Behind the Big House is one of few historic site tours developed with the specific goal of interpreting slavery. The program began with several private homeowners in Holly Springs, Mississippi, who opened slave houses on their properties to the public. Since 2012, the program has educated thousands in North Mississippi and Arkansas. This presentation discusses the development of the program, what it tells us about slavery in North Mississippi, and the necessity of telling these stories today.
Speakers Expertise:
Dr. Skipper is an applied anthropologist at the University of Mississippi, who explores the representation of African American lives through material culture. Her theoretical approach draws on contextual emphases in public history, public archaeology, and cultural representations in museum studies. Dr. Skipper established a foundation for intersecting these fields through her dissertation work on the St. Paul United Methodist Church, an historically African American church in the Dallas, Texas arts district. She examined the church community’s prospects of preserving its historic building and historical legacy through two heritage projects; one in which archaeologists excavated a shotgun house site on the church property and a public history project in which she created an interpretive history exhibition on the church. During her time at the University of Mississippi, Dr. Skipper extended her focus by investigating how African American historic sites interact with the production of heritage in tourism spaces through two new projects, the
Behind the Big House program in Marshall County, Mississippi and the
Promiseland Historic Preservation project in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana.
Dr. Skipper's research interests include African diaspora anthropology, historic sites management, historical archaeology, museum and heritage studies, and southern studies. More specifically, she explores how African American pasts are represented in the present.
