The Dillon County Theatre presented Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery on Thursday, February 6, at 7:00 p.m. The speakers were Herb Frazier and Joseph McGill, Jr., South Carolina Department of Humanities.
Dillon County Theatre Pat Laird welcomed everyone to the event and introduced the speakers.
Joseph McGill, Jr. began the presentation.
He is the founder of the Slave Dwelling Project in Charleston, S.C. By arranging for people to sleep in extant slave dwellings, the Slave Dwelling Project has brought much needed attention to these often-neglected structures that are vitally important to the American-built environment.
Mr. McGill has conducted over 250 overnights in approximately 150 different sites in 25 states and the District of Columbia. He has interacted with the descendants of both the enslaved communities and of the enslavers associated with antebellum historic sites. Mr. McGill is co-author of the book: Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery.
Herb Frazier is a Charleston, South Carolina-based writer. He’s the special projects editor for The Charleston City Paper, and the former marketing director at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston. Before he joined Magnolia, Herb edited and reported for five daily newspapers in the South, including his hometown paper, The Post and Courier.
Herb’s latest book, Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery, is a collaboration with Joseph McGill, founder of the Slave Dwelling Project. Herb’s forthcoming book, Crossing the Sea on a Sacred Song, tells the story of an African funeral song that links a Georgia family with a woman in Sierra Leone.
The Dillon County Theatre is located at 114 North MacArthur Avenue, Dillon, S.C.
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Photos by Johnnie Daniels/The Dillon County News, LLC
