A powerful hurricane tore through the South Carolina Lowcountry in August 1893, leaving those who survived with a devastated landscape. In the aftermath of the Great Sea Island Storm, as it came to be known, a partnership formed between Clara Barton’s American Red Cross and African American residents of the Lowcountry. The two groups worked together to organize and restore the homes, fields, and lives of those who survived. This exhibit tells their recovery story. Through the newly formed American Red Cross, relief efforts after a natural disaster became organized and effective. And yet in the post-Reconstruction Lowcountry, they also brought racial tensions to the surface. This exhibit also explores how Black citizens and the Red Cross, as they conducted emergency relief work, dealt with the backlash from local white landowners and politicians. Through an interactive map, this exhibit also provides visual documentation of the incredible scope of labor that Black South Carolinians undertook to restore their remote coastal homes.  Published April 2026.