Sherrilan Aiken McKinney and her daughter Shaylyn slowly scanned the colorful walls of the new International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. As they perused a timeline that established the global roots of slavery in the 1400s until its US demise in the 19th century, Shaylyn paused and snapped an image of an antebellum slave tag, an object common in Charleston during that time. Worn by the enslaved who were leased to work for people other than their slaveholders, such metal badges proved they had permission to move about the city.
Meanwhile, the elder McKinney moved toward the museum’s Center for Family History, where the pair plans to seek help from in-house genealogists to find out more about their Charleston heritage. The mother and daughter know there’s a chance their enslaved ancestors may have arrived on or near the museum’s grounds, built on Gadsden’s Wharf, which received thousands of captive Africans on slave ships. Shaylyn, who self-identifies as Gullah Geechee (McKinney does not), told me she couldn’t wrap her head around the possibility that she may have been walking in the footsteps of her forebears. Her mother was in a different state of mind: “I’m here just to see that the truth is being told,” she said. “They can’t keep it away. I want to see the local stuff.”
