Charleston, South Carolina: The Holy City

Charleston, South Carolina really is a beautiful and interesting city. I had forgotten that it was one of the original 13 colonies from the founding of the U.S. and has many buildings dating to the colonial period.

One interesting fact is that there is a city ordinance saying that no building may be built taller than the tallest church steeple. Charleston is known as the “Holy City” because of it’s religious tolerance and the abundance of places of worship. Though the history of Charleston’s nickname is hotly debated, one thing remains clear: it’s home to one of the largest concentrations of churches in the U.S. (including some of the country’s oldest congregations). It is worth noting that this tolerance came over time- the famous Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first Black church built in 1818, faced major discrimination and hostility. State and city ordinances at the time limited worship services by black people to daylight hours, required that a majority of congregants in a given church be white, and prohibited black literacy. In 1818, Charleston officials arrested 140 black church members and sentenced eight church leaders to fines and lashes. City officials again raided Emanuel AME Church in 1820 and 1821 in a pattern of harassment. (Wikipedia).