Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery
Joseph McGill
(Author)
Herb Frazier
(Author)
Description
The personal account of one man's groundbreaking project to sleep overnight in the countless oft-overlooked former slave dwellings that still stand across the country, the fascinating history behind those sites, and how he has used the experiences to shed light on larger issues of race in America. Joseph McGill Jr., a historic preservationist and Civil War reenactor, founded the Slave Dwelling Project in 2010 based on an idea that was sparked and first developed in 1999. Since founding the project, McGill has been touring the country, spending the night in former slave dwellings--throughout the South, but also the North and the West, where people are often surprised to learn that such structures exist. Events and gatherings are arranged around these overnight stays, and it provides a unique way to understand the often otherwise obscured and distorted history of slavery. The project has inspired difficult conversations about race in communities from South Carolina to Alabama to Texas to Minnesota to New York, and all over the United States. Sleeping with the Ancestors focuses on all of the key sites McGill has visited in his ongoing project and digs deeper into the actual history of each location, using McGill's own experience and conversations with the community to enhance those original stories. Altogether, McGill and coauthor Herb Frazier give readers an important unexpected emersion into the history of slavery, and especially the obscured and ignored aspects of that history.Product Details
Price
$29.00
$26.97
Publisher
Hachette Books
Publish Date
June 06, 2023
Pages
352
Dimensions
0.0 X 0.0 X 0.0 inches | 0.0 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9780306829666
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About the Author
Joseph McGill Jr. is the History and Culture Coordinator for Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina, and the founder and director of the Slave Dwelling Project. Previously, as a field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Mr. McGill worked to revitalize the Sweet Auburn commercial district in Atlanta, Georgia, and to develop a management plan for the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area. He is a former executive director of the African American Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a former director of history and culture at Penn Center, St. Helena Island, South Carolina. McGill has also served as a National Park Service park ranger at Fort Sumter National Monument in Charleston. Herb Frazier is the special project editor at the Charleston City Paper. He is the author of Behind God's Back: Gullah Memories, co-author of We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel with Marjory Wentworth and Dr. Bernard Powers Jr., and co-editor of Ukwell: Searching for Healing and Truth, South Carolina Writers and Poets Explore American Racism, with the late Horace Mungin. Frazier edited and reported for five daily newspapers in the South, including his hometown newspaper, the Post and Courier in Charleston. He has led journalism workshops in Sierra Leone, Zambia, Ghana, Suriname, Guyana, and The Gambia. He was a visiting lecturer at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. Frazier is also the former marketing director at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston.
Reviews
"Scripture teaches to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly (Micah 6:8). Joe McGill walks the walk, and his hands-on, day-and-night journey inspires--one dwelling at a time. Few have done more than this determined South Carolinian to heal the scars of enslavement and lead us back--all of us--to the generations of ancestors whose unpaid labor shaped America. I feel lucky to have slept on some hard floors, seeing him stir the embers, share the meal, and invite the conversations that we all need to have."--Peter H. Wood, Duke University historian, author of Black Majority and Strange New Land
"A soul-stirring memoir by a modern-day crusader who confronts our Nation's original sin to save forgotten national historic treasures in tribute to our enslaved ancestors who dwelled in them." --Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black, Carnegie Mellon University historian and author of Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
"In this gripping personal account, Joseph McGill Jr., and Herb Frazier seek to deepen and broaden our understanding of the horrors our African American ancestors endured for generations by chronicling McGill's experiences sleeping in former slave dwellings. I firmly believe that our history must be told and should be understood if we are to avoid repeating our worst mistakes. Sleeping with the Ancestors will further that goal by serving as a tremendous historical reference from which all can learn."
--Congressman James E. Clyburn"A soul-stirring memoir by a modern-day crusader who confronts our Nation's original sin to save forgotten national historic treasures in tribute to our enslaved ancestors who dwelled in them." --Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black, Carnegie Mellon University historian and author of Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
