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Joseph McGill is a program officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in South Carolina. But that's only his day job. On the side, McGill is a Civil War reenactor who has recently begun sleeping in former slave cabins. In fact, since May of this year, he's dozed off in six of the East Coast's tiny, wooden shacks.
For each overnight stay, McGill brings a sleeping bag, pillow, flashlight, whistle and a club. The club is for protection against nature's critters, not humans (or uninvited ghosts, for that matter). With these possessions in tow, he saunters into the cabin, lies down and tries his best to fall asleep.
Despite the strangeness and, dare we say, spookiness, of this task, McGill explains that getting solid Zs inside the various slave cabins has actually become easier over time.
"I am alone with my thoughts with little to no distractions," he tells Asylum. "I often think about the people who once inhabited that space and all that they endured."
He adds: "I have never been frightened, but I do get upset to think that slavery was a system that was institutionalized and state-supported."
Continue reading to learn more about McGill's project.
In addition to trying to briefly re-live (one of) the experiences of slaves, McGill's goal is to spread awareness about the actual cabins themselves.
"My overall mission for this project is to bring much needed attention to these structures," he tells us. "There have been many slave cabins that have been restored, but there are several that have not been restored, and this project can help identify those."
Some of the structures he's stayed in include Goodwill Plantation, a privately owned and restored all-wood cabin just east of South Carolina's capital of Columbia, the infamously haunted Magnolia Plantation and McLeod Plantation, both of which are near Charleston.
The project has no expiration date, says McGill. He plans to sleep in as many as he can and even urges others to call and invite him to stay in cabins that exist on their property.
"This is bigger than me and bigger than South Carolina," McGill states. "If I could do this for the rest of my life, I would." Read more about the project here.
Photographs from Magnolia Plantation in North Charleston:
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Comments:
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Wednesday 25 August
By Joseph McGill
Thank you for your support.
Reply
Thursday 26 August
By G. Massey
What a great story, I am impressed by your total life experience, something most of us will never be able to do. Keep up the good work. At some point have you thought of being inner-city youth to share this experience?
Thursday 26 August
By sheryl
I LOVE it, the whole idea of 're-living' (if you will) our past. My great grandfather lived to the ripe young age of 114, and to this day, my biggest REGRET, was not paying more attention to his stories while he was able to tell them.
Thank you Mr. McGill... I can truly appreciate what you are trying to accomplish.
Saturday 28 August
By Tina Naugles
Mr. McGill,
I would like to know why you feel that his project is so important? I don't understand why all them should be restored. I fully understand the importance of learning ones history and reflecting on the past. However, I must be honest I don't see any real reasons that all of these properties should be restored. I mean unless you are taking our youth to them and allowing them to have the experience you are having, it doesn't seem to be productive. I would support a project that travels to these various cabins and expose our youth to what it was like. Have a full discussion and history lesson on why and how slavery became legal and profitable for the slave owners. There are so many dynamics involved here are you looking at all the possiblilites!
Wednesday 25 August
By sm11222
I understand wha he is doing. Bringing attention to a period of history that sadly manly African American and Black people in general are not learing or informed about. Hopefully his should bring some attention and hopefully a documentary.
Reply
Wednesday 25 August
By Carol Jacobsen
I believe the first picture of all the cabins is McLeod Plantation. It's owned by Historic Charleston Foundation and they are allowing the whole complex of a Southern cotton plantation to deteriorate. Check with friendsofmcleod.org to find out more and to see how you can help rescue this site that is a true heritage and cultural treasure. Thanks to Joe McGill, maybe others can see this light.
Reply
Thursday 26 August
By allie8856
This man needs to get a life and move on, He never nor did his parents or grand parents pick cotton.People liveing in the past never succede.
Reply
Thursday 26 August
By Gladys
Are you about 12, because I did pick cotton in Alabama (most people in the commmunity over 12 did), prior to the 1970's (and I suspect beyond) many Blacks in the south picked cotton. Do your reseach instead of picking up talking points, try a dictionary and look up the word "sharecropper", geez. Go the the Jewish institutions, American Indians and tell them to "move on", go tell those with the defunk conferderate flags to "move on" and the Hitler worshippers, give me a break.
Thursday 26 August
By joan clavon
how low can you go our histroy is important to our children and this nation you get a clue remember and never forget to tell the truth of our history the day we do they will have won.we are not allowed to forget the jews we are not allowed to forget the english or the hispanic why should you be ashamed or allowed to forget? if it helps one black child become better stronger prouder and more confident i say tell it.
Friday 27 August
By CJ
Read this artical "Real Estate Firm Puts Up a Sign for Whites Only' - BV Black Spin. perhaps you'll understand our pass is in front of us.
Saturday 13 November
By Jackie Harvey
To Allie8856
Your presumptions are ignorant(destitute of knowledge)and reveal you to be fully without comprehension of the facts about slavery. Slavery is not a "long ago minor aberration in American history," the demons of which cannot be "gotten over" As to moving on, the African American descendants of slaves acheived remarkable success inspite of prejudice road blocks, both legal and illegal. Post-slavery racism in the form of Jim Crow laws were so successfully repressive that officials of South Africa came to America to study them so as to be adopted as their apartheid system. Successful and internationally renown actor Denzel Washington identified himself as "ex-slave." Many African Americans are not far removed slavery. Indeed my own grandfather was born a slave. Slavery is America's shame, not enslaved. Slaves were victims of torture, abuse and, very often, murder. We are the "ex-slave" descendants of a people who survived the violent, vile and contemptible society. We take great pride in our heritage and our ability to succeed is undeniable.
Monday 30 August
By Skip
Come visit the south, please. How do you know how old this guy is? I am 62, and not only did I pick cotton, I chopped it also. It was a way of life for my parents and grandparents. It was the way we made our living. Beside share cropping for the male and domestic work for the women, these were practically the only jobs that paid a pretty good amount of money. Not meaning to be rude, but since you make unfounded statements, check your grammar and spelling. "This man needs to get a life and move on, He never nor did his parents or grand parents pick cotton.People liveing in the past never succede." We relive the past in order to recognize and appreciate the future. We know where we came from, therefore, we know where we can go, and how to succeed.
Sunday 29 August
By cindy07
Mr. McGill is older than I am, and even I managed to pick cotton as a youth. We would rise early in the morning and catch the cotton bus that took us to the large farms that produced cotton here in the TN, AK, MS area. When I first did it it was $3 per day; the last time that I did it I was in 11th grade and the pay was $5.00/day. Cotton wasn't the only type plantation that existed. There was rice and sugar can in other parts of the south, including the Carolinas. I think this is great and does help draw attention to a relic that could be gone in a few years if we don't salvage them!!
Thursday 26 August
By Igby
You're vapid, Allie. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I tell my students this every chance I get, and I live by it. It is important to preserve and appreciate all history in order to "move on," or we make the same mistakes at everyone's peril.
It chagrins me that you suggest McGill gets a life, when he actually has. What the hell have you done to enrich your life or someone else's?
McGill wasn't finger-pointing or ruminating; he's living a unique experience and invited others to partake so that they, too, could appreciate the sacrifice and dehumanization the slaves suffered. After all, when was the last time you worked from sunrise to sunset, got your ass beat and didn't get paid?
Furthermore, cotton picking still prevails as one of the most lucrative, yet underpaid, forms of labor in the American South. There's a reason why the industry is called King Cotton: it rules its poor laborers without mercy. Yes, it is possible that I, my mother, or my grandmother worked the fields. My grandparents were sharecroppers, stuck in slavery without the benefit of chains.
When you learn how to spell S-U-C-C-E-E-D correctly, then further educate yourself and stop running off at the mouth until you know what the hell you're talking about.
Class dismissed.
Reply
Thursday 26 August
By G. Massey
sentence should have read: BRINGING inner city youth, not BEING, LOL
Reply
Thursday 26 August
By Sally
Allie, I really do feel sorry for you! I also pity you.
Reply
Thursday 26 August
By sheryl
....and people who can't spell, shouldn't judge the actions of others. If you don't learn from your history, you'll be doomed to repeat it.
Reply
Thursday 26 August
By Arnel
It's obvious that you are white because you are so insensitive to others. One's Remembering there ancestors, history and their plights is not living in the past. What's living in the past here is your attitude. The Jews remember the Holocaust and rightfully so. And everyone else seems to remember their ancestors except for bigots like you who put their elders in nursing homes, rob all of their money and forget about them. I wonder what group of people do this? Idiots like you, that's who.
Why are people like you always writing some insensitive stupidity when people are having constructive dialogue about things that concern them? If you don't like the content or are a racist as you obviously are, go elsewhere or keep you dumb comments in your dumb head.
Reply
Friday 27 August
By mike4ever
What this person is doing is a history for children who do not know what slavery was all about or how they lived. He is not living in the past but into days society our generation need to know where they come from, the good and the bad so they can understand why their parents work so hard to get them to get a good education and to work for what they need.
Just like any other race, the black has a history that need to be told and told correctly. If we don' exposed our young people to their heritage we are doing them an injustice.
The only people who disagree with him are the ones who feel a guilt because they want it to be that way again. You see our foreparents had a dream and that dream was for their children and the future generation, to hold their head up high. They taught us how important it was to learn new things everyday and to work to improve what we learn.
The majority of the blacks in the south did work in the cotton field for the white and then go home and work in their own cotton field. Besides cotton, tobacco was the next on the list. These jobs were not easy, but they did it and they did a good job for it.
My grandparents in SC worked in the cotton field, raise their own cotton, plant their own garden and raise their own animals for food. They instill in their children valuable lessons, starting with believing in God, then for them to know that they are important just as anybody else. They taught us to respect and treat people the way we would want to be treated.
African American families never turn anyone in need away, including the white man. They would share what ever they had with anyone. You see blacks have had reasons to hate the white race and turn the tables on them, but instead, they keep working hard to prove something to themselves and other people.
We have spent so much time putting down every race without walking in their shoes, hate is a dangerous tool and only a fool would hate. Time and time again when ever another race have been in slavery, they have proven just how strong willed they were. Slaves black or white, were whipped, burn, branded, children taken away from them and treated like animals but they overcame that and made great contribution to American. Look around and you can see some of the things that we use everyday were made by people of color. Building got built on the sweat and tears of all people who ever been in slavery.
Now we all are in slavery and this slavery will be with us until we die and that is the slavery of greed. We never get enough of anything, we want more and more things that we do not need and now our country is a disaster. We did not settle to having one television, car, hour, computers, no party line telephone, cell phones. We stop cooking real food, instead we eat out and ruining our health in the process.
We could not settle to visit historic places in our country but we want to travel to other countries. We don't even patronize companies that make merchandise here in American, but will for anything over seas. We stop trying improve on the quality of merchandises that we have here, we have knocked down trees in order to build buildings that no one is using. Look around at all the office buildings that keep going up where there are buildings that no one is using.
We was not pleased with working long hours, no vacations days, poor health care that we kept going on strike for more money, shorter hours, better vacation time, that companies would smuggle in illegals or arrange for illegals to come here and do the dirty work that we were too proud to do. Now we want to get rid of the illegals, but we still do not want to do the work that they will do. It seems that we really cannot make our minds up what we want. When we whine and cry about stupid things and get our way then we are happy for just a little while.
We put people down for the color of their skins, how much money they have, who they worship and we still aren't happy. People have never like change and with anything that is good need a change, slavery ended and that was a good thing, no matter the reason, but we did not learn anything from that at all. The American people have always jumped into something without thinking what is going to happen years for now.
Now we are living in a time period where people want to go back to the days when the black race where treated with no respect. It is the fear of having things come true that is scaring people, because it is hard to accept that everyone is equal no matter what the color of their skin, male or female. For all the time blacks was in slavery their biggest dream was to be free and treated with respect that they show other people. The whites are afraid because that fear that now the table may turn on them and hurt that the very race that they thought they could keep down, is no longer down, but on the same level as they are.
No matter how much we may think we can do without each other we cannot. That is what God have been trying to get people to see, but people are so blind that they will not accept the fact that when thngs happen for a reason. God made Noah a promise that he would not destroyed the world by flood again but by fire, but he never said that he was going to stop sending floods and other disaster. The only time when american can come togther is when disasters happen and when it is over we forget all about it. That is not what God want, he want us to learn something from everything that happens, but we don't, we just keep doing the same things over and over. We do not want to hear people talk about global warming but it is here and we caused it, Look at places where there is little rain, fires in different parts of the country, warm weather when it used too be cold.
Reply
Friday 27 August
By alabama
mike i agree with you 100% on your outlook of slavery you said it all.