The 2.3-acre waterfront construction site for Charleston, S.C.’s $100-million International African American Museum (IAAM) is often referred to as “hallowed ground,” and rightfully so. Beginning in the late 1760s, the site was part of Gadsden’s Wharf, the disembarkation point for tens of thousands of enslaved Africans brought to the U.S. until federal law shut down the slave trade in 1808. As many as 80% of African Americans alive today can trace their ancestry to those brought ashore at the Charleston wharf, making it, in the . . .