"Payne-ful" Business: An Accidental Historian with Margaret Seidler and John W. Jones

Описание: December 10, 2025
Presentation begins at 7:34

Learn more: https://payne-fulbusiness.com/
"Payne-ful" Business: Charleston's Journey to Truth is available for purchase from Buxton Books: https://www.buxtonbooks.com/item/DGSB...

About Margaret Seidler:
In 2018, Margaret Seidler, a native Charlestonian, discovered much deeper local roots than she ever knew. DNA testing unearthed distant cousins of African descent; a request from a newly revealed cousin to find common ancestors sparked a first ever interest in genealogical research.

Seidler was shocked to find three additional generations of Charlestonians who arrived in 1758, all in the business selling enslaved human beings. Her 5th great-grandfather, Johns Torrans, an Irish merchant, participated in the Transatlantic Slave Trade; he transported hundreds of captive Africans to Charleston. Her 4th great-grandfather, William Payne, made his living in the heretofore largely unexplored realm of Charleston’s Domestic Slave Trade. Payne was the largest auctioneer in the first three decades of the 19th century.

On page 107 of Seidler’s 2024 book, “Payne-ful” Business: Charleston’s Journey to Truth, she details the book’s mission to: “Accelerate Racial Healing through sharing a more complete history of Charleston while supporting others in their acknowledgement of the whole truth and in taking steps to bridge today’s racial divide.”

About John W. Jones:
Born in 1950 in Columbia, SC, John W. Jones has worked as a freelance artist and illustrator for close to 3 decades. Former clients include Time Life Books, IBM, Rubbermaid, NASA, Goddard Space and Flight Center, and the US Postal Service.

Mr. Jones explores life through art. His goal is to paint the African American experience starting with the slave trade in African to the pre-Civil War era. His pioneering book, Confederate Currency, the Color of Money, was published in 2003. There engraved images from confederate money are lifted up to reveal scenes of the labor of slavery that had been lost in time.

Mr. Jones has received several awards, including merit awards for his works in the 1998 and 1999 Piccolo Spoleto Festival Art Show. Jones was presented with the U.S. Consul General’s Award for Cultural Diplomacy by the Academia delle Belle Arti of Brera in Italy in April 2017.

John W. Jones has donated these images to “Payne-ful” Business because of a shared purpose with author, Margaret Seidler.