African American Monument - South Carolina Statehouse - Columbia, South Carolina

African American Monument - Columbia, South Carolina

The grounds of the South Carolina State House are arguably some of the most beautiful in the Country. Palmetto, Magnolia and Oak adorn the grounds and dozens of squirrels with large bushy tails run about here and there across the greens and up the trees. While beautiful, there is some melancholy history to be learned here that should never be forgotten. On the North side of the building you will find the African American Monument. This monument, while beautifully and masterfully done, struck a somber tone in my heart as I looked at the bronze ship replica that transported 336 slaves from West Africa to South Carolina to work in the fields at the back breaking work of raising cotton, rice and tobacco. The slaves were chained together and stacked like cord wood during the entire trip from Africa to Charleston, South Carolina. It was deemed acceptable for the slave shipper to lose ¼ of the slaves transported due to disease, starvation and inhumane transport conditions during the ocean crossing. One mural announces “Negros for sale at auction” and shows a man, a woman and a baby, presumably all from the same family being sold like livestock at the fair. Families would be broken up without regard to maintaining family unit integrity as blacks were sold as “property” to the highest bidder in the slave marts of the south. As I stood there and thought of how I would feel if someone sold my wife and daughter to work hard labor and be separated for ever from me and each other, I got a lump in my throat and then I felt angry. What kind of creatures could treat other human beings this way? Some say the Civil War was not fought about slavery but I would have signed on with the Union had I lived in that time to fight the evil practice that was slavery. Other words and statements such as Jim Crow laws, sharecropping, lynching, segregation, emancipation, Brown vs. Board etc. etc. etc. All topics that should be taught in school so these things are never repeated and in the case of Emancipation, understood by all as to the significance of Lincoln’s great proclamation after the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War.  As I looked through some bookstores in Columbia, I came across a couple of books that are well worth the read so you can comprehend how things were in the old south. The first is “The Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vass, the African” which is a slave narrative that details the horrors of slavery written by Olaudah Equiano a slave who was kidnapped from Africa, transported on a Slave ship and then how he served in the French and Indian War and earned his freedom. The second is “Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs. This is one of the few existing narratives written by a woman about her life of servitude and degradation as a slave. I believe it is important for us to read about these things and educate ourselves so we can better understand how others might feel and view the world. Hopefully through study of the past, we can all avoid horrors such as slavery in the future. I applaud the State of South Carolina for the moving monument that adorns the north side of the State House. After looking at it, taking it all in and pondering the past, I now understand why the Confederate Flag might be offensive to African Americans.