Cultural Conversation: A Bridge to Truth and Connection

The African American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC) will host a special Cultural Conversation on the evening of September 6, 2025, to officially open the exhibition "To Be Sold: Enslaved Labor and Slave Trading in the Antebellum South." The launch event is a compelling program that explores how truth-telling and an openness to difficult conversations about our shared history can create new paths toward healing and racial reconciliation.

The conversation features Sen. Mia S. McLeod and Margaret Seidler, two women whose lives and family histories are linked by the painful legacy of slavery and whose relationship demonstrates the possibility of civility and connection across racial lines. In 2020, Margaret, a white Charleston native whose genealogical research revealed a legacy of slave trading in her family, reached out to Mia’s family via their funeral home website. Mia, a trailblazing Black legislator from South Carolina, had just lost her father, her family’s historian, and felt compelled to answer the message. What followed was a transformative phone call between two women with a shared desire to, listen, learn and reckon with the truth. They discovered hidden family stories and confronted the emotional impact of the Mother Emanuel tragedy. Their relationship has become a living example of courage and common ground.

This program invites audiences to consider how personal history, public memory, and civic dialogue can help us reimagine our shared future.

This program is presented in collaboration with the Partners for Racial Justice.

Host or Publisher South Florida Book Festival