Museum and Exhibitions

The Avery Research Center maintains several galleries and public program spaces. Each year, the Center develops exhibitions from its rich archival, art, and rare manuscript collections and hosts temporary art exhibitions featuring prominent and burgeoning artists from South Carolina and throughout the African diaspora whose work supports the Center’s mission. Topics covered on our tours include these areas as well as the history of the Avery Normal School, the establishment of the Avery Research Center, and the history and culture of African Americans in the Lowcountry. The Avery Research Center holds institutional membership with the National Association for Interpretation and has a full-time Certified Interpretive Guide on staff.

The Avery Research Center is a major partner of the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (LDHI), a digital public history project hosted by the Lowcountry Digital Library (LCDL) at the College of Charleston. Funded through a pilot project grant from the Humanities Council of South Carolina and a major grant award from the Dorothy and Gaylord Donnelley Foundation, LDHI serves as a digital consultation service, scholarly editorial resource, and online platform for partner institutions and collaborative scholars to translate multi-institutional archival materials, historic landscape features and structures, and scholarly research into digital public history exhibition projects. A major goal within LDHI’s mission is to encourage projects that highlight underrepresented race, class, gender, and labor histories within the Lowcountry region, and in historically interconnected Atlantic World sites.

In 2022, the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture was included in the SCETV virtual reality tours of some of South Carolina’s most interesting historical sites. Some of the exhibits in the tour were temporary and are no longer installed.

The virtual tour can be accessed on your desktop computer or the Matterport App.

Link to SCETV Avery Research Center page

Link to access virtual tour

The Avery Room houses the permanent Avery Normal Institute exhibit. This recreated 19th-century social studies classroom serves as a memorial to the school in observance of its enormous impact on the education and development of Black leadership in the Charleston community, state, and nation.

MUSEUM TOURS: The Avery Research Center offers self-guided tours Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1030AM-12PM and 2PM-330PM. For large groups we ask you limit 25 people or fewer per time slot for self-guided tours. Due to staffing shortages Avery will not be offering guided tours to the general public until further notice.

ARCHIVES: Researchers must have a consultation BEFORE making a research appointment.

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