Retracing Their Steps

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0:44And even change you. I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading. From TED and NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. On the show today, retracing their steps. Once you cross the exit road, it's one of the most magnificent oak trees on the property. This is Joseph McGill. He's a history and culture preservationist. To the right is the magnificent white bridge that's so commonly photographed here on the property. Today, he's giving us a tour of the Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina. It's a rice farm turned tourist attraction, known for its historic buildings, lush gardens, and as a wedding venue.

1:39But Joe has also helped make sure Magnolia is known for the preservation of its slave cabins, too. These are cabins for field hands. Therefore, they would not be near the house. Right outside this cabin is a fire pit. That's where the enslaved people would have done their communal cooking. I'm looking at, this is one of four that have been restored here on the property. Back in 2010, he decided to spend the night in one of these cabins. Mostly people thought I was crazy. But I had, of course, built up the courage and I couldn't back down. He brought just a pillow and sleeping bag. It was very uncomfortable.

2:24And as he lay next to the fire and the night wore on, he listened to the sounds of the former plantation. There were peacocks on the property, and they were making noises that peacocks make. The wind was blowing that night. Eventually dozed off. But before all that could happen, those thoughts about the people, the families that were in those spaces historically. Were they thinking about the next day they had to do that repetitive work of which they could not benefit? Were they thinking about the fact that, you know, if you're a lady of the house, Your peace and solace that might exist in that space could be interrupted by the desire of the enslaver or the enslaver's son or the overseer.

3:28Your children can be taken away from you at any time. Think about running and being chased by bloodhounds. You know, were your chances better running away or should you continue to be a part of this system that enslaves you? Those kinds of things certainly were running through my head that very first night I was there at Magnolia. That night became the start of a project that has taken Joe across the country. A very simple concept to find slave dwellings wherever they are in the United States and ask the owners to spend a night for the purpose of bringing attention to these spaces. And through these buildings, we could honor the people whose labor was stolen for all of that magnificence to exist.

4:27It's still hard for many of us to talk about the history of race and inequity in America. But for others, it's become their life's passion, a way to honor their ancestors, to better know themselves, and help us all learn from the past. So today on the show, retracing their steps. Three people, each on their own unique quest to understand and shape the history and future of being Black in America. For Joseph McGill, the Slave Dwelling Project is now his life's focus. Anyone is welcome to join him. And over the last 14 years, he has covered a lot of ground. I've stayed at about 150 sites in about the 25 states and the District of Columbia.

5:18I've stayed in one, some with dirt floors, and one sold for$400 ,000, at least, if not more. Some of them are sometimes first and second homes for people. Some of them are museums. Some are used for man caves and pool houses and rental space. Oh, wow. So people may not even know that their backyard building was once occupied by enslaved people? Yeah. Yeah, for the most part, because they don't want to know. Some folks know and they just kind of shut it out. That's why they look at them more as a place of recreation. And when they're told about the slavery, then they kind of, they get a little upset.

6:03Joe says inserting atrocities into the history of beautiful buildings is necessary. And the stories are plain to see for anyone who cares to look. Folks, this beautiful city of Charleston, South Carolina, tells two stories through its architecture. Here he is on the TED stage.

6:50to the upper levels of these buildings. But also in these buildings is a second set of stairs. It's the set of stairs that'll give you access to the places of the enslaved, the places of my ancestors. My DNA has drawn me to these places. I've been spending nights on these hardwood floors, hard for a very different reason. Hard because they spread their pallets on these floors, and that's where they slept. And when I went into this space for the very first time, I thought about the people in these spaces and who built America, who built those nice, beautiful dwellings that the masters were living in, whose labor provided the wealth for those houses to be built, who cut down those logs to frame that house, who made the bricks that's now that house.

7:44It was the people in these spaces. You can help preserve these places. Because of the places I preserved, it's very hard to deny the presence of the people who live there. You say it's hard to overlook the people who were enslaved if you see where they lived. But I recently went to Thomas Jefferson's home in Virginia, and there was a real effort to make sure the enslaved people's lives were given just as much historical attention as the people who lived in Monticello's main house. Is that unusual or relatively recent? Well, there's a point where that was unusual. Well, they caught a lot of hell getting to where they are now.

8:32There were people complaining, saying that, you know, I didn't go there for that. The man is, in my mind, he's exalted. Now I'm coming here and you're telling me that the man owned 600 people and he had this relationship with Sally Hemming. And we had to bring people along kicking and screaming because there's always going to be pushback. And the story of our U.S. history is interpreted as such. Twelve of our former presidents were slave owners, eight of whom owned slaves while they were in office. They did not make that a part of the history that I learned. But some places now are actually recreating these spaces.

9:11So now there's more of that effort to preserve them. What's your estimate? I mean, how many buildings do you think there are still standing in the United States that were used to house enslaved people? Well, you know, 13 years ago, I was asked that question, couldn't answer it then. I still can't answer that question because you've got to factor in northern slavery. I get most pushback when I talk about slavery in the north because they want to talk about the Underground Railroad. They want to talk about the Union Army coming down south, the riddance of slavery. But when I talk about the period of which that state enslaved people, then they go cold on me.

9:51And when you think about slavery in northern states, sometimes enslaved people lived in the attics and in the basements. So a lot of times these spaces are saved by default. So we just don't know. There's just so many places. Oh, yeah. There are multitudes. What is it about sitting on a plantation at night around the campfire and knowing you are about to sleep in the homes of enslaved people or in the, I don't even know if you'd call them homes, in those dwellings. Tell me about what the physicality of being there, of having your body in that space does for people. It disarms you. I very seldom sleep in these places alone anymore.

10:41You know, sleeping was the easy part. That was kind of the gimmick now. The substance of what we were doing at that point, and still are, you know, are the conversations that we have around the campfire. The ability to be at these historic sites when there's not an audience, as in visitors. The ones that are more isolated, where you could have those kinds of moments, those moments are quite powerful. It gives you that green light to talk about racism and racism, white supremacy, and white privilege, and historical trauma, and weddings on plantations, and Confederate monuments, should they stay or should they go.

11:26And most of the times, most of the times, we walk away at least understanding better those things that we understood less of pertaining to race prior to, you know, coming into the conversation. I read that there was one particular conversation that you had where a young black man wanted to know about the lives of those who had lived there. And he asked you what hope might have looked like for them. Yeah. It was a young man who asked that question, and it stunned everybody. And we came to a collective conclusion that that hope was us. So hope was knowing that they would have future generations to come, that they would survive.

12:19Yeah, yeah. These people were still human. They still loved each other. They still prospered. And because they did all that, you know, I'm here to do what I do. And others who share my DNA, who look like me, are here because of their existence. And that story should be told. You know, a lot of people say that this is led by the ancestors. They're calling the shots. That's what they tell me all the time. And I'm beginning to believe it, you know. I'm beginning to believe it. That's Joseph McGill, the founder of The Slave Dwelling Project and author of Sleeping with the Ancestors, How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery.

13:06You can see his full talk at ted.npr.org. On the show today, retracing their steps. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us.

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15:15Just go to plus.npr.org slash TED or give it a try right in the Apple Podcasts app. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. Today on the show, Retracing Their Steps. stories of Black Americans looking to the past to shape their future. We just heard how one preservationist is drawing attention to the history of slavery across the country. But now we want to share a very personal story. Do you mind introducing yourself? Sure. Hi, I'm B.A. Parker. I'm one of the co-hosts of Code Switch at NPR. At NPR. Yay, my colleague. In 2023, B.A. Parker took a special trip to better understand her family's roots.

16:07She turned it into a two-part series called Honoring My Enslaved Ancestors. Your production quality, all that tape, it was such good stuff. That's great. Really beautiful. And we wanted to hear more from her about her complicated relationship with a place that fills her with mixed emotions. My family are descendants of the original 13 enslaved people who were brought to a place called the Somerset Plantation that's in Crestwell, North Carolina. My grandmother's grandmother was born there, but was freed. And so she just stayed within that region. As a kid, Parker visited her relatives in Cresswell every summer.

16:58And when she grew up and decided to become a journalist, the first person she interviewed, her grandma in the kitchen. I needed someone to talk to. Like, I had just gotten a fellowship with This American Life. And I was like, Grams, I don't know what I'm doing. Can you sit here and just tell me your life story? I appreciate you helping me, Grams. I don't know what I did. You just spoke with me. That's all. Parker's grandma was more than happy to share her life story, and as much as she knew about the men and women who'd come before her. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather were slaves there.

17:37They had their children there, some of their children there. The Blunts, Richard Blunt, Patient Blunt. Parker passed on all these tidbits to her other family members. None of my cousins knew any of this stuff. And so I got all of these text messages from all these cousins wanting to know just like our lineage. You've become the family historian. That's a lot of pressure, man. So, I mean, some people have no idea who their relatives are, but you know exactly who they are. So how did you know? Was this something that was always discussed with your parents or like what was the what was the passing down of the story?

18:22Well, during the 80s, there was a woman named Dorothy Sproul Redford who was a historian who lived in Washington County, where Cresswell is. And she was a historian that deep dived into all of the enslaved that were at Somerset. And she was very purposeful in passing along that information. So now I have all of these books and papers and census reports that Dorothy Spool Redford gave to my grandmother that my grandmother saved so that when I grew up, I could have. In 1986, Redford organized a homecoming for all the descendants of the enslaved people who had lived at Somerset. It became like a big thing in the 80s, these plantation reunions.

19:11was really inspired by the author Alex Haley and his book Roots and that big miniseries that came out in the 70s called Roots. The true story Alex Haley uncovered in his 12-year search across the seven generations of his ancestry. And that was like the first time that black families in America were allowed to take pride in their ancestors. What a hoax I felt had been pulled on me by many forces that I had gotten to be a grown man and knew next to nothing about my own people. And so that was kind of the impetus for Dorothea Spool-Ratford to go on this mission. And what happened was she created, like, this big event.

19:57And, like, my whole family went. My grandma was, like, interviewed on CBS Sunday morning. Oh, yes, it was national news. It was all across North Carolina. 1 ,000 descendants of slaves gathered today at the North Carolina plantation. Their ancestors came here as slaves, and then they farmed this land, generation after generation of them, as slaves. My mom, the biggest thing that she remembered about this big homecoming experience were these massive cypress trees on the plantation. As we were driving up to Somerset, those trees that the slaves had planted. The cypress trees? Cypress trees. They were all adorned with yellow ribbons.

20:46Even the bus got kind of quiet as we saw the yellow ribbons. Because, you know, yellow ribbons are a symbol of welcome home. And so seeing the yellow ribbons and we were like, oh, welcome home. And despite the circumstances of slavery, this is where our family began. That felt like such a beautiful sentiment that this was, I mean, home in regards to her ancestors, our ancestors, the people that she wanted to be connected to, that she is connected to, and not just the atrocities. And I think that that's the one thing Somerset taught me, the importance of knowing your ancestry. Because a lot of times, Black families can't do that.

21:58Our greatest fear is that your generation, your generation doesn't want to be there. And I think that they need to come and see Somerset. I think that they need to stand on the same grounds that their ancestors did. You know what I'm saying? I got you. Yeah.

22:26After a couple of those reunions, Parker's family didn't really go back much to the plantation. Parker only went twice, once as a toddler. To her, Somerset wasn't home. Cresswell was. That town is so rooted in my family that we have like a big farmhouse that my grandmother's father built in like 1946. And so we spend all of our time there. So that community of family, I guess, felt like enough. But a few years ago, my grandmother passed away. And I was trying to figure out the best way to honor her and my family. And so it all just somehow felt like going to Somerset felt like the logical conclusion to that process.

23:21So you and your mom decided you were going to go make a really special trip. And you recorded it. But this trip must have felt very different than previous ones because now you were going not only back to the town, but back to the plantation as a grown woman who could appreciate the passage of time with your grandma dying and your mother now the eldest generation looking to you. A really helpful thing that I had experienced at the African American History Museum was there was a panel on how to process trauma at an enslaved site. And it was like before visiting sites, gather information, practice self-care, prepare and give yourself permission and have emotional support.

24:19and then it was like during a site visit focus on your intentions and your experience people have different intentions interests and levels of reverence and practice self-care before leaving the site so only focus on your experience don't focus on anyone else's so i read this to my mom beforehand she's like we don't need that and i'm like i don't know Why do you think she said that? I think because she'd done it before, I guess. She's like, I got this. Thanks. Yeah, not to be jaded about visiting the plantation of our ancestors, but it was the first time that I was able to use all of my senses to experience the land and what I was seeing.

25:12all I could hear were like all these birds tweeting the whole time I was there it was so loud, like so sweet and you could hear the lake, you could feel the wind

25:27to process all that and having that certain level of empathy that growing up informs and being like oh okay so what was this like for Daphne for patients to experience this land, to, you know, feel this breeze, to walk these grounds. Being able to have that mindset now was really, really grounding and really humbling. So we're going to start over here. We're going to do about a 10-minute warning. A nice young woman gave us a tour of the entire site, and we went into, you know, like the plantation owner's house. And so this next room here is the office. And so Josiah would have kept all of the records for the plantation in this room.

26:15There's an account of how many people died on the plantation, but just not where they were. And that was just really heartening. And it made the place feel like hollow ground because you just didn't want to disrespect it. Their tour guide then showed Parker and her mom one of the massive canals that had been built by enslaved people at Somerset. It was the job of those 80 enslaved Native Africans to hand dig this canal. And this was a project that started in 1786. And so we see that this was a project that was proposed to take five years to complete. However, the overseers here worked these individuals so hard that it only took two and a half years.

27:07There's a story about the plantation owners, Josiah Collins. He had two sons, and two sons and two enslaved children were on canoes in the canal. In 1843, in February, two of the boys, Edward and Hugh, were canoeing in the canal with their duneslake claimants, Anderson and Zacharias. An accident occurred in which the canoe capsized and all four boys did drown.

27:45In the journal entry that someone wrote during that time, they said Dick Blunt was asked to take the children out of the canal. and Dick Blunt was my great-great-great-grandfather. That was the first time it clicked that I had family that was involved in this because we were standing on the canals, these huge, massive canals. They're empty now, but used to be full of water, dug by the enslaved people. and just thinking about that community, losing two children and having them being, you know, disregarded and processing that trauma. And, you know, my great-great-grandfather having to, like, carry those bodies out and what that evening must have been like for him and just having to go back to work the next morning as if there wasn't this great loss.

28:47I mean, it must have been devastating. and you think about i don't know i think of like epigenetics of just like all of this uh trauma that passes down from one generation to another and you know inside and just thinking about how how that physically may have traveled on. So I guess I'm wondering, you know, you had said that the goal was to figure out how to honor your grandma, your ancestors. You retraced your steps. You went back to this place. And did you leave thinking, okay, I've got the answer. I mean, honoring is all subjective. So Ma Bell, our enslaved great-great-grandmother, was buried in the family church.

29:52And the family, all of my grandmother's siblings had collected money to get a proper headstone for her to finally be buried with respect. And that was something I was also doing for my own grandmother. and the same afternoon after we left the plantation we drove down the road and went to check on my grandmother's grave and immediately when we got there I saw that it had been cemented in the span of that afternoon meaning like it had been a pile of dirt and that they had actually sealed the grave it'd been a pile of dirt for almost a year with the blue flag sticking out of it that I'd placed there that had her last name on it.

30:34And that was for them to know where to put her headstone when it showed up. Because you felt like you wanted, this was what you would have wanted, a proper headstone. Yeah. I mean, the big part of my entire summers on the farm was usually in August, we have like a big cookout in the third week of August with all of our family comes. And usually that morning, I go with my grandmother and her sister, my great aunt Louise, and we clean off all of the graves of all of our family um and it's like a big it was a big it's a big deal still is like we sweep them we pull out all the the the weeds that are sticking out if we see like bird poop we get like the windex and we all have these flowers that we have for everyone and it's like 15 people like that are in this cemetery um so like this is like the best way like just this physical like um adorning like taking care of this is the last thing you can do for the your loved one is to clean these graves and and honor them this way and to go from the plantation where uh who knows how many family members i have that are are forever lost there and to just like go 10 minutes away to just check on my grams and see if she's okay and to know that in a way like she is kind of okay because this cement slab just appeared and like my grandmother's enshrined I just had like a total breakdown in front of in front of the grave I just like being able to it was like it was a lot for that afternoon but it was just like it felt very full circle in that moment that at least this thing is okay.

32:26It's this tradition that started before I was born. And, you know, because a lot of the people who created this tradition have passed away, I do feel that pull to maintain it and have it be this tradition that honors those who've gone. And especially my grandmother, this is like Cresswell, like it's home. The fact that she gets to be buried there and have all these people to this day, you know, like honor her and love her. Like that's what I feel like my job is. I feel like to celebrate my grams. She was the the best person I knew. That's B.A. Parker. She's the co-host of NPR's Code Switch. Be sure to listen to her two-part series called Honoring My Enslaved Ancestors, and the show in general.