THE ‘WHOLE TRUTH’

Posted By Bill Payer on Jan 31, 2021 | 0 comments


A Charleston woman who struggled with her family’s legacy in the slave trade decided she needed a dramatic, public statement to share the whole truth.

Ned. Amelia. Hagar. Flora. Anthony. Nancy.  

Margaret Seidler read the names, loud enough that people standing around could hear over the traffic passing by on Broad Street. 

She stood in front of a large white building with big columns that used to be two smaller buildings without columns — something that anyone walking by can see now, thanks to a photo printed on a new bronze marker. 

If someone stops and reads the text, that person will learn, maybe for the first time, that the street they are walking that is now lined with law offices, galleries and bars and restaurants, a street featured in glossy magazine spreads touting Charleston’s beauty, was, for decades, a booming location of the domestic slave trade. 

Enslaved people were sold at public street auctions and inside the buildings at private sales. 

And, at that specific site, Seidler’s fourth great-grandfather, William Payne, had brokered the sale of enslaved people. 

The number known of just how many people keeps growing. Seidler found seven more this week. The likely total is well over 10,000, she said.

Massy. Daniel. Lowry. Phelde. Simon. Judy. READ THE ENTIRE POST & COURIER ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE (non-subcribers will hit a paywall)



Charleston native Margaret Seidler reads  copies of slave auction advertisements from William Payne’s auction house on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021, in Charleston. Payne was her great-great-great grandfather and his business was on Broad Street. Seidler, who discovered in 2018 that she was related to Payne, led the effort to have a bronze plaque placed there, with help from the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff
Grace Beahm Alford gbeahm@postandcourier.com
Charleston native Margaret Seidler reads  copies of slave auction advertisements from William Payne’s auction house on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021, in Charleston. Payne was her great-great-great grandfather and his business was on Broad Street. Seidler, who discovered in 2018 that she was related to Payne, led the effort to have a bronze plaque placed there, with help from the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery. Grace Beahm Alford/Staff Grace Beahm Alford gbeahm@postandcourier.com

See a YouTube video of a talk Seidler made on Monday, October 12, 2020 to the Charleston Tour Guide Association: CLICK HERE

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