America's Hallowed Ground

Conceived in the spirit of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, this project seeks to honor sites of past struggles, conflicts, and sacrifices that are significant to American history, particularly its history of racial inequality. Combining research and engagement with local communities, America’s Hallowed Ground will tell the stories of these sites through the arts, making these histories accessible to a broader public and elevating them to the local, regional, and national recognition they warrant.

Meet the Team

Charles Thompson — Charles D. Thompson, Jr.
Charles D. Thompson, Jr. is Professor of the Practice of Cultural Anthropology and Documentary Studies at Duke University. He holds a Ph.D. in religion and culture from UNC-Chapel Hill, with concentrations in cultural studies and Latin American studies. He also holds an M.S. degree in Agricultural Education from NC A&T State University. His particular interests include farmworkers, immigration, agriculture, Appalachian Studies, place, and pilgrimage. His methodology includes oral history, ethnographic writing, documentary filmmaking, and collaborative community activism. A former farmer, Thompson remains concerned about issues affecting laborers within our food system. He has written about farmworkers, and he is an advisory board member of Student Action with Farmworkers, the Duke Campus Farm, and other Duke food and agriculture initiatives. Thompson is author or editor of six books, including Border Odyssey: Traveling the US/Mexico Divide (2015), Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World, and, with Melinda Wiggins, of The Human Cost of Food: Farmworker Lives, Labor, and Advocacy. Thompson is also the producer/director of six documentary films, including Homeplace Under Fire, Border Crossing 101, Faces of Time, Brother Towns/ Pueblos Hermanos (2010), We Shall Not Be Moved (2008), and The Guestworker (2007). Thompson’s current projects include a forthcoming memoir entitled, Going Over Home: A Search for Rural Justice in an Unsettled Land (Chelsea Green Press, 2019), a film about the Blue Ridge Virginia farm settlements and unsettlements entitled, Rock Castle Home, and "America's Hallowed Ground."

Mike Wiley
Actor and playwright Mike Wiley has spent his career bringing educational theatre to young audiences and communities across the country, shining a light on key events and figures in African-American history. Through his performances, Wiley has introduced communities to the legacies of Emmett Till, Henry “Box” Brown and more. His works also include a one-man play based on Tim Tyson’s memoir Blood Done Sign My Name and The Parchman Hour, an ensemble production celebrating the Freedom Riders of 1961. Mike hosts online monthly discussions – Higher Ground Journeys – featuring multi-sided conversations about historic and systemic racism in the US. His guests have included Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, and more. Mike earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was named a UNC Distinguished Alumni in 2017. He was named the Ann Atwater Theater Award winner in 2020 and the NCTC Constance Welsh Theatre for Youth Award Winner in 2021.

Jai Bradford
An accomplished TV news veteran turned filmmaker/multi-media producer/documentarian, Jai Bradford excels at stunning visuals, exceptional storytelling, and high-end production capabilities that drive audience engagement using modern digital technology. He applies his content developer experience, technical knowledge, communications expertise, and business acumen to position, message, differentiate, and simplify complex offerings. His proven ability to connect and communicate with his subjects continues to drive Jai’s quest for truth in the narrative. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Multimedia and Graphic Design from the University of Massachusetts and a Continuing Studies Certificate of Digital Media & Marketing from Duke University.

Cornelio Campos
Cornelio Campos is a self-taught artist based in Durham. Cornelio immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager, a journey and process that influences many of his paintings. Vibrant colors, iconic American symbols and intricate geometric patterns define his work. As an artist with no formal training, Cornelio’s paintings exemplify techniques that he learned through observation, and they often defy traditional color schemes. His paintings contain therapeutic, controversial, and enlightening elements that make them unique. His paintings are inspired by the nostalgia he has for his hometown in Mexico, his family, and the customs that he grew up with. He also sees his paintings as a tool for sharing his indigenous background and for offering a teaching lesson here in the United States. He uses his paintings as a tool for education and a way to start a conversation that will let others think and then do their own investigating. He focuses on three main themes: political issues, Mexican folklore (purepechas en Michoacan), and the Pre-Columbian symbols of Mexico’s ethnic groups. His paintings have been shown in galleries and exhibitions throughout North Carolina, including Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and other locations, such as the Anacostia Community Museum, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Venice International University in Venice, Italy, and Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia.

Howard Craft
Howard L. Craft is an award-winning playwright, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and arts educator. His essays have appeared in The Paris Review and have been included in The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre. He is the author of several plays and the creator of the first African-American superhero radio serial, The Jade City Pharaoh. He is a recipient of the North Carolina Playwriting Fellowship and currently teaches as the Piller Professor of the Practice in the Writing for Stage and Screen program, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Laurelyn Dossett
Singer/songwriter Laurelyn Dossett lives and writes in Stokes County, NC. Her songs have appeared in film and television and have been recorded by many artists, including Grammy-winning Levon Helm (Anna Lee) and Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (Leaving Eden). Laurelyn wrote the songs for playwright Mike Wiley’s Leaving Eden, which premiered at Playmaker’s Repertory in 2018. She has partnered with Triad Stage’s Preston Lane on six plays-with-music. Her song cycle, The Gathering: A Winter’s Tale in Six Songs, was commissioned by the North Carolina Symphony and premiered in Raleigh in 2011, Grant Llewellyn conducting. Laurelyn has written songs for various protest movements in North Carolina including My Beloved Enemy and Vote Against Amendment One. She remains a voice for social justice and environmental activism in North Carolina and beyond. The River’s Lament is her testament to the devastation of the Dan River coal ash spill. She founded and continues to host the annual “Songs of Hope and Justice” at the North Carolina Folk Festival.

Elena Rue
Elena Rue is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of StoryMine, a company that produces documentary videos for purpose-driven organizations. StoryMine believes that listening to people, observing their lives, and sharing their stories in an honest and compelling way is key to communicating issues that matter. Rue got her start at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University where she was a student, Lewis Hine Documentary Fellow, and staff member with the Literacy Through Photography program. She received her MA from the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and has taught photography and video courses at Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Aya Shabu
Aya Shabu is the Conductor and Creator of Whistle Stop Tours, a walking tour company re-membering African American neighborhoods through the performing arts. Shabu has choreographed for original documentary theater including The Parchman Hour for the 50th Anniversary Reunion of The Freedom Riders in Jackson, MS, and Orange Light a play about the 1991 Hamlet, NC chicken plant fire. An alum of the African American Dance Ensemble, Shabu has performed with Ronald K. Brown and Sweet Honey in the Rock, and currently dances and drums with The Magic of African Rhythm.

Project Sites

Wilmington, N.C.

The first project site is Wilmington, N.C., where white supremacists staged a violent coup in 1898 to suppress the growing political power of African Americans. Co-directors Charlie Thompson and Mike Wiley and members of the America’s Hallowed Ground team traveled to Wilmington in the fall of 2021 to explore sites and speak to community stakeholders.

After convening a two-day listening session with Wilmington community members, including descendants of the victims of 1898, they organized a local performance of Wiley’s one-man show “The Fire of Freedom” in November 2021. Inspired by a book by historian David Cecelski and adapted by playwright Howard Craft, “The Fire of Freedom” focuses on Wilmington native Abraham Galloway, who escaped from slavery and organized hundreds of Black soldiers to fight against the Confederacy during the Civil War. Wiley performed the play in the historic Thalian Hall in downtown Wilmington, where Galloway himself once spoke. On April 11, 2022, they premiered the play in Durham, N.C..

Thompson and Wiley co-taught a Spring 2022 Cultural Anthropology course that approaches Wilmington 1898 through ethnography and showcases how artistic expression can make research both accessible and memorable to broader populations. Duke University undergraduate students travelled to Wilmington in April, visiting sites with Thompson and Wiley, doing anthropological fieldwork, and eventually completing public history-oriented projects of their own.

America’s Hallowed Ground will continue its work in Wilmington. In spring 2023, the co-directors and their collaborators will work with community stakeholders to produce art on local sites through podcasts, visual art, choreography, and other modes of digital storytelling. Read more about these workshops here.

Eventually, America’s Hallowed Ground will expand the project to other sites, both in North Carolina and nationally.

Visit the project website