Description: Winner of the 2025 Phillis Wheatley Book Award. "Payne-ful" Business: Charleston's Journey to Truth follows Margaret Seidler's mission to learn and process her family's genealogical past. Using extensive research and personal experience, Seidler discusses the realities of Charleston's racial history while highlighting the historians, journalists, and community members who work to reconcile these truths. The book features authentic, historic slave advertisements brought to life by vivid paintings by artist John W. Jones that uncover the humanity hidden beneath the detached advertisement descriptions. Seidler hopes that acknowledging a more complete truth about our past will motivate us to bridge today's racial divide.
