Lost Slavery Tour, Charlotte
This week, Upper El walked Charlotte's Lost Slavery Tour. Created by a former Myers Park High School student, Alexia Alexander researched and created an interactive map to guide people on the tour. She wanted to show where enslaved people (nearly 40% of Charlotte's residents) lived and worked in what is now Uptown Charlotte. Alexia didn't want their stories and contributions to be lost, and neither do we.
Each UE student was assigned one or two stops of the 18 on the tour. They read, researched and created pages to become part of our tour book. They also designed a visual aid to support their information. At each stop, they shared their work. We learned the Dunhill Hotel used to be a jail. Runaway slaves who were in jail, often used aliases to keep their identities hidden. We visited Settlers Cemetery and learned that black people were buried in the low-level swampy area, leaving most memorials destroyed. One fact that stood out was that slaves typically only had first names. The kids realized this was a tactic to keep them from their families, treat them like property without their own identity, as well as a way to dehumanize slaves.
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