386 Sleeping with the Ancestors

·52 min·5 clips

On his first overnight, Joseph McGill heard a tree limb scraping the roof and imagined enslaved mothers' stolen children.

Host Liz Covart introduces a special Juneteenth episode led by colleague Ashley Bocknight, focusing on the Slave Dwelling Project. Guest Joseph McGill, founder of the project, defines slave dwellings as places where enslaved people lived, ranging from cabins to attics in northern states. He describes the project's origin, noting he changed the name from Slave Cabin Project to be more inclusive after encountering brick dwellings in Alabama. McGill discusses his background, including Air Force service and a visit to the Anne Frank House, which inspired his preservation work. He details his first overnight stay at Magnolia Plantation on Mother's Day 2010, where he reflected on the lives of enslaved people and discovered unmarked graves. McGill explains how he selects sites, including big houses where he interprets spatial segregation, and prepares for stays with basic gear. He shares reactions to his work, with some initial rejections but many invitations back. The conversation covers encounters with descendants, such as at Thomas Jefferson's site where tensions arose over Sally Hemings' relationship. McGill emphasizes the importance of including white allies in overnight stays to broaden the audience. He mentions future goals, like spending a night in the White House and international locations. McGill reflects on how the project has helped him control anger over misrepresented history and hopes his book, Sleeping with the Ancestors, encourages learning from the past. He advises others to immerse themselves in specific aspects of African-American history, such as revising National Register applications. The episode concludes with McGill discussing upcoming events and the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

As heard by us

A cemetery's faint marks bring the Slave Dwelling Project's preservation work close to the ground.

Episode 386 frames preservation as a practical way of keeping difficult history visible. For Juneteenth, Ashley Bocknight turns to the Slave Dwelling Project and its work to raise awareness of slave dwellings and related structures in the United States, along with the need to…

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You can follow a cemetery's faint burial marks into the living work of preserving slave dwellings.

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