International African American Museum (IAAM)

• Photographer: Thomas Photographers; Credit: Courtesy of the International African American Museum
• Photographer: Thomas Photographers; Credit: Courtesy of the International African American Museum

In 2020, the WLCC began collaborating with the International African American Museum (IAAM). The museum is located at Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston, SC, the site where roughly 40% of all enslaved Africans entered the United States during the Atlantic slave trade.

When the museum was initially designed, the original idea was that it would serve as a ‘non-collecting’ institution displaying mostly loan objects with a limited permanent collection. Over the years, the vision of what IAAM would look like slowly evolved while the galleries were designed and the collection was assembled. As the organization’s vision changed, the museum transformed, too, becoming a more fully realized space with the possibility for a cohesive and inclusive representation of its collection. Simultaneously, the relationship between WLCC and IAAM continued to strengthen as the changing needs of the museum were met with support and flexibility from the WLCC.

As the mission of the museum transformed significantly over time, those involved needed to adapt to these changes, including how object intake was handled, storage facilities provided for the growing collection, and the implementation of additional resources, including preparing objects for display and permanently storing the rest of the objects in the collection. The WLCC has helped create a cost-effective, sustainable, and reliable solution for a local museum, which is limited in space and staff, with the intake, storage, conservation needs, and transportation of the IAAM collection.