By Ruth Terry
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan
Reporting for the YES! Magazine-Arkansas News Service Collaboration
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- By 1860, more than 40,000 plantations in the United States each had 20 or more enslaved Africans. Today, hundreds of those same plantations operate as museums, but only a handful tell the stories of the enslaved who lived, toiled, and died there. Meanwhile, lifestyle magazines tout plantations as a destination -- weddings have become the latest trend -- emphasizing their idyllic verdant settings and stately architecture.
The Whitney Plantation is the only plantation, of the 375 existing locations, expressly designed to center the narrative of slavery, but Black conservationists and historical interpreters such as Joe McGill are collaborating with plantation owners, government agencies, and the public to center the history of enslaved Africans at those historical 46,300 plantations, and broaden the discourse around slavery.
McGill initially founded the Slave Dwelling Project to protect the outbuildings that served as homes for his enslaved ancestors, which are the structures most at risk for being removed or falling into disrepair on a historic plantation properties. He had firsthand experience with the renovation of such structures while working as a historical consultant on the Magnolia Plantation near Charleston, South Carolina.
"They put together a team of experts to come in and evaluate the work that was being [done]... as they were progressively restoring them," McGill explains. "And that inspired in me the desire to ask the owners of the plantation... to spend the night in the cabins."
McGill, a Civil War reenactor inspired by the 1989 film Glory, about an all-Black regiment of northern soldiers, was already used to sleeping at historic battlefields. He had also slept in a slave cabin at Boone Hall Plantation, also near Charleston, for a History Channel documentary in which he participated.
But this felt different. "It had more purpose, and the purpose was to bring attention to these often-neglected dwellings," he says.
McGill anticipated this project would be "one and done," lasting only a year. Then he acquired a list of plantations from the Historic Preservation Office and discovered how many plantations with slave dwellings there were. NPR coverage of the project led to greater exposure, and McGill, who is based in South Carolina, started getting phone calls from other states.
"Even as immersed in the subject matter as I thought I was, I knew very little," he admits. "I had slavery in a box, you know: a [rural] southern plantation. ...I wasn't even thinking about urban slavery and, right there in Charleston, South Carolina, you could find hundreds of slave dwellings within the city limits."
He also didn't realize the depths of northern complicity in the institution of slavery. Not only did northerners own enslaved Africans, "they owned the banks, ... the insurance companies, ... the factories" that financially benefited from the cotton the slaves picked.
Since founding the Slave Dwelling Project 10 years ago, McGill has organized sleepovers in nearly 70 properties in states including New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and Wisconsin. He has also stayed at Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, where, like 11 other U.S. Presidents, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence enslaved 400 people.
What's it like to sleep in a slave cabin?
"Weird," says Dontavius Williams, a historical interpreter who often partners with McGill. Williams uses humor and multisensory storytelling to portray an enslaved man named Adam, a powerful presentation he sometimes delivers on the mornings after Slave Dwelling Project sleepovers.
"My mind just began to race, and I began to think about how many people slept in the same place where I slept and pondered... What [was] life really like outside of this?" he recalls. "How do you in that moment, when you realize that you are a slave, how do you then sleep at night? Trying to figure out how to get away from this system [so] that you wouldn't get caught before you were free."
Like McGill, Williams' first sleepover was also at Magnolia Plantation, which, after many subsequent events, he says now feels "like home." But he says the cabins and even the night spent in them is not the most powerful aspect of the Slave Dwelling Project's work: "The difference is made in the campfire conversations."
White and Black participants both attend Slave Dwelling Project sleepovers. Before they bunk down for the night, the group engages in a conversation that seems to be equal parts learning, reckoning, and healing. In separate interviews, both Williams and McGill recount the same story at Magnolia Plantation, about a White woman who listened to the conversation but didn't speak until right before bedtime. She then opened up about her complicated and abusive relationship with her father, a Ku Klux Klan leader who was now dying of Parkinson's disease.
The Slave Dwelling Project's main goal is to protect tangible cultural heritage and to center the narratives of enslaved Africans by transporting Black and White participants to the place where they lived, communed, and slept after incessant days of back-breaking labor and vicious brutality.
And yet, Williams finds dignity and cause for celebration in their stories. "Our people were not a hopeless people," he says. "Although they seem like they were in hopeless situations, they thrived."
Ruth Terry wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Follow her on Twitter @Ruth_Terry.
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By Marilyn Odendahl for The Indiana Citizen.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Indiana Citizen-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.
Assembled on a soundstage at Huntington University last week, Gov. Mike Braun, legislators and community officials were optimistic about the potential for more soundstages, more cameras, more lights, more action coming to Indiana as the state positions itself to become a go-to location for film and movie production.
The governor was in Huntington for a ceremonial signing of Senate Enrolled Act 306, which makes Indiana’s film and movie tax credits transferable and, therefore, attractive to out-of-state filmmakers. Leaders at the event said the new law will help grow the state’s digital media production industry, creating new jobs and bringing new money to existing businesses.
Braun did not see Indiana’s wooing of Hollywood as simply a star struck pipedream. Recounting a conversation he had had earlier this year, when Angelo Pizzo, who wrote and produced the film classics “Hoosiers” and “Rudy,” “was bemoaning” that he could no longer make movies like that in Indiana today, Braun said SEA 306 would enable the state to capture an opportunity that is coming.
“The hardest thing in business and in government is not to get stuck in a rut where you just think the same things are going to work in the future,” Braun said, noting that as a business owner, he was always “looking for new horizons, new things that needed to be done.”
Braun continued SEA 306 will help Indiana seize the moment and possibly exceed expectations. “We’re here,” he said. “We’re all dressed up and ready to go and you’re right at the forefront of what I think is going to be a great industry.”
Several states, like Georgia, Louisiana, Illinois and New York, have tax credits geared toward filmmakers and production companies. However, studies have shown movie tax credits, even when they are refundable or transferable, generate little, if any, economic boost. The subsidies offered as tax breaks to film companies have been found to increase movie productions, but the activity has had only a marginal impact on the states’ economies and, in fact, some states actually lost revenue. Moreover, the number of jobs created has been small.
Michael Hicks, professor of economics at Ball State University, was skeptical the now-transferable tax credit would entice movie producers and directors to start filming in Indiana. He said movie and television production companies choose sites for the attributes, such as scenery, that the particular location offers. Cost does not really factor into the decision-making process, when film professionals are identifying places to make the movie or episode.
Also, Hicks said, any movies that are filmed here will likely not have a huge or lasting economic effect on the state. The making of a movie does not spur new construction of hotels, restaurants or venues where people can gather, he said, so any increase in sales that local businesses notice when a film is being made in their community will evaporate when the production crew packs up and leaves town.
“You’re taking a lot of money out of the public coffers,” Hicks said of the film and movie production tax credits. “Other taxpayers are paying for this. They’re either paying for it directly or they’re subsidizing services that somebody else is using and what that ends up doing is generating a lot of costs for very little additional benefit.”
Enticing filmmakers to pick Indiana
Bill Konyha, president and CEO of the Regional Chamber of Northeast Indiana, is optimistic that SEA 306 will give the Hoosier State a starring role in motion pictures. He envisions not only production companies coming here to film, but also, eventually establishing a permanent presence by building movie studios in the state. All of that activity, he said, will create an economic boom by bringing jobs for local residents.
“It’s not a goal that’s going to happen tomorrow …,” Konyha said, “but it’s the opportunity to turn Indiana filmmaking back into … a meaningful, important industry.”
Senate Enrolled Act 306, which passed during the 2025 legislative session with bipartisan support, amended a 2022 state statute that established tax credits for films, documentaries, commercials, television shows, music videos or other similar media production. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. is charged with confirming the eligibility of the applicants and determining the amount of the tax credit.
Under SEA 306, that tax credit is now transferable to another individual or entity. A single credit may not exceed $250,000 and the total amount available between Jan. 1, 2026, when the law takes effect, and July 1, 2031, when the statute expires, is capped at $2 million.
Konyha explained transferability is the key to attracting movie making to Indiana. The 2022 statute was not enough incentive, because the benefit of the tax credit was limited to only those investors or companies based in Indiana. With the new legislation, he said, out-of-state film companies will be able to sell the tax credits to entities that actually pay taxes in Indiana and then use the equity from those sales to invest in film projects.
“The problem is the film companies are mostly out-of-state, and the tax credit that’s available is an Indiana tax credit,” Konyha said. “It has no value to anybody from out-of-state. So it has to be able to be sold or transferred or syndicated to have value for them.”
Supporters of SEA 306 pointed to Huntington University and its department of digital media arts, where students learn the behind-the-scenes film-making skills of recording and lighting, cinematography, editing and producing, and screenwriting. When the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the internship opportunities in Los Angeles, two digital media arts faculty members, Lance Clark and Matthew Webb, created Forester Films, a film production company connected to the university, to give their students hands-on experience.
Forester Films has written, filmed and produced two movies, “A Carpenter’s Prayer” and “Tea on the Beach,” and is finishing a third, “Overhill Manor.” Clark, dean of the arts at Huntington University, described the films as “faith and family friendly” and said they tackle difficult topics like alcoholism, depression and dementia.
To make the movies, Forester Films has relied on industry professionals and Huntington alumni, while the students worked as interns. Clark said the actors, directors and crew members who have come to Indiana to shoot the three flicks have loved the community and enjoyed working in northeastern Indiana. Also, he said, business owners and local officials have been accommodating and helpful in offering locations to film.
Clark believes the transferable tax credit will lure filmmakers to Indiana. Most likely, large movie companies will start by filming a scene or two in the Hoosier State before undertaking a complete production here, he said. Independent film companies, he said, may be more comfortable to start doing entire movies in Indiana.
Forester Films raised about $2 million from donors and investors to produce its three feature-length motion pictures. Clark said his production company will be “first in line to apply in 2026 for the tax credit” and he anticipates other filmmakers will be lining up as well.
“It’s already helped us talk about financing for our next features, because people that are investors, they like to hear, ‘Oh, there’s a transferable tax credit,’” Clark said. “I think serious filmmakers have a good shot at it here. So it’s already helped have great, great conversations.”
Unsupported economic claims
Clark and his students created a set on the digital media art department’s soundstage as a special backdrop for Braun’s ceremonial bill signing. They filmed the governor walking to the desk, which was draped in black cloth and displayed the state seal, sitting down, signing the bill and then holding it up for the audience to see.
Production was quickly halted after the first take had started. The crew had discovered that the main prop – a ceremonial copy of SEA 306 – was still in the car. The second take appeared flawless.
Huntington Republican Sen. Andy Zay, along with his GOP colleagues, Sens. Travis Holdman, of Markle, and Kyle Walker, of Lawrence, authored SEA 306.
Speaking at the ceremonial bill signing, Zay said Indiana has a rich film history with movies such as “Breaking Away” produced and filmed in the state. SEA 306, he said, will change the tax culture so that movies can again be made in Indiana.
“The credit that we are passing begins to make those opportunities a reality moving forward,” Zay said. “So this is a great step of legislation, of work, where we sign something that doesn’t end something, but we sign something that begins something anew.”
Zay then pointed to Georgia as an example of a state that has seen its movie industry blossom with the introduction of tax incentives. He claimed the Peach State is realizing a return of $6 to $7 for every $1 spent through the film tax credit.
A 2019 policy brief examining the economic impact of the film industry on Georgia’s economy tells a different story. The report from Kennesaw State University blamed “incredible multipliers and dubious data” with inflating economic claims that movie making had a $9.5 billion impact on the state in 2018 and created more than 92,000 jobs.
Instead, the report found, Georgia has approved more than $4 billion in tax credits between 2008 and 2018, while the film industry has contributed about $3 billion to the state’s $588 billion gross domestic product, which represents 0.5% of the state’s economy. Also, the industry directly employs about 16,000 workers, but the report highlighted that assuming every film job is the result of the tax credits, the cost equates to $64,000 to $119,000 in tax credits per job.
Most importantly, the tax credits are hitting Georgians in their wallets. The report noted the $800 million in tax credits given to filmmakers in 2018 represents about $220 per household that Georgia residents could have spent themselves on goods and services in their state.
Hicks, the Ball State economist, called the film tax credit “Republican socialism,” because the GOP is giving money to businesses. The consequence, he said, is the state will be giving a tax break and have less money to spend on roads, bridges and emergency response systems to warn about floods.
“I guess I’m just a little puzzled on the economic argument for desiring some sort of economic activity that doesn’t pay taxes,” Hicks said.
Marilyn Odendahl wrote this article for The Indiana Citizen.
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By Frankie (Amy) Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration
Scene: It's December 2023. Reggie Holmes, 72, faces the audience at a choir concert. She's been singing since she was a baby, but things have changed.
"I turned around to apologize to the guy behind me. I said, 'I just want to sing, but it will sound really bad,'" Holmes says.
"My voice was lovely, but Parkinson's stole that from me."
In the past couple of years, she's somewhat reclaimed that voice-in large part thanks to Parkinsong Choir in rural Washburn, Wisconsin. Last year, it sprouted from a network of choral groups across the Midwest (and world) for folks with dementia and their caretakers.
Eyleen Braaten is the executive director of that parent network: Giving Voice, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In it, she sings with her dad, who has dementia.
"[It] is an opportunity to have a human-centered approach to creating programs that really bring wellbeing to people that are often told that they don't have too much to give," Braaten says of Giving Voice, which offers free toolkits for communities looking to start their own choirs.
Getting your song on is proven to boost memory and overall health, especially in cases of dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Polls show music (even just listening) is especially remedial with older adults. Music is social. Active. Even scientific.
It's something Stephanie Johnson knows well. In 2009, the board-certified music therapist founded Music Speaks and has worked with clients struggling with communication, memory, learning, early development, mental health ... the list goes on.
"If the brain is not operating in a way that it used to, due to a physical traumatic injury or a stroke or Parkinson's or dementia, we can incorporate music and help pull the information from a healthy part of that brain back into processing, whether it be speech or motor or cognition," Johnson says. She's helped nonverbal clients sing, even when speech remains difficult.
Think of the alphabet, she says: Would you have been able to memorize those 26 letters, in order, without that kindergarten-famous alphabet song?
Johnson's team of music therapists works across the Midwest and beyond, adjusting song tempo and dynamics to meet client needs. But folks without this care access, a local choir, or even a diagnosis can still reap musical benefits.
Anyone can queue up a beat (may we suggest our Essential Midwest playlist?) and let the brainwaves work their magic.
"Most often, the western world thinks of music as a song or a genre or an artist," Johnson says. But what about music as healing? As identity, recovery?
Singing, especially with Parkinsong Choir, is a source of joy, friendship, and belonging for Holmes: "My voice is not what it used to be . . . It's still kind of harsh and I have a vibrato you wouldn't believe," she says, laughing.
"But I can sing. And it's beautiful."
Frankie (Amy) Felegy wrote this story for Arts Midwest.
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