Penn Center

Located on beautiful St. Helena Island, at the very heart of Gullah culture, surrounded by glimmering marshes, and nestled beneath the silvery moss-draped limbs of massive live oaks… is Penn Center.

The campus of the former Penn School, the nation’s first school for formerly enslaved people, is one of the most significant African American institutions in existence today. This historic and cultural institution is a National Historic Landmark District and comprises two of the four sites in Reconstruction Era National Park.