Across the United States, there has been a mounting call for a cultural reckoning in recent years: institutions are being renamed, flags removed, statues torn down and artifacts returned to their homeland. At the heart of this movement lies a quest for the humanity that may have been lost to history. These artifacts and institutions often have ties to racial injustice — this effort works to correct narratives that paint certain groups as less than human. In Charleston, South Carolina, museums and institutions are working to correct these injustices.
Aaisha Haykal is the Manager of Archival Services at the Avery Research Center for African American History at the College of Charleston. The Avery Research Center is a museum "dedicated to preserving the history of African Americans," specifically relating to Charleston, according to Haykal.
Charleston was home to North America's largest Atlantic slave trade port. An article by the Equal Justice Initiative reported that over 40% of all enslaved Africans trafficked to North America were transported through the Charleston Harbor. As a result, some museums and archives in Charleston, and the broader South Carolina region alike, have attempted to reconcile with this tainted past. Haykal says doing so requires a willingness to confront painful, sometimes unpalatable history.
“We have to think about not sanitizing history,” Haykal said. “It’s about telling the truth and then also recognizing that some people may not want to hear the truth, but that’s not our role.”
In recent years, there has been a marked movement in the U.S. toward renaming institutions and reclaiming culturally sensitive artifacts and historical images. The Smithsonian Institution, for example, has been caught up in this movement in recent years, and issued an ethical returns policy in 2022. According to the Smithsonian National Collections Program, the museums are permitted to return certain collections based on ethical considerations, taking into account “items that were stolen, taken under duress, or removed without consent of the owner.”
This reckoning has expanded nationally in recent years. At the Avery Research Center, employees like Haykal promote collaboration between communities in order to ensure these archives are properly displayed in a respectful and accurate way.
“We do our consultation with communities, descendants of people that attend Avery, but also just descendants in the Charleston community that have impact,” Haykal said. “We often go to them for advice and suggestions on how to proceed with items and how to display them.”
That consultation process reflects a broader shift in the handling of these materials. In March 2026, one particular case made national news when what is believed to be the earliest known photographs taken of enslaved people in the U.S. were transferred to new ownership. Originally held by Harvard University, a six-year legal battle culminated in the transfer of the daguerreotypes to the International African American Museum in Charleston. A descendant of the people featured in the photographs, Tamara Lanier, hoped that under new ownership, the humanity of those photographed would be preserved.
There has been a mounting effort in museums in recent years to return historical artifacts to their rightful owners. This process is known as repatriation, or the restitution of cultural artifacts. Powers says that this stolen heritage has allowed these museums and institutions to unfairly profit from these materials. This has encouraged a shift toward the original owners demanding to have these artifacts returned so that they can present the history in ways they find appropriate and humanizing.
“The daguerreotypes really represent the artifacts of history. They represent the way that, in this case, African people were treated and denigrated,” Powers said. “If Africans could be so treated, anyone could suffer from the same kind of subordination and marginalization.”
Although some argue that historical objects are becoming obsolete in modern times, people like Powers disagree. He maintains that our history directly influences our future as a nation, and that looking back may help us inform our decisions looking forward.
“The present cannot be cut off from the past any more than a person could sever one of their limbs and not suffer trauma,” Powers said. “We are organically connected in that way.”
Elizabeth West, university archivist for the University of South Carolina and a staff member of the South Caroliniana Library, shares a similar sentiment. West frames history as a "tapestry," one that archivists play a major role in threading together. The tapestry cannot be complete, West says, unless one is willing to make sense of the difficult parts of our history, “like slavery.”
West says that they follow recommendations from the South Carolina Society of American Artists — a nonprofit group that works to support visual arts across South Carolina and establish cultural competency.
“There are ways that we bring materials in, work with communities where the materials came from and try to build and maintain those kinds of good relationships so that we’re not coming in and taking things away,” West said of the South Caroliniana Library’s mission.
Ultimately, the debate comes down to control — who gets to have it, and who does not. This collaborative effort between institutions and the communities they serve is a bid for humanity, by the people, and for the people.
“That seed of history that is buried within each and every one of us is something that shapes our behavior in the present, shapes our values, shapes our fears, our ambitions, our goals,” Powers said. “That’s why it’s so terribly important to understand history and not marginalize it.”
