Kami Fletcher writes:

“Jim informed me that 19^th century slave cabins, on what is known as Greenfield Plantation, were being moved.  They were being moved to make way for a shell building, “an empty and ready-to-move-into structure built for economic industry”.[1]  I was as disheartened and I was angered by a decision to move such valuable historical structures from their historical contexts.  As I relayed to Jim: to move the structures is to move these slave cabins from their place in history…a social forgetting.  And just how are we supposed to learn anything of the Black lived experience – that during this time period was governed by the institution of slavery – if we do not show this lived experience through African American material culture and make sure that this lived experience is portrayed accurately and central to the overall narrative??

 

I hung up with Jim, looked at my student and said “they are steadily trying to erase us!”

 

I continued with my office hours and throughout the months of November and December I received updates from Jim that helped me put this issue into context.  I told Jim that I would take pen to paper (or more aptly, put fingers to laptop keyboard) and help publicize this issue to keep it from happening again bringing awareness to preserving African American material culture…”

Read the entire essay: Another Plantation Site Gets Moved, Misremembered, and Ultimately Erased

As an update – The Slave Dwelling Project reposted this image from the Friends of Greenfield Preston Plantation with the following message:

“#savetheslavedwellings Disheartening news at Greenfield….the kitchen has been moved to the cul-de-sac. We still haven’t received word of a decision from the board. I am totally speechless.“

For more updates and actions being organized by the community, see their Facebook page.