by Joseph McGill | Mar 4, 2017 | Blog Posts
A simplistic idea of sleeping in slave dwellings has evolved into something that can help heal this great nation of its historical trauma. That historical trauma is the legacy that slavery has left on this nation. The Slave Dwelling Project is now doing far...
by Joseph McGill | Oct 29, 2016 | Blog Posts
When I attended the National Preservation Conference in Savannah, Georgia in 2014, I met Kristen Laise, Executive Director of Belle Grove Plantation in Middletown, Virginia. Kristen and some of her board members attended a Black history tour that was sponsored by the...
by Joseph McGill | Oct 9, 2016 | Blog Posts
It is always my desire to sleep in places where slave dwellings are extant. That opportunity does not always present itself, yet all efforts that interpret the existence of the enslaved Ancestors should be rewarded. My opportunity to spend a night on Edisto Island,...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 29, 2016 | Blog Posts
I get the most pushback when I tell people that I have slept in extant slave dwellings in five northern states. Those five states being Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. There is pride associated with the ties that northern states...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 25, 2016 | Blog Posts
I got the opportunity to use a slave dwelling sleepover as a teaching tool when I was called on by my former employer the National Trust for Historic Preservation to present at a Preservation Leadership Training that they were conducting. The event was cosponsored by...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 11, 2016 | Blog Posts
While this nation was engaged in its Civil War, slavery still existed in our nation’s capital of Washington, DC. Slavery did not end there until April 1862. It is highly likely that structures built in Washington, DC before 1860 were built and/or lived in by enslaved...
