
LOCATION USA
ATTRACTION TYPE Museum/gallery
OPENING YEAR 2021*
BUDGET $100,000,000*
SUMMARY
It is likely that all African Americans can trace an ancestor who arrived in the USA through Charleston. The International African American Museum will be constructed on Gadsden’s Wharf, the point of entry to America for a significant portion of enslaved Africans transported here during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. More than just a museum, the IAAM will be a site of memory. It will demonstrate how enslaved Africans and free blacks shaped economic, political, and cultural development in the nation and beyond. Film, documents, and digital archives will further aid visitors in placing the story of African arrival in historical context. Designed by Moody Nolan and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the building will be a subdued, modernist, 47,000-square-foot pavilion raised above the ground on thick columns clad in precast oyster-shell tabby. In August 2019 the museum started initial site work after more than $90 million had been raised for the project. An official groundbreaking is slated for October, 2019. A further $4.3 million is currently being raised to cover any potential rise in costs in creating exhibits and furnishing the museum. Including funds for the museum’s endowment, project organisers have now raised more than $100 million for the museum. (Updated 27 August, 2019)

CONTACTS
PO Box 22761
Charleston, South Carolina 29413
USA
Bernard Powers
Interim CEO
+1 843 872 5352
bpowers@iaamuseum.org
Carlos Guzman-Gonzalez
Development Assistant
+1 843 872 5352
cjguzman@iaamuseum.org
Joy Bivins
Chief Curator
+1 843 872 5352
jbivins@iaamuseum.org
Elijah Hayward
Chief Operating Officer
+1 843 872 5352
eheyward@iaamuseum.org
+1 510 595 06883016 Filbert St # 2
Oakland, California 94608
USA
Walter Hood
Creative Director
Brownstone
+1 843 973 86604055 Faber Place Drive, Suite 202
North Charleston, South Carolina 29405
USA
Dale Collier
President and CEO
Moody Nolan
+1 470 480 7590One Atlantic Center
1201 W Peachtree Street NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
USA
Linda Nunnelly
Senior Associate/Regional Director Atlanta
Ralph Appelbaum Associates
+1 212 334 820088 Pine Street
New York, New York 10005
USA
Ralph Appelbaum
Director
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
+1 212 751 312288 Pine Street
New York, New York 10005 USA