, its beauty, its past, and the people who have shaped it for generations."

Harper McKenna, 10, stands next to her grandmother Shelley Miller as she takes a National Park Service pledge at Fort Moultrie, Thursday, July 10, 2025, on Sullivan’s Island.

South Carolina is home to one national park, Congaree National Park in Hopkins, and a handful of sites that commemorate historic figures, battles and time periods.

According to survey responses spanning June 6 to June 16 obtained by the NPCA and provided to The Post and Courier, only three South Carolina-based sites were the subject of visitor feedback, which were mostly positive.

"The park takes a very complex time in American history and seeks to tell the story. Thank you for all your work," one visitor wrote of the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park in Beaufort, a relatively new park that tells the story of newly freed African Americans in the late 19th century.

A similar comment was submitted on June 12 regarding the Kings Mountain National Military Historical Site (site of an important American victory in the Revolutionary War), applauding the "exemplary" rangers that staff the park.

There was one brief complaint made about Congaree National Park on June 10.

"Too many mosquitos," the visitor wrote.

Phil Francis started his decades-long career in the parks service at the Kings Mountain National Military Park in Blacksburg. In his retirement, he serves as a member and chairman of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, a nonprofit organization made up of past parks employees and volunteers.

Charles Pinckney House.JPG
The Charles Pinckney House, Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Mount Pleasant.

Andrew Whitaker/Staff
Francis said the feedback initiative is another attempt from the Trump administration to de-value the agency.

Several sites are already feeling the effects of slashed budgets and staffing shortages. History, and the NPS sites that are tasked with educating the American people, are apolitical, he added, and they should stay that way.

Burgum's "idea was not to make things better, but to find critical comments so that they could pursue their agenda," Francis said. "These parks are owned by everyone, and this is about the history of our country, and about the natural and cultural resources of our country. This is something really special. As someone said, it's America's best idea."

Reach Anna Sharpe at 843-806-6790.

Anna Sharpe covers Mount Pleasant, Isle of Palms, Sullivan's Island and Folly Beach for the Post and Courier. She graduated from Winthrop University. She previously wrote for the Moultrie News in Mount Pleasant.

https://www.postandcourier.com/charleston_sc/fort-moultrie-history-removal-national-sites-sc/article_3cbfd90f-c506-446d-b98b-e398a2aeb538.html