Sleeping with the Ancestors How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery

by McGill Jr., Joseph; Frazier, Herb

• ISBN13: 9780306829666
• ISBN10: 0306829665
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-06-06
• Publisher: Hachette Books

Summary

In this enlightening personal account, one man tells the story of his groundbreaking project to sleep in former slave dwellings—revealing the fascinating history behind these sites and shedding light on larger issues of race in America.

Since founding the Slave Dwelling Project project in 2010, historic preservationist Joseph McGill Jr. 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. 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. 

Together, McGill and coauthor Herb Frazier give readers an important emersion into the history of slavery, and especially the obscured and ignored aspects of that history.

Contains a new afterword and reading group guide.

 

Author Biography

Prior to his current position as founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, Joseph McGill was a field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He is the former executive director of the African American Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and the former director of history and culture at Penn Center, St. Helena Island, South Carolina. McGill was also a park ranger at Fort Sumter. He appears in the book Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. He is also a member of the South Carolina Humanities Council Speakers Bureau and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Professional English from South Carolina State University. 

Journalist Herb Frazier is the author of Behind God’s Back: Gullah Memories. He is a co-author of We Are Charleston: Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel with Marjory Wentworth and Dr. Bernard Powers Jr. Frazier’s forthcoming book, Crossing the Sea on a Sacred Song.