Selected Readings

In this 2002 publication Eichstedt and Small survey house museums (mostly rural plantations, with some exceptions) in Virginia, Georgia, and Louisiana to interrogate the “racialized regime of representation that valorizes the white elite of the pre-emancipation South.” The two authors discuss the various interpretations they encounter at the 122 sites they visited through four primary categories. These categories are different ways the museums addressed (or did not address) slavery: ”symbolic annihilation and erasure,” “trivialization and deflection,” “segregation and marginalization of of knowledge,” and “relative incorporation.” Although this book was published in 2002, it contents are still completely relevant to the work museums do today.

This Rubric produced at the Summit on Teaching Slavery (2018) is a self-grading tool and guide for museums and historic sites to actively and successfully engage descendant communities through their research interpretation, programing, and all aspects of museum work. It breaks down these aspects of museum work into digestible sections that provide museum professionals with methods of engagement and types of action that can and should be taken to bring these vital outside voices into museum spaces.

This online resource is meant to ensure diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion within museums at every level. While it is not an exhaustive resource that can address all issues that may arise within museums, it does act as a guide which outlines what it calls “Core Concepts and Key Indicators of excellence in DEAI.”

This edited volume lays out the hurdles that museums and historic sites face when beginning the work of interpreting slavery, offers insightful explanations of the difficulties encountered in doing it, and offers helpful methods to providing comprehensive and inclusive histories to visitors.

Halifax gives a detailed and emotional explanation of the process of how McLeod Plantation Historic Site was acquired by Charleston County Parks, the decision to center African American history on the site interpreting the period between 1851 to 1990, the process of implementing new interpretations along with staff training, how interpretations and operations have changed since beginning, and reflections on the current state African American-centered museums.

This is an online resource made published by the National Parks Service which is a part of their Underground Rail Road digital resource. It contains a list of useful terms for discussing slavery and their definitions as well as links to other aspects of the larger online resource.

Three historians revisit thousands of family letters from one of Georgia’s most politically prominent and wealthiest antebellum families to document the lives of the individuals they enslaved. What this book shows readers is how to pull details from second-hand experiences about the lives, networks, and families of enslaved people, despite being recorded in the words of their white enslavers. Although this kind of documentation only gives us fragmented details about their lives, it shows us that the evidence has always been there. Museums, archives, and special collections contain countless stories like the ones shared in this volume of the men, women, and children whose very existence has historically been overlooked.

Jennifer Anderson explores the vast history of cultivation, trade networks, and cultural significance of what is possibly the world’s most sought after wood. Slavery was an integral part of the commerce of mahogany from the labor used in its harvesting to the foundations of wealth used to acquire the refined goods it produced. This book discusses the biology of the tree as well as the commercial markets is supplied in Europe and North America.

The Decorative Arts Trust brought together several museum professionals to discuss how they have implemented interpretations of slavery, wherein the panelists outline their own museums’ interpretations followed by questions from a moderator on the topic.

Historian Tiya Miles weaves together the narrative of the life of an object passed down through three generations of Black women in America. She traces the life of an enslaved woman named Rose in the 1850s in South Carolina, the forced separation between her and her daughter, Ashley, and the life of Ashley’s granddaughter Rose using a single object as her point of origin for this entire chronicle. If nothing else, this book stands as a testament to the histories that can be uncovered by looking to objects and artworks as primary documents when the traditional method of only replying upon paper documentation falls short.

Dana Byrd’s Punka Project documents the ceiling-mounted fans (known as punkas) manipulated by enslaved workers in domestic spaces of the antebellum South. This is a digital humanities project has documented these objects in houses from Kentucky to Florida and examines their function and passive and active roles enslaved workers played in their locomotion.

Dana Byrd and Tyler DeAngelis researched the Freedmen community that formed on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, during the American Civil War when the United States Army occupied the properties on the island. The community became known as Mitchelville, and grew rapidly during and shortly after the war. When Reconstruction officially ended in 1877 this community quickly declined as the army finally withdrew from the area. This article is also part of a digital humanities project which has additional resources and interactive components.

Equiano’s story is unique in that he includes details about his life prior to his capture and enslavement as a child in Africa. His story describes his life which includes his time as an enslaved sailor, the granting of his freedom, his recapture and subsequent re-enslavement, and his final emancipation.

This work by Hurston is based on the multiple interviews she conducted with formerly enslaved man named Oluale Kossola (also know as Cudjoe Lewis, ca. 1841-1935) during the time she worked for the Federal Writers Project. He was believed to be one of the last living survivors of the Middle Passage on the illegal slave ship the Clotilda with memories of Africa before his capture. The interviews took place from 1927-28, but Hurston’s manuscript she produced was never published during her lifetime.

Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography first published in January of 1861 conveys the trauma of family separation, the seven years she lived in the cramped roof space of her own grandmother’s house, the sexual violence she endured from the man who enslaved her, and the continued torment of constant degradation she contended with as a free Black woman working in the North after her eventual escape. This story is considered by many to be an American Classic, allowing readers to deeply engage and empathize with Jacobs’ story through her human experience. 

Kemble wrote this memoir several decades after the experiences described in this text, but what this text provides is a period account of an abolitionist-minded English woman who traveled to Georgia after her marriage to Pierce Butler, one of Georgia’s wealthiest enslavers. She describes the journey south from Philadelphia, the interactions she had with the local elite slave-owning class in Georgia, and her observations of and interactions with the enslaved people on her husband’s plantation. What makes this account unique is that it comes from a person whose advocacy for the abolition of slavery was catalyzed only later in life by her marriage to one of the country’s wealthiest slave owners.

Rhonda Magee uses her background in sociology and law to help her readers unpack unconscious bias with mindfulness- and compassion-based approaches. Magee employs real-life examples of conversations she’s had with students as a law professor as well as from her lived experiences as a Black woman.

Resmaa Menakem is an anti-racism writer whose work underscores that racism is not just a matter of mindset, but is also a bodily issue. This book uses the latest neuroscience and somatic healing methods to inform a step-by-step process to lead readers through exercises in addressing internalized racism impressed into our unconsciousness. Menakem also provides guided meditations throughout the book that help readers focus on different aspects of this personal and collective healing process.

Layla Saad uses her unique perspective at the intersection of being an East African, Arab, British, Black, Muslim woman who was born in the UK and now resides in Qatar in creating a step-by-step reflection process for readers of this book to understand their white privilege, their (sometimes unconcious) participation in white supremacist systems of oppression, and how their actions can negatively effect BIPOC. As the title states, this book helps us to become better ancestors for our future generations.