WELLNESS, SPA & SALON

CHARMING ENHANCEMENTS keimanistory@gmail.com | charmingenhancements.com

We are a full service wellness center located in Charleston, SC. We offer non-medical weight loss, body sculpting, waxing, facials, saunas and more.

CYCLING OPPORTUNITIES OF SC aaarichburg@gmail.com

Cycling rides and tours.

KASADA BEAUTY SUPPLY STORE kasadabeautysupply@outlook.com | kasadabeautysupply.com

The friendliest beauty supply store in the Charleston area providing high quality retail and professional beauty supply products. We are a premium store with premium products and premium customer service.

MMM FIT CLUB mmmfitclub@gmail.com | mmmfitclub.com

MMM FiT Club provides unique fitness experiences for predominantly women and young ladies (ages 13 and Up) in the form of classes, virtual classes, private parties and private sessions. They also offer community fitness services through engagement with organizations, businesses and corporations. Fitness experiences include boxing, dance cardio, bootcamp and yoga.

RENEE MOORE BEAUTY BAR nails@reneemoorebeautybar.com | reneemoorebeautybar.com

Luxury nail salon specializing in abstract nail art, unparalled customer service and custom crafted cocktails.

SATURA STYLES hair@braidedbeautiesbysaturastyles.com braidedbeautiesbysaturastyles.com

A licensed master braider of 20+ years and nationally certified hairloss practitioner, Satura Styles provides braiding services specializing in short, relaxed, hairloss, and natural hair.

SIMPLY YOUR SPA simplyyourspa.com

A personal, all-inclusive day spa with experiences that meet every guest’s needs. With a licensed and professional staff, they offer a wide range of services including massages, manicures, pedicures, facials, and complete spa packages.

Since the arrival of West Africans into the landscape of Charleston, music served to communicate. In fact, it was so powerful a medium that after the Stono Rebellion of 1739, the largest uprising of enslaved people in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution, lawmakers banned the use and ownership of drums, horns, and other clamorous instruments that enslaved people might use to communicate. The art form found a way to thrive anyway. Enslavers could not ban the hand-clapping, foot-stomping, call-and-response techniques that the Gullah Geechee community generated. They sang in the praise houses as well as the fields. There are work songs, children’s ditties, as well as ceremonial repertoire, meant for events like funerals. Many of the rhythms, melodies, harmonies, and dynamics/ forms are the building blocks/the foundation of American music--gospel, spirituals, jazz and the blues.

Current community members use music to remember their ancestors. The spiritual, a type of song that blends suffering with hope, is so significant to the region that it was designated as the official state music of South Carolina.

In recent years the drums are playing again if you know where to find them. From youth performing in Marion Square on Saturday mornings to ancestral remembrance ceremonies out on Sullivan’s Island, and community celebrations like the Emancipation Day Parade on January 1, music is still the heartbeat of the city, you just have to take a moment to stop and listen.

Tours Transportation

Avery Research Center

avery.cofc.edu

Reading room, archives & scheduled tours. 1990 Carolopolis Award. Beautifully restored facility, site of the former Avery School built in 1865. Tour includes art and historical exhibits.

Charleston African American Tour

nhutchinson1155@outlook.com charlestonafricanamericantours.com

A Gullah Geechee Tour showcasing Charleston’s rich Black History. Immerse yourself in the culture with a certified native born Gullah speaking historian. Bin yah not come yah.

Frankly Charleston

franklycharleston@yahoo.com | franklycharleston.com

Come experience the African American’s contributions to Charleston. Our captivating riding and walking tours will leave you wanting to learn more about “the other” Charleston. Listed as one of the top 6 standout Black History Tours in the US from California to Charleston, by Conde Nast Traveler.

Gullah Gullah Tours

info@gullahgullah.tours | gullahgeecheetours.com

Certified tour guide Godfrey Gullah Jac is full blooded Gullah Geechee. Godfrey speaks in great detail about African American history and history of the enslaved Africans right here in Charleston, SC. Come have a look and take a listen to an ancient history about the mysterious people descending from way across da water. The Gullah Geechee people broke the chains of slavery into freedom.

Gullah Tours

info@gullahtours.com | gullahtours.com

Explore the sites relevant to the culture & traditions of the AfricanAmericans history in Charleston. Given by a Gullah speaking Charlestonian whose ancestors were enslaved.

SIGHTS & INSIGHTS TOURS

ajm@sitesandinsightstours.com | sitesandinsightstours.com

Explore Charleston’s Black history and Gullah/Geechee culture from a Black perspective in our 1, 2 & 2 1/2 hour motorized Black History, Porgy & Bess and Sea Islands Tours.

AIRPORT LIMO-TAXI ASSOCIATION charleston-arrives.com

Outstanding service with a smile and clean, quality vehicles. Located at the airport’s ground transportation booth, opposite the baggage claim area. Featuring the no wait taxi, no reservation or shuttle service. To downtown, hotels, barrier islands, resorts or any destination throughout the Lowcountry area. Reservations required on return trips.

Charleston Black Car Limousine

nhutchinson1155@outlook.com

We provide transportation within parts of the Gullah Geechee national corridor. Contact us at 843-276-0117.

N&S TRANSPORT nstours@carolina.rr.com | nsbustours.com/home

N&S transports passengers to airports groups, schools, tour group, and more.

The protest song “We Shall Overcome” originated here in Charleston, South Carolina.

From 1945 to 1946, Black women, some of the least protected employees in the United States, exercised their right to strike while seeking a pay raise from the American Tobacco Company. They sang as they picketed/demonstrated, the latest activists in a long line of champions/crusaders for racial equity. Their improvised lyrics “We will organize,” “We will win our rights,” and “We will win this fight.” are now familiar to freedom fighters all over the world, and offer courage, comfort, and hope to demonstrators protesting poverty, violence, and discrimination.

Other locales outside of the Lowcountry are often thought to be the locus of the Civil Rights Movement, but ever since West Africans touched these shores in 1526, they found ways to resist the powers that attempted to subjugate, brutalize and exploit them. Through/ From enslavement to emancipation, the Jim Crow period and into modernity, the Black community’s desire to educate and liberate themselves from unfair and unequal treatment is a mainstay. From Martin Luther King Jr.’s frequent visits to the Lowcountry to the 1969 Charleston Hospital Strike, and the 2020 calls for racial reconciliations that led citizens into the city’s historic streets, Charleston is still working its way to become a city that cares for its denizens without regard to a person’s complexion, religion, or social background.

Modern Black activists still advocate for resources to combat the devastating effects of urban renewal, which entrenched/exacerbated the dire economic circumstances for Black people living in the city. Their work is the latest testament to the continued efforts to understand, heal and shift the narrative about racism in America, strengthening a legacy of innovation, resilience, and creativity that has endured for almost 400 years. From the moment West African laborers were brought to these shores, their skills—agricultural, culinary, artistic—changed America. The aesthetics, philosophies, and cultural sensibilities of their descendants still do. Despite all the barriers, policies, and intentional erasures, Black people of the Lowcountry are still here, and the things created in this place are often at turns graceful, lyrical, soul-deep and powerful. They are doctors, lawyers, artists, and history makers leading the communities they love towards a more equitable future.

Their journey--America’s journey, continues.