Joseph McGill Jr.

On Season 1 of Books By The River, Holly Jackson sits down with Joseph McGill Jr. and Herb Frazier to discuss their powerful book, Sleeping with the Ancestors.

Joseph McGill Jr. is the founder of the Slave Dwelling Project in Charleston, SC, which raises awareness of extant slave dwellings by organizing overnight stays. He has conducted over 250 overnights at 150 sites across 25 states and Washington, D.C., engaging with descendants of both enslaved people and enslavers.

A former field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, McGill also served as Executive Director of the African American Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and as Director of History and Culture at Penn Center on St. Helena Island, SC. He previously worked as a Park Ranger at Fort Sumter National Monument.

McGill is coauthor of Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery and is featured in Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. A member of the SC Humanities Council Speakers Bureau, he continues to educate through public speaking and historical preservation. A native of Kingstree, SC, McGill is dedicated to honoring African American history.