#averyresearchcenter

Sweetgrass rice fanner with pine knots

Multiple views of a circular, flat sweetgrass basket with a handle made of pine needles wrapped in palmetto leaves; basket contains accents of pine needles throughout and artist has incorporated decorative pine knots; center of basket contains a combination of sweetgrass, pine needles, and bulrush, sewn with palmetto leaf; label on back reads "HAND MADE BY Ida Mae Bennett." 

The Avery Sweetgrass Basket Collection holds significant modern examples of a centuries-old craft. Following African traditions, baskets of coiled grasses were originally produced by slaves on Lowcountry plantations for agricultural use. Over time, sweetgrass baskets have become artistic expressions that retain the African aesthetic -- a symbol of African American culture and a signature of the Lowcountry region. Alongside the baskets, the Avery Research Center has gathered visual and oral histories of the modern basketmakers and their families. 

Fertility doll

A black wooden fertility doll carried by expectant mothers; origin Ashanti people of Ghana.

Congolese wooden mask

Carved wooden mask with female features. Origin Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire).

Four people next to a bird bath

Black and white photograph of three women and one man arranged around a bird bath, four women in background. Inscription on back of photograph: “Geneva in college.”

Cleveland Sellers and Stokely Carmichael March at Anti-War Rally

Photograph of Cleveland Sellers and Stokely Carmichael marching at an anti-war (presumably Vietnam) rally amongst a crowd of both white and black protesters. Carmichael holds a sign that reads "Bring The Troops Home Now!" Inscription on the back reads, "Stokly [sic] Carmichael- dark glasses. Cleveland Sellers to his right." 

Esau Jenkins

Black and white photograph of Esau Jenkins speaking. Esau Jenkins (1910-1972) was born and raised on Johns Island, South Carolina. With very little formal education, he became a businessman and civil rights leader. In 1959, he organized the Citizens’ Committee of Charleston County dedicated to the economic, cultural and political improvement of local African Americans. 

Photograph of Cleveland Sellers and Willie Ricks

Photograph of Cleveland Sellers and associate Willie Ricks standing in a yard in front of a home. This photo may have been taken in the 1970s upon Sellers' release from prison. Cleveland Sellers, Jr. (born 1944), an African American from Denmark, South Carolina, was a participant and leader of a variety of student, civil rights, leftist, and Pan African movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Sellers alone was indicted and convicted for inciting a riot during the Orangeburg Massacre, in which three students of South Carolina State University died and many others were wounded; Sellers was later pardoned. 

Photograph of Isaiah Bennett

Early black and white photograph of Isaiah Bennett (right) and two other gentlemen in an office setting. Isaiah Bennett (1926-2002) served as a union representative for tobacco workers at the American Tobacco Company's "Cigar Factory" and as a leader and negotiator of the Charleston Hospital Workers' Strike of 1969. Bennett also founded and was president of the Charleston chapter of the A. Phillip Randolph Institute, an umbrella organization for black trade unions.