No one’s renting ‘slave quarters’ on Airbnb: Company bans all properties that housed enslaved people in US
Airbnb is banning all properties that once housed enslaved people from its listings.
“Properties that formerly housed the enslaved have no place on Airbnb,” the company said in a statement to USA TODAY days after a TikTok post went viral about a “slave cabin” being offered as a bed and breakfast on Airbnb. “We apologize for any trauma or grief created by the presence of this listing, and others like it, and that we did not act sooner to address this issue.”
Wynton Yates, the lawyer whose TikTok post went viral, told USA TODAY: “If you were to see just the pictures of the inside of it, you’d have no idea the history of that building, and I think for me, that is a mockery of the experience. … It is the continuation of erasing what the experience of slavery was.”
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Airbnb removed the property in question, though several sites that hosts described as former “slave quarters” were still listed on Airbnb earlier Monday.
“We are removing listings that are known to include former slave quarters in the United States,” Airbnb said. “We are working with experts to develop new policies that address other properties associated with slavery.”
Dr. Minkah Makalani, associate professor of History and director of the Center for Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University said, “These places, they should be seen and held in the same regard as we would hold other sites of massive atrocities and human rights violations and the terror and violence that was exacted upon Black people in these locations.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.