National Park’s ‘Slave for a Day’ Event Draws Outrage “Work in
the fields with actual hoes and scythes.” “Carry buckets of
water with a yoke on your shoulders.” Want to be a “slave for a
day”? You can at a national historic site in Maryland at a
special event next month. That was at least the idea until this
week, when the Hampton National Historic Site in Towson, Md.
raised plenty of eyebrows for the name of its July 8 program:
“Slave for a Day.” Park ranger and event organizer Angela
Roberts-Burton told the Towson Times the name was meant to draw
attention and get people to come to the one-day program at the
site, located in Baltimore County. “By no means am I trying to,
or are we the Park Service, trying to assimilate the atrocities
that slave African-Americans endured,” Roberts-Burton said.
“This is just a glimpse of the hard work, being out in the heat
and sun,” she said. The name certainly drew attention, including
from the Baltimore Fishbowl blog, which noted not only the
title, but the “awkwardly jaun