Do idyllic southern plantations really tell the story of slavery?

There are about 375 plantation museums across the US, where the atrocities of slavery compete with the grandeur of plantation living. Recent efforts to bridge this divide are complicated by America’s failure to acknowledge the horrors of slavery. It is 400 years since the first Africans stolen from their homeland were brought to a British colony in North America.

Speaking to the Guardian at the former South Carolina plantation of Middleton Place, the director of the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, Bernard Powers, explained the importance of understanding the scope of life at these sites. “If you fail to understand what happened in the past at these plantations, you don’t understand what the grievances are today,” Powers said.