In a nation where numerous museums tell the story of the black experience - indeed the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture opens in Washington next year - Charleston's promises to be different. "The extraordinary thing we have in Charleston is the authenticity of place - a place whose power has never been recognized," says noted museum exhibit designer Ralph Appelbaum, whose work includes the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. The wharf was built by Revolutionary War leader Christopher Gadsden, also known for designing the yellow rattlesnake flag of the period with the legend "Don't Tread on Me." When the British left Charleston in 1783 after the end of the war, they embarked from Gadsden's wharf.