Highlighting Slaves' Poor Living Conditions, One 'Sleepover' at a Time

Give Joseph McGill some credit for keeping the faith.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation employee will be doing some hard yards this year to call attention to the plight of enslaved African-Americans during this, the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War. McGill is continuing a program he began last year, when he slept in former slave cabins in order to highlight the terrible conditions endured by many slaves. His unique project had him endure nights in 2010 on the ground in Alabama and South Carolina. This year, the "sleepovers" will take place in Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas.

It's all part of a plan to help people remember just how horribly some people suffered at the hands of others. History, it is often said, is repeated if people don't remember the mistakes of the past. Many slave buildings have gone — the result of neglect, deterioration, or active demolition. Plantation houses remain, of course, some of them historically so; but that is a different matter.

McGill, who got the idea after sleeping in a slave cabin near Charleston, S.C., in 2010 as a Civil War re-enactor for the 54 Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment (the famed group that futilely stormed a heavily defended Fort Wagner). He is careful to take notes of his surroundings, including doing a little digging. Previous "sleepovers" have resulted in the discovery of bits of glass, bones, and other reminders of such buildings' slave past.