There are positions open for slaves at the Bratton plantation. Applicants must be willing to pick cotton, drink the master's liquor, gossip, sing spirituals, mourn the dead. The job is unpaid. Starts immediately.
Since last summer, when four African American "living history" volunteers raised complaints about scripts they were asked to read, managers at Historic Brattonsville, a museum and historic site, have been coping with the most awkward of personnel issues.
First, the interpreters who played the slave bride and groom left, complaining that their characters were mindlessly happy. The man who played Watt, the Bratton family's most loyal slave, was dismissed after ad-libbing a dark, drunken soliloquy at the Christmas Candlelight Tour.
The interpreter who plays the slave Big Jim is on a six-month "hiatus," unsure whether he can find common ground with management but talking about "systemic changes." The four have criticized the museum recently in local newspapers.
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