Mormon church donates millions to create family history center for black Americans in SC
Almost half of the enslaved Africans taken to North America came through Charleston, South Carolina, “and the majority disembarked at Gadsden’s Wharf,” the site of a future International African American Museum, according to the museum.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced this week that it will donate $2 million to create a Center for Family History at the museum to help black Americans trace their genealogy, a press release from the museum states.
“The museum will not only educate its patrons on the important contributions of Africans who came through Gadsden’s Wharf and Charleston, it also will help all who visit to discover and connect with ancestors whose stories previously may not have been known,” said David A. Bednar, with the church, according to the release.
The church and the museum made the announcement Wednesday at the annual RootsTech genealogy conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“We want to support the museum and the Center for Family History because we both value the strength that comes from learning about our families,” Bednar said as he presented the donation to the museum, according to KUTV.
“I don’t think we can necessarily quantify what is going to happen because this is huge, what is being done today and beyond is really huge, there are going to be so many things that develop as a result,” Martin Luther King III said at the conference, KUTV reports.
He is the son of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Dad would be very extraordinarily proud of this relationship that has developed and extraordinarily proud of what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is doing, the work that it’s doing all over the world,” King said, KUTV reports.
The effort to build the new museum on the Charleston waterfront has been in the works for almost 20 years, according to the Post and Courier. Organizers hope to break ground on the new museum this year next to the Charleston Marine Center on the site of Gadsden’s Wharf, the newspaper reported in August.
The museum says it plans to start construction this summer and hopes to be open in 2021.
The Mormon church sponsors FamilySearch International, according to the organization. FamilySearch says it has been collecting records for more than 100 years and now has the “largest collection of genealogical and historical records in the world.”
This story was originally published February 28, 2019 at 9:52 AM.
