The Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture is a division of the College of Charleston library system. The center is located on the site of the former Avery Normal Institute in the Harleston village district at 125 Bull Street in Charleston, South Carolina. This historic secondary school trained Black students for professional careers and leadership roles, and served as a hub for Charleston’s African-American community from 1865 to 1954. In 1978, the alumni of the Avery Normal Institute, led by Lucille Whipper, formed the Avery Institute of Afro-American History and Culture. They worked with the College of Charleston to establish the Avery Research Center in 1985 to preserve the legacy of the Avery Normal Institute and educate the broader community about the history and culture of African Americans in Charleston, the South Carolina Lowcountry, and South Carolina at large. The Avery Research Center provides access to digital and physical archival collections, offers guided tours, hosts workshops, presents lectures and performances, and features physical and digital museum exhibitions. The Avery Research Center Archives currently hold over six thousand primary- and secondary-source materials that document the history, traditions, legacies, and influences of African Americans. History Avery Normal Institute, 1865–1954 A school for African American students was founded in Charleston in 1865 by the New York-based American Missionary Association (AMA). The school was initially named the Tappan School in honor of New York abolitionist Lewis Tappan, a founding member of the American Missionary Association. It was soon renamed the Saxton School after Union General Rufus B. Saxton, an assistant commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau. The school eventually became the Avery Normal Institute, the first accredited secondary school for African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina. It soon expanded to offer an important teacher education program. Initially, the school was temporarily located in several buildings appropriated by the federal government in Charleston during Reconstruction. Northern white missionaries and members of Charleston’s antebellum free Black community staffed the school. Thomas W. Cardozo was the school’s first principal. After a controversy emerged from his time as an educator in New York, Francis Cardozo took over as the second principal and served from 1866 to 1868. Cardozo campaigned to construct a permanent building for the school, and he persuaded the AMA’s traveling secretary, E. P. Smith, to seek $10,000 from the late Reverend Charles Avery’s estate in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With additional aid from the Freedmen’s