BY JENNIFER BARGER AND HEATHER GREENWOOD DAVISAT LIVING HISTORY SITES,
PEOPLE OF COLOR PORTRAY
FIGURES FROM THE PAST,
REVISITING PAINFUL ISSUES
AND SHARING THEIR SIDES
OF THE AMERICAN STORY.
O
Hidden
Narratives
ON HER DAYS OFF, New Yorker Cheyney McKnight
might pull on leggings and a T-shirt or an
African-print dress. But it takes a bit longer for her
to get ready for her day job, when she dresses in
a chemise, a corset, and three layers of petticoats
topped by a cotton gown and a fabric head wrap.
McKnight is a 21st-century Black American, but
the historical interpreter and founder of Not Your
Momma’s History specializes in portraying enslaved
and free people during the 18th and 19th centuries
in the United States. Drawing on almost a decade of
work at living history sites including Virginia’s Colo-
nial Williamsburg, she might dress as an enslaved
person to demonstrate hearth cooking at a Virginia
plantation or depict a free Creole woman during a
New Orleans history festival.
McKnight, like many interpreters, works in the
third person, mimicking the garb of the past but
not pretending to be a character from another time.
She thinks this perspective allows her to speak more
plainly and to put difficult issues like enslavement,
racism, and torture into context.
“It can be difficult interacting with guests, but I
want to meet the challenge,” says McKnight. “My goal
is to increase accurate portrayals of Black Americans
at historic sites and museums.”
In the U.S. most historical interpreters work at
one of the nearly 200 living history museums across
the country, from immersive places like Colonial
Williamsburg to smaller sites, such as Civil War forts
or grand Victorian-era estates.
Some historical interpreters are full-time
employees, others part-timers or volunteers at spe-
cial events. They do everything from conjuring well-
heeled 1930s party guests on tours of California’sEXPLORE | CLOSER LOOK
32 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC