Sometimes the places I lay my head in former slave dwellings throughout this nation is dictated by invitations to participate in conferences. That was the case when in 2017, I accepted invitations from two of my colleagues to participate on panels at the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) conference. That is if the proposals were accepted. Well, they both were accepted. This acceptance came with no financial incentive, so I had to find creative ways to make it happen on a limited budget.
Panel I: Crowdsourcing Slavery Interpretation Challenges: With nearly a century of combined experience to draw on, this panel will address interpretive conundrums surrounding slavery or its legacies that YOU bring to the conference. Email your site’s problem to Kristin@ interpretingslavery.com. The panel will facilitate a brainstorming session with the audience to help find a solution. Chair: Dan Yaeger, Executive Director, New England Museums Association, Arlington, MA.
Panel II: Consequences Be Damned! Slavery Remembered and the Risk of Acknowledging Hard Truths: As historic sites and museums continue to take steps to include the lives of enslaved men, women and children, three organizations serve in helping raise awareness and recognize the enslaved. Delivering such truths does come with some consequences. Hear these professionals talk about their projects and the challenges they’ve faced. Chair: Nicole A. Moore, Manager of Education and Museum Content, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA.
It was not until it was time to register and make the travel arrangements that I realized that I should look for extant slave dwellings in and around Kansas City, Missouri, where the conference was held. Although Missouri was a slave state, the concept of Brother against Brother played itself out within its boundaries during the Civil War, because it sent more men to serve the Union than the Confederacy. Missouri also dealt the Slave Dwelling Project one of its worst defeats when a private owner of a slave dwelling decided to tear it down rather than restore the building. In the past, I stayed in slave dwellings in Lexington, Pilot Grove, St. Genevieve and St. Louis, Missouri. I also stayed in a building in LeCompton, Kansas.
My first call was to the John Brown Museum in Osawatomie, Kansas. I visited there earlier this year with a group from Marquette University High School located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For the past five years, I have been meeting this group at various places throughout the United States and sleeping in slave dwellings with them. We left the John Brown Museum with a verbal commitment from the director that we could spend a night there in the future. Well, I had high hopes for the site, but, as is common, the bureaucrats were not buying what I was selling and denied my request.
Eli Hopkins House
On that same visit to Kansas with the group from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I met Alan Shirrell, the owner of Old Stone House Along the Oregon Trail Conservancy or the Eli Hopkins House in Tecumseh, Kansas. Eli Watkins enslaved people and Alan has documentation of same. Alan played the role of John Brown in a reenactment that I witnessed in LeCompton. The reenactment was based on the debate to decide if Kansas would be a slave or free state. Alan told me about plans he had for renovating his historic site which was a bed and breakfast. Additionally, he wanted to make the site a museum which would interpret slavery at that site and in Kansas. According to Alan, Kansas is much more apt to interpret its effort to become a free state, slavery, not so much. I took him up on the invitation that he gave me to spend a night at the Old Stone House Along the Oregon Trail Conservancy. When I made the request for the sleepover, he immediately said yes.
John Wornall House
My second request was to the John Wornall House Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. I made a cold telephone call and began to state my case to Sarah Bader – King, Director of Public Programming and Events. Before I could finish my request, I heard this statement from Sarah: “I know who you are, sure you can spend a night here.” So, it was set, now I could participate in the AASLH conference, save two nights on hotel expenses and carry out the mission of the Slave Dwelling Project.
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Tecumseh, Kansas
he Old Stone House Along the Oregon Trail Conservancy is currently being renovated. There are no extant slave dwellings on the site. Because this was a privately owned residence, there was no fanfare involved in this sleepover. Alan has the history of the site well documented and I had a great time hanging out with him and his family touring the grounds, house, eating pizza and engaging them in conversation about Kansas and slavery. He wanted my advice on his plans to make the site a bed and breakfast again and additionally a museum. Giving that advice was well worth the free night that I would stay in his home. So, now Alan and I are talking about a future visit and making it a public event. Stay tuned.
John Wornall House
John Wornall House
The John Wornall House Museum in Kansas City took the opportunity for the sleepover to a new level. Despite the late notice, they made the sleepover a part of the AASLH conference by offering the participants a chance to engage in a conversation with me and Diane Mutti-Burke, Director of UMKC’s Center for Midwestern Studies at the site before the sleepover. Sarah even gave it a fancy title: A Country Divided: The Legacy of Slavery in Missouri and the United States. Additionally, for a fee of $25.00 participants could spend the night at the site. Because of the late notice, no one from the conference took advantage of any of those opportunities, but fifteen or so locals engaged with me and Dr. Burke in a conversation about slavery locally, statewide and nationally. After the conversation, everyone including the staff left, leaving me there to sleep alone. I found this interesting because the week before, I was in St. Louis where I slept alone at a house museum, but I slept outside under a gazebo.
Oh yes, the conference, the sessions of which I participated: Crowdsourcing Slavery Interpretation Challenges and Consequences Be Damned! Slavery Remembered and the Risk of Acknowledging Hard Truths was very well attended with lots of question asked during the Q & A periods.
Operating a nonprofit on a limited budget takes creative thinking. The Stewards of the Old Stone House Along the Oregon Trail Conservancy and the John Wornall House Museum came through in big ways to make this happen. In was helpful that the Slave Dwelling Project has built a reputation that allows it to make last minute calls to sites of enslavement and still be welcome for a sleepover. In both cases, both sites gave me total unlimited and unsupervised access. Thank you enslaved Ancestors for guiding the path.