African American Heritage
Places to Visit
Aiken-Rhett House, 48 Elizabeth Street, Charleston
The Aiken-Rhett House is an early nineteenth century mansion operated as a museum by Historic Charleston Foundation. The complex includes intact slave quarters, which are interpreted as part of the tour.
Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston, 125 Bull Street, Charleston
The mission of the Avery Research Center is to collect, preserve, and document the history and culture of African Americans in Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry. The Center is an archives, research center, and museum.
Bonds Conway House, 811 Fair Street, Camden
Born into slavery in 1763, Bonds Conway is the first African American of record in Kershaw County to have purchased his own freedom. After buying his freedom, he worked as a skilled carpenter and eventually bought a large parcel of land on which his house and those of his children stood. In 1977, the Kershaw County Historical Society purchased the Bonds Conway House and moved it to its current location on Fair Street. Today, it serves as the headquarters for the Society.
Boone Hall Plantation and Gardens, 1235 Long Point Road, Mt. Pleasant
Boone Hall is a working plantation that has preserved one of the nation’s few remaining slave streets. It is now home to a new exhibit "Black History in America." On the tour, guides explain the landscape and interpret the slave experience on the plantation.
Caw Caw Interpretive Center, Ravenel, Charleston County
The 654 acres that comprise the Caw Caw Interpretive Center were once a part of a 5,500-acre rice plantation where enslaved Africans applied their technology and skill in agriculture to carve a highly successful series of rice fields out of this cypress swamp.
Cypress Gardens, 3030 Cypress Gardens Road, Moncks Corner, SC
At Cypress Gardens visit the new exhibits in the Heritage Room to see historical displays and archaeological artifacts found on site during recent excavations.
Magnolia Plantation & Gardens, 3550 Ashley River Road, Charleston
Slavery to Freedom is a tour offered at Magnolia Plantation. See recently restored cabins interpreting African American life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Mann-Simons Cottage/Site, 1430 Richland Street, Columbia
The Mann-Simons Site is operated by the Historic Columbia Foundation as a house and outdoor museum. Historic Columbia also operates the former home of Civil Rights activist Modjeska Monteith Simkins.
Middleton Place Plantation, 4300 Ashley River Road, Charleston
At Middleton Place, African American Focus Tours are offered daily, focusing on the lives of African American slaves and freedmen that lived at Middleton Place.
The Penn Center, St. Helena Island, Beaufort County:
The mission of Penn Center is to promote and preserve the history and culture of the Sea Islands. The organization also acts as a catalyst for the development of programs for self-sufficiency. Penn Center sponsors public programs, operates a conference center and the York W. Bailey Museum and Gift Shop, and maintains the Laura M. Towne Archives and Library.
Slave Relic Museum, 208 Carn Street, Walterboro:
The Slave Relic Museum is dedicated to documenting, preserving, interpreting, and celebrating the history and culture of peoples of African descent. It features a collection of artifacts, photographs, and written documents that explore the African slave trade and the story of enslaved Africans in the antebellum South.
The Southern African American Heritage Center
125 Kershaw Street
Cheraw, SC 29520
Contact Felicia Flemming-McCall, 843-921-9989
More Places to Visit
The Green Book of SC - A Travel Guide to SC African American Cultural Sites
Reconstruction Era National Monument
Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor
South Carolina National Heritage Corridor Includes the African American Trail
More information about African American places to visit is available on the official tourism website of South Carolina