The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities is planning a 10-day trip this fall to historic sites throughout Georgia and South Carolina.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 4, 2005

BY ELIZABETH GUDRAIS
Journal Staff Writer

The cemetery featured in the book and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. A house where the Declaration of Independence gained a signature and where George Washington stayed. A site where slaves were once bought and sold. A house spared by Union Gen. William T. Sherman's soldiers, during the Civil War, because the owner lied and said the house was a smallpox hospital. A walking tour entitled, "Slavery and Freedom," and another with a theme of ghosts and the spirit world.

These are among the items on the itinerary of "Where History Lives," an upcoming trip that will take Rhode Islanders to Georgia and South Carolina for 10 days.

The trip, organized by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, takes place from Oct. 31 to Nov. 9. It costs $2,780 per person, double occupancy, with a $600 single supplement. The price includes round-trip airfare, lodging, activity admission and some meals.

The group will stay three nights at the historic Planters Inn Hotel in Savannah, and six nights at Charleston's Vendue Inn, which offers a grand view of the harbor and easy access to the city's historic district. The schedule includes stops in Washington and Beaufort, Ga., and visits to many sites significant to African-American heritage.

The humanities council chose the destination in part due to The Providence Journal's series, "The Priscilla Project," which ran in the newspaper in February and told the story of a young woman from Sierra Leone sold to a slave ship from Newport and, in turn, to a South Carolina rice planter. Joseph Opala, an anthropologist who studied her story and is working on a documentary film about her, helped plan the itinerary.

The trip is part of the RICH Travels program. Last year, the program took a group to Mexico City and San Miguel de Allende during the "Day of the Dead" celebrations.

Booking is through the Yankee Travel agency, 682 Kingstown Rd., Wakefield. For information, contact Risa Gilpin, tour leader and RICH program director, at (401) 273-2250 or risa [at] rihumanities.org.