CHARLESTON, S.C. — A nationwide program is searching for the names of 10 million people who were enslaved in the United States over nearly three centuries.
The Avery Research Center in Charleston is participating in the effort to document these individuals, including those from South Carolina.
The project aims to create a publicly accessible database that allows living descendants to trace their family histories.
Researchers are utilizing archives and documents from Charleston’s Mother Emanuel AME Church, the oldest African Methodist church in the South, to support the search.
Lee Bennett Jr. serves as the historian for Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church. He explained that many visitors come to the church seeking information about their ancestors but often encounter dead ends due to a lack of documentation.
“Often people will come back and say my great, great grandmother was buried in the cemetery here, but I don’t know where,” Bennett said. “And they don’t know where to start.”
This initiative hopes to bridge some of those gaps.
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