My quest to sleep in every former slave dwelling in the US

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About this talk

Behind the "big house" in pre-Civil War America, there was often another house, smaller, rougher, and filled with chattel slaves, people who lived and died as another person's property. It's a large piece of American history, but it's too often overlooked or even hidden. How can modern people feel the weight of this history? Joseph McGill, founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, has a direct suggestion: Spend a night where slaves once lived. "Sleeping in these places, we get the opportunity to make these connections to our past," he says. "They're telling the whole story."