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Old Slave Mart Museum

I recently went on an annual traditional New Years trip. I have the most amazing group of friends that come together every year to ring in the new year with one another. We have traveled all sorts of places: New York City, Gatlinburg, South Walton Beach, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Gulf Shores, and this year Charleston, SC. 

I will probably blog about my Charleston visit in the coming days but today I wanted to get a particular stop off my chest. I went to the Old Slave Mart Museum located at 6 Chalmers Street. It cost $7 for adult admission and it seemed like a pretty small place. I wasn't sure if it was worth the money but decided to give it a try. David and I entered together but soon split up due to reading speed. I found myself lost in a world so "foreign" to anything I know. Yet it was about my country and my people.

I finished the tour and walked outside so overwhelmed emotionally and mentally that I needed a minute to take a breath. I could not process all the thoughts going through my mind. I wished so badly that I had hauled my computer around or at least a journal so I could release these feelings in my mind and heart. I paced the street as I waited for David to exit and finally went back inside to borrow a pen and scratched these notes on a Charleston map...overwhelmed at this reality, mindful to never forget, curious to learn more, heaviness of mind and heart, ashamed that this is my history, helpless that it slavery is still a reality in the world, hopeful that we can learn and change, speechless yet running over in thought. I thought of how poverty and fear keep people shackled today. I thought of what my personal story would have been; had i been alive during this era. Would i have been as mortified by the mistreatment and horrors of slavery or would it have been my norm? I shudder to think that I could ever be part of a society that treated and viewed other human beings in such ways. Then I take pause to look at how we treat fellow beings this very day? What about the outcast, the challenged, the down trodden, the different? What about the widow, the homeless, the disabled, the poor? 

I am still thinking and praying and learning and changing from this experience. I encourage any who travel to make this a stop. Charleston is gorgeous and so rich in what it has to teach us. Don't miss this gem on Chalmers.

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