by Joseph McGill | Jun 11, 2017 | Blog Posts
Sometimes things don’t always go as planned. I had developed my routine for responding to inquiries about visiting antebellum historic sites with the intent of sleeping at them. Just when I had gotten comfortable with that way of doing business, right around 2013, I...
by Joseph McGill | Jun 7, 2017 | Blog Posts
Inalienable Rights: Living History Through the Eyes of the Enslaved is a program the gives the Slave Dwelling Project the opportunity to conduct living history programs at antebellum historic sites. The Slave Dwelling Project has assembled African American living...
by Joseph McGill | Jun 6, 2017 | Blog Posts
Remaining relevant factors into staying power. To remain relevant, one must evolve. While some are just catching on, the act of sleeping in extant slave dwellings is an old concept for me. Giving others the opportunity to share that experience with me is one element...
by Joseph McGill | May 30, 2017 | Blog Posts
There are times when you get into something so deeply that you lose all sanity. Sometimes when trying to get to the result, you neglect to plan the necessary steps to get there. This way of living can often put you in situations where you have to make mind blowing...
by Joseph McGill | May 27, 2017 | Blog Posts
The chattel slavery footprint that consumed this great nation is vast and not just relegated to southern states as assumed by many of whom I come in contact. It is the intent of the Slave Dwelling Project to identify and acknowledge the built environment that can help...
by Joseph McGill | May 11, 2017 | Blog Posts
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Holly Springs, Mississippi has been beneficial for the Slave Dwelling Project. I have been participating in the Behind the Big House Tour for the past six years of its entire existence. What started as a partnership...
by Joseph McGill | Apr 25, 2017 | Blog Posts
My sleepover at Dickinson Plantation in Dover, Delaware had a lot of moving parts. I first visited Dickinson Plantation two years ago with staff members of Cliveden in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On that visit, the site manager of Dickinson and I made a verbal...
by Joseph McGill | Apr 14, 2017 | Blog Posts
Some relationships keep on growing. Chris Lese is a history teacher at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I met Chris in 2012 at a Civil War conference at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. At that point, the Slave Dwelling Project...
by Joseph McGill | Apr 4, 2017 | Blog Posts
I had seen her kind before, young, energetic, enthusiastic with the penchant do the right thing only to go back to sell the idea of the Slave Dwelling Project to a board of directors whose interest is to maintain the status quo. Fairleigh Jackson is the Executive...
by Joseph McGill | Mar 5, 2017 | Blog Posts
In 2016, the Slave Dwelling Project was awarded a grant from the South Carolina Humanities Council to conduct living history programs at four sites throughout the state. More specifically, the grant enabled us to assemble a cast of African American living historians...
