Downtown Charleston (population 80,414) preserves classic wood-frame houses, elegant churches and streetscapes that remind us of its colonial power in the coastal “Low Country” its connections to the West Indies and the antebellum divisions of master and slave. Continuing divisions between black and white underscore both conservatism and conflict in Southern society although generally far away from tourist eyes. Charleston is also a military center, with multiple naval facilities as well as the Citadel, a military college forced to admit women in the 1990s.