Slavery, memory, and the history of the “Atlantic now”: Charleston, South Carolina and global racial/economic hierarchy

摘要

Using the bicentenary of the banning of the international slave trade by Great Britain and the United States, this paper looks at the way in which the history of slavery has been under-represented and erased in Charleston, SC, the single most important port of entry for enslaved Africans into continental North America prior to 1808. Although current efforts to commemorate slavery and its abolition in the area are encouraging, recent disputes on the waterfront in Charleston reveal how the Atlantic remains haunted by a racialized economic hierarchy.