After backlash from a TikTok video about the home, Airbnb pulled the ad for “an 1830s slave cottage” from the vacation rental website on Monday, August 1. Airbnb apologized after removing the Panther Burn Cottage from Belmont Plantation in Greenville, Mississippi.
“There is no place on Airbnb for homes that once served as slave quarters. We regret any harm or sadness caused by this listing or others like it, and we are sorry that we did not move sooner to resolve this situation, according to a statement from Airbnb. It further stated that the corporation is working diligently with its specialists to develop policies that will counter such listings.
Panther Burn Cottage
Who owns Panther Burn Cottage?
Panther Burn Cottage has only been under Brad Hauser’s ownership for three weeks. In a statement to CNN, Hauser said: “I apologise for the decision to allow our visitors to stay in “the slave quarters” below the 1857 antebellum property that is now a bed and breakfast as the three-week-old new owner of The Belmont in Greenville, Mississippi. I also regret disrespecting African Americans who were descendants of slaves.” He explained that Joshua B. Cain, who had previously owned the property, had promoted it as such.
“I strongly disagreed with the previous owner’s decision to sell the building as the spot where slaves formerly slept after toiling in the cotton fields in human servitude,” Hauser stated. Until the TikTok video went popular, he claimed Cain had locked him out of the social media and rental property accounts and left behind the listing.
The TikTok video that went viral
Wynton Yates, a Black attorney from New Orleans, released the video on his website “How is renting this out acceptable in someone’s mind? Is this a bed and breakfast or a facility where people were held as slaves? Yates posted a number of screenshots that showed the property’s description and its superior rating of 4.97 out of 5 with 68 reviews.
The history of slavery in our nation is consistently suppressed, and now it is being insulted by being transformed into a posh vacation destination, Yates continued.” He explained that Yates was forced to call the property out after his brother initially pointed it out in an effort to rent it. The Panther Burn Cottage is described as “an 1830s slave cabin from the existing Panther Burn Plantation to the south of Belmont” in the screenshots that Wynton Yates shared. It has also used as a medical facility for local farmers and their families to visit the plantation doctor as well as a cabin for tenant sharecroppers.”
Post source:
