Joseph McGill Jr. is a history consultant for Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, and the founder and director of The Slave Dwelling Project. Previously, as a field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Mr. McGill worked to revitalize the Sweet Auburn commercial district in Atlanta, Georgia, and to develop a management plan for the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area. He is a former executive director of the African American Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a former director of history and culture at Penn Center, St. Helena Island, South Carolina. He has also served as a National Park Service park ranger at Fort Sumter National Monument in Charleston.
For two hundred nights, over twelve years, Joseph McGill has “slept rough” in former slave dwellings in twenty-five states, all…