Delegation from Guinea visits where slaves landed

SULLIVANS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — A top official of the west African nation of Guinea choked back tears while touring an exhibit about the Atlantic slave trade on the South Carolina coast.

Ahmed Cisse (AH med SEA say) visited Fort Moultrie Wednesday near the location where African slaves were once kept in quarantine houses before being sold to planters in nearby Charleston. The island is where tens of thousands of slaves first stepped on North American soil

Cisse is working to document and preserve sites related to the slave trade in Guinea and wanted to know more about how Americans deal with the painful history of slavery.

The visit was arranged by University of South Carolina anthropologist Ken Kelly, who has been working to uncover more of the slave connection between South Carolina and Guinea.