Joseph McGill and The Slave

MADISON---Some Rockingham County teens will literally walk the path of history this month to raise awareness of the historical servitude of African-Americans. The McMichael High School History Club is partnering with the Museum and Archives of Rockingham County (MARC) on May 9-10 to host Joseph McGill and The Slave Dwelling Project. McGill started this project in 2010 not only to raise awareness, but to encourage property owners with existing slave cabins to restore and/or maintain them. First, the club will host a History Fair from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, May 9, in the McMichael Media Center that will feature presentations by Joseph McGill, as well as display booths prepared by the Madison Historic Districts and Properties Commission, author Charles Rodenbough, Rockingham County Historian Bob Carter, the ?Madison Colored School? Restoration Group and other local historians. The history students will participate in a series of activities as part of the project including a traditional meal of corn meal mush, pinto beans, turtle soup, and other dishes so that the they and the historians alike can truly experience history first-hand. The general public is invited to join The Slave Dwelling Project and the club members later that day from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. at the Old McCollum Farm, located on 400 McCollum Road, Madison. There will be a presentation and demonstration from Joseph McGill and Bob Carter on the history of not only the farm, but the project itself and the reasons behind it. Joseph McGill and others will stay in the slave dwelling that night to symbolically represent the conditions of slavery. McGill, local historians, and the History Club will meet at the MARC located at 1086 NC Hwy 65 in Wentworth, NC at 10 a.m. for a closing program and departure that is also open to the general public.