Sleeping with the Ancestors

January 1, 2023

As founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, McGill--a former field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation--travels throughout the entire country to spend the night in former slave dwellings. His efforts, and the events surrounding them, are meant to deepen our understanding of enslavement in the United States and highlight often hidden history. With a 25,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 10, 2023
As the founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, historic preservationist McGill has not only raised funds and awareness in support of the preservation of enslaved people’s dwellings but has stayed overnight in more than 200 of these structures across 25 states. He recounts these visits in a far-ranging and vibrant account (coauthored with journalist Frazier) that effortlessly shifts between personal recollections of McGill’s own life, including time spent as a Civil War reenactor that helped develop his appreciation for historic buildings and detailed descriptions of his overnight visits; focused micro-histories of the far-flung regions of the U.S. that are the sites of these dwellings; and the intimate stories of the enslaved people who lived in them, such as Sterling Jones, the last person to live in a slave cabin on the grounds of Virginia’s Sweet Briar College, which opened in 1906 with marketing materials that included promotional photos of the “picturesque” cabin. This highly readable chronicle emphasizes that slavery was truly a national phenomenon in antebellum America (slave accommodations were located not only on Southern plantations but in all major cities) and reclaims the meaning of these “sacred spaces” of African American history. The result is both an enthralling narrative and a powerful educational tool.

Starred review from July 1, 2023
Memoir by the creator of the Slave Dwelling Project, by which McGill has traveled across the country sleeping in the remains of the quarters that once housed enslaved people. McGill's work history began as a National Park Service ranger at Fort Sumter National Monument, where the Civil War is said to have begun, a matter involving considerable diplomacy considering the number of visitors of Southern ancestry and even neo-Confederate leanings who visited the site. Whenever he could, he writes, "I pointed south to Morris Island to direct visitors to the nearby island where Black Union soldiers in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment followed orders to engage the Confederates in a doomed assault on Battery Wagner." McGill also engaged in the hobby of Civil War reenactment, which earned him a spot in the late Tony Horwitz's book Confederates in the Attic. After military service, McGill more formally entered the world of historical interpretation, preserving a historic school for formerly enslaved children and then directing an African American museum in Iowa. Working for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, McGill hit on what he originally called the Slave Cabin Project, sleeping in historic, often ramshackle structures on plantations and farms and using it as a vehicle to teach students the history of slavery. Writing with veteran journalist Frazier, McGill is deeply empathetic both in addressing the plight of the ancestors and attempting to engage with Southerners (among them fellow reenactors) who profess the view that they're simply honoring their heritage by wanting to preserve monuments and flags. That may be so, he notes, but he is vigorous about countering their false narrative that the Civil War was all about states' rights and not about slavery. "While I have received widespread support, I have also been criticized for my direct approach," he writes--but, thankfully, the criticism hasn't deterred him from continuing his educational project. A thoughtful, deeply humane addition to African American history.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.