Excuse me; I’ve gone too far. Let me start at the beginning.

Part of a recent trip to Charleston, S.C., was to see the new International African American Museum, referred to as I-Am. In a city that still makes money off slave plantations, we came to see and hear what I-Am calls the “untold stories of the African American journey at one of the country’s most sacred sites.” But we weren’t the only ones. We couldn’t get gallery tickets but were encouraged to enjoy the African Ancestors Memorial Gardens surrounding the facility.

Both are located on Gadsden’s Wharf, the site where an estimated 45% of enslaved Africans entered this country and the largest slave auction site in the United States. At the height of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the wharf could accommodate up to six ships each holding up to 700 enslaved people.

The building, said to look like a ship in a dry dock, stands 13 feet above the wharf, specifically designed not to touch the hallowed ground below. The surrounding landscape, designed by North Carolina A&T State University alumni Walter Hood, works with the building to tell the story and allows visitors to “… confront profound emotions and share in lively new traditions.”

Signs around the gardens alert visitors that they are entering a “sacred space” and not to smoke, run, carry a weapon or litter.

Hood, the website says, designed the gardens where cast members actively tell the story of those who docked these shores. Dotting the landscape are majestic Canary Island Palms, native to Africa, and waist-high sweetgrass, used in low-country basket weaving.

The Tide Tribute is one of the garden’s key elements. Life-sized relief figures, each representing a man, woman or child shackled in the bellies of ships once anchored just steps away in Gadsden’s Wharf, lie on the concrete ground covered by shallow pools of water that mimic the tide. The water ebbs and flows over the reliefs allowing the “bodies” to be covered and uncovered, illustrating “… the fluidity of the past, present and future.” The plants and land work with the water to show that despite the horrors of slavery and enslavement, life continues. It’s a story of survival and resilience, writes the New York Times.

Along the edge of the Tide Tribute are the names of the African cities and towns where Africans were captured and brought to America.

To one side of the Tide Tribute are two black walls that contain five crouched statues. As the slave trade was ending, captured Africans were left on ships or held in nearby buildings, and many of them died of disease and hunger or froze to death.

An inscription on one end of the black wall quotes the British traveler John Lambert, who wrote in 1807, “These poor beings were obliged to be kept on board the ships, or in large buildings at Gadsden’s Wharf, for months together. … The clothing was very scanty, and some unusually sharp weather during the winter carried off great numbers of them. Upwards of seven hundred died in less than three months.”

As I’m sitting on one of the benches reflecting on what I’m seeing and attempting to deal with the flood of emotions overtaking me, I’m snapped back to reality when I see a white man, about 40 or so, prancing through the watery graves as if he’s at a splash pool.

He has removed his shoes and is jumping from one “body” to another having big fun. Yes, it’s hot and humid, but did he not know he was playing in a graveyard?

He had no respect for the hallowed ground he was traversing.

I wanted to confront him, but those with me counseled me against that action. Another garden visitor said earlier she’d seen a young child doing the same thing, and her mother was taking pictures.

What’s wrong with these people?

Maybe, just maybe, they never learned about slavery. Maybe they actually believe we were better as slaves in America than free in Africa. Maybe they think slavery was a job-development program. Maybe they think we should just get over it while they cling to their Confederate flag.

I don’t know their motivation, but I do know that education is part of the answer.

Christopher Columbus did not discover America; it was already here and home to Native Americans.

The Pilgrims did not come here seeking religious freedom; they destroyed the religion the Native Americans had and imposed their own.

Slaves were not brought to America. The ship captains captured free people and enslaved them once they were onboard.

Slavery has ended, but the long-term effects still linger.

Now is definitely not the time to hinder truth teaching. We can’t keep playing and dancing around the truth. If not now, when?