A local professor has received statewide recognition for a course she developed to have students research and preserve the stories of enslaved people in the area.
Dr. Leslie McKesson, Morganton resident and adjunct instructor at Appalachian State University, was honored with two awards from the North Carolina Society of Historians on Nov. 11.
She received the organization’s first “History Teacher of Excellence Award” for a course she created for students in the ASU Honors College called, “Antebellum Slavery in Appalachia,” and a class project within the course called, “Shadows of a Time Gone By.”
The course was designed “to deepen students’ understanding of the regional impact of American chattel slavery through research, collaboration, critical and comparative analysis and creative interpretation,” McKesson said in a previous News Herald article.
People are also reading…
For the class project, the students researched and wrote narratives portraying the lives of slaves who worked at the historic Capt. Charles McDowell House in Morganton before the Civil War, in cooperation with the Historic Burke Foundation, who owns the historic home. HBF volunteers assisted students in the research process as they visited the site to receive hands-on experiences.
“Our research was based on a scholarly study of primary and secondary documents regarding slavery in Appalachia,” McKesson said in a previous interview. “We studied the works of noted academic experts in Appalachian slavery, including Wilma Dunaway and Morganton native John Inscoe. In addition, we studied primary documents that still exist regarding transactions related to owning and disposing of human chattel in Burke and surrounding counties during the pre-Civil War era.”
The students performed their narratives in public at the McDowell House in May. For their participation in the project, the students — Scout Greene, Audrey Hill, Celia Merrifield, Aiden Turner, Stevie Watson and Jae Hollifield — received “Student Awards of Excellence” from the NCSH.
Later in the year, the class project was developed into an exhibit that was put on display at the Heritage Museum at the historic Burke County courthouse that includes text, documents and media.
“The course was designed to produce a capstone interpretation project,” McKesson said. “As former HBF president, I knew that the organization wanted to add information about all those who lived at Quaker Meadows, including people who were enslaved. Burke County has a significant footprint in Appalachian slavery, and the McDowell House offers an opportunity to explore that history.
“Existing records demonstrate that slavery had a much larger impact on Appalachia, particularly in Burke County, than is typically acknowledged. Understanding the experiences of enslaved people is equally important to how we understand the history of slavery as telling the stories of those considered their owners.”
McKesson joined her students in researching and portraying a narrative of one of the McDowell House slaves during the project. For her dedication in sharing local history in such a dynamic way, the North Carolina Society of Historians also presented her with the 2023 “President’s Award.” The award praised “her exemplary expertise as a teacher in effectively engaging students in a life-changing encounter with North Carolina history.”
“May her example inspire other teachers — not only of history, but other disciplines as well — to take students beyond the textbook into real-life experiential learning that will stay with them for a lifetime,” NCSH president Maxine McCall wrote on the award.
McKesson shared her thoughts about being recognized for developing and implementing the course.
“It was an honor for me just to do this work, and to have it recognized by NCSH is amazing,” McKesson said. “I’m grateful to App State and HBF for this convergence of teaching, learning and community service, and to the dedicated students whose analytical and creative thinking made this unique project come together so well.”