The south has a rich and varied history. The storybook life seen on the silver screen is often just one side of our past. Behind the grand mansions, beyond the freshly pressed linens, lay small and intimate slave dwellings where work, toil, and history also happened.
Many historic figures began their lives in these small dwellings such as Civil Rights icon and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett who was born a slave in 1862 and freed four years later. She strove to give rights to women as well as end lynching and was eventually driven from the south to Chicago. Learn more about this human rights pioneer as well as our unique past in the Behind the Big House Tour, April 11th–13th during the Holly Springs Pilgrimage of Homes.
In addition to touring five of the towns historic mansions included on this year’s Pilgrimage, guests will be allowed a rare look into the lives of Holly Springs’ slave population during the “Behind the Big House Tour.” See another side of antebellum life through these surviving structures and a historic interpretation by Joseph McGill, a field officer with the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Thanks to grants from the Mississippi Humanities Council, Mississippi Development Authority’s Tourism Division, and coordinated by Preserve Marshall County and Holly Springs, Inc.; McGill will spend a few nights in Holly Springs’ slave cabins and then bring their story to life during the FREE weekend long event. “For so long folks have been visiting the plantation and going into the big house, and without those structures, the big house could not have existed,” says McGill.
To schedule your group or for any additional information, please call 662-252-3669 or go to www.preservemarshallcounty.org.
Preserve Marshall County & Holly Springs, Inc. (501c3) formed in 2005 with the hope of bringing historic preservation advocacy and educational outreach to the community.
On Tour: Burton Place, Hugh Craft and Magnolias Slave Quarters
Schedule:
*All quarters will be available to tour unmanned during the entire Pilgrimage but see schedule below to meet Joe. For more information on Joe’s project go to www.preservationnation.org.
Wednesday, 9th April
9 am- 4 pm – School Group Tours
Thursday, 10th April
9 am- 11:30 am – School Groups
1 pm- 2:15 pm – Oxford Lecture
Friday, 11th April
9:30 am – 12 pm – Joe McGill at Magnolia Place slaves’ quarters.
1 pm- 2:15 pm- Rust College Lecture
2:30 pm – 4 pm – Joe McGill at Burton Place slaves’ quarters
*Lunch Break from 12-1
Saturday, 12th April
9:30 am – 12 pm- Joe McGill at Magnolia Place slaves’ quarters.
1 pm- 2:15 pm- Ida B. Wells Museum for Lecture
2:30 pm- 4 pm- Joe McGill at Hugh Craft House
*Lunch Break from 12-1
Sunday, 13th April
9:30 am- 4 pm- All sites open for tours
