Dr. Samantha Cutrara:        Hi everyone and welcome to the “Imagining a New ‘We’” video blog with me, Dr. Samantha Cutrara. A video series designed to help history teachers and other history educators teach history in ways that are more meaningful, transformative, and inclusive for their students.

We’re continuing our “Pandemic Pedagogy” series today, and I just want to thank all of you for your support. Again, such nice emails, like it’s such a nice direct messages on Facebook and Twitter saying how much people like this series. And I’m glad that we’ve been able to bring some big ideas about teaching and learning history to this pandemic time. And, hopefully, we cn continue the conversation when we all get back to face-to-face teaching, whenever that is.

I say that I’m always excited about the speakers I get to interview. And not only is today no exception. I am especially excited to talk to today’s person because it is someone that is doing such a transformative public history work in the United States, and I’m so inspired by these types of projects because as I’ve said in a lot of the videos, if not every video, I think that history should be a transformative subject. I think that history should be something that drives activism. And I think of Christina Llewellyn’s  video when she said the different histories that you know and the different histories that you listen to help shape your political commitments, and that’s why I’m so excited for these creative public history projects such as “The Slave Dwelling Project” that’s created and run by Joe McGill Jr.

Joe is a public historian. About 15 years ago, he started sleeping in former slave dwellings as a way to connect and narrate history of slavery in the United States. 15 years on, he has a robust education program. “The Slave Dwelling Project” is like this thing that you can interact with for classroom use, and he’s done TEDx  talks. Like I’m so excited to be able to talk to him for this humble but important — humble but important, that’s a contradiction. But both are true. This humble video series that aims to make history more meaningful, transformative, and inclusive for students.

One of the really exciting things about connecting with Joe today is that on May the 9th, he is going to be doing a live stream from a former slave dwelling. And because we can’t be in person in the same way, this live stream is kind of a new thing for “The Slave Dwelling Project”, and I’m so excited to talk with him about that. And please, please, go on Facebook, connect with the live stream and watch it on the 9th. More details will be in the video and after our interview as well. So, let’s go over to Joe.

Hi, Joe. It is so wonderful to speak with you today. I’m really, really excited that you’re able to participate in the “Pandemic Pedagogy” series. But before we start with the questions, do you want to introduce yourself and tell everyone about you and “The Slave Dwelling Project”?

Joseph McGill Jr.:        Yes, Samantha. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to this forum. My name is Joseph McGill. I am the founder of “The Slave Dwelling Project”. And “The Slave Dwelling Project” is a very simple concept. I find slave dwellings, wherever they are in these United States, and I ask the owners if I could spend the night in these spaces just to bring attention to the spaces, because there was a point in our history where we could go to a site where these buildings exist and learn all about the nice, beautiful big house, the architectural significance of the big house, you learn about the place settings, the bolted ceilings, the hardwood floors, the nice grand staircase. But what was missing from that is the stories of enslaved people. Who physically built this house? Who cut down those trees that made that house? Who made the bricks that’s now that house? Whose labour was stolen for all that house to exist? All those elements of the story on these sites, but mainly plantations were missing.

And because at the time that I created “The Slave Dwelling Project”, I was an employee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation here in the United States, and we do a beautiful job in preserving buildings, but missing element there is the enslaved people. So knowing these buildings exists and have an experience in sleeping at historical sites because I’m a Civil War reenactor and having the DNA that I have, all those things came together in this crazy idea called “The Slave Dwelling Project”. And, of course, I acquired a list from the State Historic Preservation office, South Carolina State Historic Preservation office, when I told them my intent why I wanted to acquire this list, they understood because their preservation is just like myself.

Now, I got this list from them and I started making phone calls on places I could stay, and initially, it was somewhat of a hard sell trying to convince these folks that I come in peace and I mean no harm, because if you were on the other hand of such a phone call, you would have to hesitate, you’d have to pause ‘cause you would want to know if I’m about reparations. Am I about looking for artifacts? Am I about looking for ghosts? Well, none of those above. None of the above things. It’s all about preservation. It’s all about preservation and bringing attention to these buildings where enslaved people live.

Because when the buildings are there, it’s easy to tell the stories of the people who would have it those spaces. When those buildings are gone, you would easily ignore that story. So that’s basically what “The Slave Dwelling Project” is all about.

SC:        Yeah, that’s so interesting. And I have so many questions that — drawn from those experiences, but I really want to focus this conversation on this particular moment because your work is field-based. And so, we can’t be in the field in the same way. Has this shifted the pandemic? Has it shifted your ideas about history at all during this time because you have to rethink how to engage with these ideas for the people that you do you work with?

JM:       Yeah. Well, look, for the immediate, for the now, it is certainly has changed the way I do things, the way I do business. Yeah, as you said, I can’t go physically to these places. From the middle of March up until the immediate future, actually through the end of June, all of my physicalness at these places has been eliminated. It has either been postponed or canceled. Excuse me, these have been postponed or canceled. And because of that, we have to come up with these creative ways to still engage our audience, and that creative way is social media. The way that we, you and I, are engaging right now, me still going and being at a place physically and do social media communicating with people.

So yeah, for right now, for the now, it certainly has changed drastically. I call this thing that I’m doing, I call this social distance learning.

SC:        That’s great.

JM:       Again, giving folks the opportunity to engage with us. So, in coming out of this, I see that it’s going to be different. The way we engage our audience is going to be different. And these sites are going to have to adjust accordingly, because even when we get the yellow light to go and hang out with people in places that sometimes are familiar, sometimes unfamiliar, there’s still going to be skepticism there. There’s still going to be those folks who are going to be a little nervous. Then there are going to be those who don’t care. They don’t follow the size. They just want to get out there and do what they do without regard for affecting others. But that’s another story.

But these size themselves are going to have to come to the realization. If they happened already, and I’m sure they have right now, that they’re going to have to change their way doing business. And the conversations I had with these sites now, the ones that want to postpone or even cancel is that we may put another date on the calendar this year, but as we get closer to that date, we may find out it’s not feasible. It’s not sensible. It’s not wise for me to get on an airplane and come the way you are.

And if that’s indeed the case, then we could still do something. We could still do social media. Still interact with an audience so we could concentrate on that particular site, and I’m experimenting with that right now. I’m going to be doing that this weekend. Just yesterday — well, maybe two days ago, also locked in another local site in Charleston, South Carolina. The Aiken-Rhett House. And on the last Saturday of this month, I’ll be spending the night there all alone, solo. I’ll be by myself. But that’s kinda what we’re experimenting with right now. I think that for the immediate future, that is going to be the way that “The Slave Dwelling Project” is going to operate.

SC:        Do you think the way that people will hear and learn from your project will change the way they think about history because it is going to be a remote social distance interaction, social distance learning rather than being in the space? Do you think people will change their ideas about history? Or do you think that because the project is so transformative on its own, it will still get the same messages across?

JM:       Well, I think it’s going to be a little of both, because there’s an element of those who engage in the history who were fed at history that was a revisionist. And then there are those elements of folks, a lot of them who look like myself, who refuse to set foot on a plantation because of the historical trauma involved. I think that through the methods, through social media, and Facebook Live, and Zoom, if those folks would let those guards down and let me be their eyes and ears, I think we can get to those folks.

And I don’t know if there’s anything that I can say to them at the time that I’m saying it that would convince them that it’s okay to come to these sites. It’s okay to engage with these sites. And if they just want to continue to engage in remotely, then so be it. Then engage them remotely. And but it’s up to those sites to make sure that they’re telling the right stories. That they’re telling the complete stories of these places. Not only stories about those folks who inhabit those big houses, the enslavers, but they also have to tell the stories of those who weren’t slaves. So it’s going to take ideas like this. It’s going to take folks like myself. It’s going to take other folks who live in greens. Some element of African-American history that’s been neglected in the past [inaudible 11:58] of African-American history. But it’s going to take those folks who’s going to cover that slice, that niche, and live and breathe them that part of history like myself to make sure that despite this virus, despite all of that we’re going through right now, that we build a better thing. I’ll build a better method of making sure that we disseminate a history that’s truthful and all inclusive.

SC:        I really love what you said when — well, one of the things that I heard from what you said is how that people can engage in this work in a way that perhaps they might feel more comfortable with or safer with because they don’t want to go to the site itself. And like, to me, that is so — it’s such a exciting and rich kinda take away from this COVID time. That they can actually allow for a deeper interaction or an interaction that might not have happened that was in person.

I also like that you said fed revisionist history because it is so often when people are saying that, “Oh, you can’t bring those histories in. You’re revising history.” Well, no, a white central narrative is a revisionist history, right? It’s not —

JM:       Yup.

SC:        [crosstalk] of people in the labor that built these nations, right?

SC:        Do you think the way we teach history will and should change then after this moment? Do you think people will pick up on those exciting opportunities to engage with different people in different ways? Do you think that is something people will embrace after this time?

JM:       Well, right now it’s something that’s forced upon us.

JM:       Because I know that going into the school year, no teacher thought that there would be a month into having no school or in some cases, longer than a month. None of these teachers thought that the school year was over for the year when they were told three or month ago that, “You go home today and we will figure this out.” I don’t think anybody thought that that figuring out meant that there was not going to be any school term. And right now, there are doubts that in some places, as to the — let’s see. The fall, August. Going back to school in August right now is questionable in some places. Nobody thought that. So it was kind of forced on us that we are adjusting.

If some of these things that we’re doing now are going to linger, it is mandatory that they do. But one of the problem with that is also identifying some of the disparities between the haves and the have nots. In order for folks to engage in these opportunities, they have to have the technology. Their homes have to be equipped as such. See, that also addresses the economic divide. It also addresses accumulated wealth.

JM:       You know, there are a lot of folks who comes from family who look like myself, that wealth is not there. Those computers are not there. That Wi-Fi is not in that home, so we have to deal with that. That if we want this to be a part of how we operate in the future, we have to address that. We have to deal with that. But I do see this method of interpreting at site that something that’s here to stay. I think it should be something that should be here to stay because the physicalness of these spaces and interacting with these spaces, these people being comfortable with coming to these spaces and interacting with these spaces in a manner that they did prior to the virus. I just don’t think that’s going to be around, at least not in the immediate future that it is just not there and the science is [inaudible 16:05] in that. But the problem with that is not everybody believes in science. A lot of folks are thinking about this [crosstalk].

SC:        I don’t know why it’s a problem.

JM:       You’re thinking about it economically. And you’re thinking about it economically, that’s if you want to connect the dots, you gotta look at it the way the enslavers looked at it. That’s the way they looked at it. You know, they were looking at the output. What can these people, enslaved people, get me? What can they do for me? It’s not necessarily what can I do for them, but what can they do for me?

Now, if you move forward with that same concept, you’ve got a workforce that if they expose themselves to their workplace, then they’re exposing themselves to that virus. And when you look at again the economic disparities in the fact that you get more African-Americans who are affected by this or that virus is doing more to them or chilling more of them, you go back to connecting these dots. Well, why is that? Well, the reason is because they bring to the table poor health, and you could tie this poor health to, again, the haves and the have not accumulated wealth. The wealthier you are, the healthier you are because it has to do with health care. Because in the United States health care is tied in with having a job for a lot of folks. And if unemployment has always been high or if you are part of the criminal justice system, which part of what we place slavery, slavery ended yes, but we look what we placed it. Convict labor, Jim Crow laws, and redlining, and poll taxes, all of these things were elements that these aren’t franchised the African-American community. So here’s an opportunity to connect these dots.

SC:        Yeah, I really appreciate the tie that you are making between past history of slavery in the United States with things that are happening right now politically, because I think it’s those historical links that really help generate activism and change from people to say, “Right, this isn’t this moment. This isn’t just this thing that is happening right now, it is this longer legacy.” Because like you said with accumulated wealth, it’s also like that accumulated health because also of how we can get into your DNA too, right? Like a legacy of health care and nutrition and all that. So, thank you for making those links.

I have a question about the — before I get to the last question, I do have a question about this notion of like being in the spaces ‘cause I was a living history museum interpreter once upon a time, and one of the things I really loved was this interaction between people. And one of the things I’m seeing now with some museums is that they’re creating videos in the spaces that there isn’t the same type of interaction. What do you think about that? Like, I know you’re going to do a live stream so you will be able to interact. Do you think live streams are a better way to go maybe to be able to ensure that there’s a conversation about history?

JM:       Well, it’s better than nothing. You know, we’re experimenting. We’re learning as we go. Again, we’re in a situation you either do this or you don’t. You just — I don’t mind if you don’t. And what I’m seeing, I see a lot of folks out there doing this. And anytime I see somebody out there doing this, including the stories of African-Americans, I pull that out and I put it on my Facebook page because they’re doing the right thing. They’re calling the names of these enslaved people who were a part of that site. They are telling the real story. They’re not just telling the stories about this enslaved or they are including the stories of the enslaved. So I think that any organizations that is out there doing that right now and being inclusive of the story, I think that’s a beautiful thing. And this is their opportunity to do the right thing if they haven’t been doing it in the past. I’m picking up on some of that too.

My prior history, pre-virus, if that’s the term. I don’t know if I want to start that, but I see some organizations out there that are now in these videos. They are telling those stories. The elements of the story that they should have been telling all along. And I think this opportunity of this virus has kind of put them in that place, because that old story that they used to tell, you could get on your new first few maybe one, two first videos and you could tell that story the way you’ve been telling it, but that’s going to run out.

If you want to keep your audience engaged, you’ve gotta start telling them those things you weren’t telling them before, and those things that you weren’t telling them before includes us. Now, I hope that you’re telling it in a manner that you should be telling, and I hope you’re not glorifying it in the sense that it’s gone with the wind or the hoop skirt and the medulla. I hope you’re not telling that element of the story. I’m hoping that you’re telling the real story about these people whose neighbor was stolen, who enable these enslavers to live the lives that they lived in the fact that these folks were brought over here not only for their brute strength, but their knowledge of growing rice or whatever that enslaver brought them over here for. It was just more than the physical labor in some cases, and they contributed heavily and highly to the building of this nation. I hope you’re telling those stories in this new youth that you’re now creating.

SC:        Yeah. And so — and actually, like, that makes me think too because sometimes those interactions with visitors are not positive ones. Sometimes there are people that really just want to stop the narrative of the particular point. So yeah, that’s a really good point that the videos can allow for something else. And there is somebody from another museum in Toronto that I spoke to who also said that this is an opportunity to rethink the narrative of the museum, not just the type of programming. So yeah, thank you for that.

So I’ll move to the last question. So my research is in national history classrooms. And again, I’m based in Canada. And what I found was that there are these divides that can go up, that even though Canada likes to say the word this big multicultural country and we certainly have a difference on the racial dynamics as the United States, but then no way left better that it can really exacerbate an us versus them. And one of the things that I talked about in my upcoming book “Transforming the Canadian History Classroom: Imagining a New ‘Me’”, which I just say for the Americans watching, it’s not just about Canadian history. It’s that we need to do a better job of imagining a we that is inclusive of the stories that we keep forgetting, ignoring, silencing, that we keep saying our other stories, that we keep saying our — the stories will tell after we tell the main story. And this was really influenced too a lot of these ideas by my own backgrounds living in the Caribbean as a child and living in the southern United States for a portion of the time, because I was able to see a different integration of histories than I have in Canadian history classrooms.

So my last question is, do you think that this will bring about greater opportunities for us to imagine a new me? Sometimes people are talking about the creative aspects of imagining, sometimes people talk about the community part of the we. What do you think? Do you think that this can provide more opportunities for us to imagine a new we during this time, as well as after this time?

JM:       Yeah, I think this is the time that we must imagine a new we, ‘cause I didn’t care much for that normal. That prior to this virus, hey, I could tell you a lot of bad things about that.

I often hear the term “Make America great again,” and I think, “Well, when was that? There’s an African-American person in my skin. Where was that?” Maybe the time right after the Civil War when the Freedman’s Bureau was active from 1865 to 1867 before they made that go away, maybe that was a great time in history. At least the effort was there to make this a more equitable America at least for the African-American that recently freed people of that period. But even that went away with Jim Crow laws and convict labor and all this. Yeah, this is that opportunity to pick up on that. To right those wrongs. To correct that. This 1619 Project, The New York Times —

SC:        How that surprised me, 1619 Project.

JM:       Exactly, exactly. But the thing about that is when she put that out there, and I was so proud along with a lot of other African-Americans just to see that put out there, the way that was put out there, and then of course the pushback came. That pushback, these white scholars, started pushing back. But see, what that highlighted was fact that for so long, the folks who disseminated the history to us were white folks telling us the story — giving us that white storyline, a white male narrative, is slanted towards him. Well, what this gives us, it gives us the opportunity to go back, and we address those things that we didn’t address before. Those things that we tried to sugarcoat in the past, like what we did to the natives. What we did by enslaving people. What we did during World War II in turning the Japanese. We need to put these elements in into our story, and this is the opportunity to do that. This is the opportunity to correct that wrong. And I think it took this virus to present the opportunity.

Now, it’s up to folks like us to make sure that none of that door is open, we walk through it. And we take advantage of this opportunity and add those elements to our narrative. It’s nothing new to me because I’ve been at this thing for the last 10 years, “The Slave Dwelling Project”. I’ve been doing it. It’s just that we gotta find those other folks. And I know those are the folks who are running parallel tracks. Every now and then, we merge and then we get back in our lanes and we do what we do, but we gotta continue to find these places, these sites that are doing the right thing, that have been doing the right thing. We gotta praise them. Those sites on the verge of wanting to do the right thing, but they don’t know how to do it but they want to, the desire is there, that’s good. Yes, that opportunity has that, built on that.

And the biggest challenge is going to be convincing those sites that don’t want to go there. They want to stay in that comfort zone that they’re in, they want to continue to [Video trails off] Those are the ones we gotta work on. But the thing is, that group is getting smaller, the non-conformists. Conformist in the sense that they’ve continued to push that white male narrative, that group is getting smaller.

SC:        Well, you know, one thing that you had said was like — you had said something — I can’t remember the exact phrase, but something about like this is the history that, like, white men has taught us. But we’re also learning history in our homes, right? And so, it hasn’t been the only narrative. There have been so many different parallel narratives. And I think two, being home, being with family and this is something that came up in another video in oral history is we can listen to our own family histories differently and we can challenge our historic sites to be able to make space for that, which I hear from you is such an exciting potential. So thank you for this. This was so fantastic. This was such a great way to spend 40 minutes.

JM:       Well, it’s been that long. You know, —

SC:        I know. We need to keep talking.

JM:       You know, I get on these calls and then I start them and then I say, “Oh, man, this is going to take a while.” But then we get into the conversation that you just stated, I love talking about this subject matter, especially with folks that is knowledgeable as you. I was impressed by you when you told me that — you said you stayed in the Caribbean?

JM:       And then in the south?

SC:        Yeah, in Florida.

JM:       Now you’re in Canada? Now you’re in Canada.

JM:       Hey, that’s an experience. That you saw this thing from some angles and you add ages enough to know your surroundings and take it in. So I admire you there.

SC:        Well, I mean, thanks I didn’t — I mean, I didn’t pick up myself individually and go. But I was the only white student in a lot of the schools I went to. As an elementary school student, I was the only English student in a couple of the schools I went to in the Caribbean, and I was like, “Okay, if you just give me a little bit of time to understand this history, I will understand what’s happening here ‘cause this feels different than Canada.” And then coming to Canada or coming back to Canada, ‘cause I’m like Canadian. Coming back to Canada and working with racialized students, working with Black students and, like, recognizing that even though it’s not like the teaching of enslaved people in the Caribbean and the United States is so well done, but there’s a lot more acknowledgement than in Canada. And Canada had a history of slavery for over 200 years —

SC:        — that doesn’t really get talked about that much. And so, what’s interesting to be able to bring these histories together, because I think the more we focus on transnational histories, the more that we can be able to talk about experiences across the diaspora, which is so important. And I think this moment helps us do that more because we are all forced to connect to this way.

SC:        Joe, it’s so great to meet you. I hope we get a chance to talk more and collaborate in the future. Thank you so much, Joe.

JM:       Yeah. And you know, when this thing, when the smoke, when the dust settles, whenever that is, this year, the next year, whenever, when folks are comfortable with getting more intimate and hugging and all that, maybe you can come and join at one of these states.

SC:        Oh, I would love that. I was supposed to go to Atlanta in March for the public history conference.

SC:        And there were a couple other things I want to do in the south. And I was just in Jacksonville and there were a couple different sites that I wanted to go visit and I didn’t get a chance to because of the anxiety. So yes, I would love to go to an event of yours whenever that happens.

JM:       But it’s going to happen.

SC:        It’s going to happen. All right, I will be in touch. It was wonderful to meet you.

JM:       All right, you take care.

SC:        Okay. Bye.

JM:       Bye.