Old Slave Mart Museum

Charleston was the capital of American slavery — the brief says so plainly — and this building on Chalmers Street is where that history becomes undeniable. Constructed in 1859 as an auction gallery within Ryan's Slave Mart, it is believed to be the last surviving slave auction facility in South Carolina. The City of Charleston now operates it as a museum dedicated to the domestic slave trade. Go because the history happened here, in this specific building, and the country built something honest from it.