Last week, I drove down from Durham, North Carolina, to spend a short bit of time in Charleston, South Carolina. It was gorgeous. And much was on display to make it so. I took a sunset cruise on a catamaran out on the ocean. I watched cormorants and pelicans fly through the air and dive deep into the water to catch fish. About halfway through the cruise, the sky turned yellow, orange, and red.
Likewise, beautiful flowers adorned the city, and as I turned corners, I saw gorgeous old buildings in the French Quarter with lovely windows and porches.
But alongside all of this, I was reminded that Charleston has a brutal, traumatic history as well. And though some of these chapters feel like a long time ago, they really weren’t. Their effects remain.
I visited some of this history purposefully, but sometimes, I just stumbled upon it. On the same cruise, I could see Fort Sumter in the water. No one acknowledged it. But that is where the Civil War began. Most painfully, I walked to a museum that stands on the location where enslaved people were auctioned and sold over many years. It’s hard to fathom how dehumanizing and terrifying that must have been. Families were sold apart here. Children were sold away from their families like property, right here.
I have a beloved mentor whose grandfather once told him stories about his own grandparents. His grandfather’s grandparents had been enslaved. That’s how short that history is. A grandfather could speak about his own grandparents and share their lived histories.
It’s not surprising, then, that this traumatic history is still acting upon us, particularly upon those who continue to be marginalized by its legacy.
Not long ago. But never too late to act.
—Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 