LAUREN IBAÑEZ/ NEXTGENRADIO
What is the meaning of
home?
Historian, advocate and educator Danita Mason-Hogans feels an unrequited love for her home, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Mason-Hogans’ ancestors were once enslaved at the John A. Mason House, a massive plantation located in Chatham County that has ties to the University of North Carolina. Danita visited the plantation for the first time about two years ago, and felt a strong connection to her family history.
Unrequited love: Historian grapples with her family’s past in the “Southern Part of Heaven”
Unrequited Love: Historian grapples with her family’s past in the “Southern Part of Heaven”
Click here for audio transcript
This place is definitely home for me because my ancestors talk to me while I’m here.
My name is Danita Mason Hogans. I’m a seventh generational Chapel Hillian. I’m also a public memory worker, I’m an activist, I’m a community servant, I’m a lover of life. I am a student of history.
So today we’re at the home of John A. Mason, and early on, John A. Mason donated some land to establish the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and also Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
And so when I come to this place, I feel such a strong calling for my ancestors. Not only do my ancestors descend from enslaved people, but they go way back to the native people here. So the land calls me too. I love coming here, and at the same time, there’s a real thick sense of oppression.
Many of my ancestors built some of the buildings that right now are on UNC’s campus.
I think about how heavy those stones were and I remember sitting in the archives, and just crying sometimes, while I’m taking notes on the things that have happened here because they were so real to me. I envision my people going through enslavement, and what that may have meant to them.
(Sound of a key in lock, opening door)
… Isn’t this something? See the floorboards here. These are original floorboards that my ancestors laid down. And if you look at the stairs … as beautiful as they are, they are also uneven, which spoke to the craftsmanship. And you see this banister, this banister is one large, long piece of wood that was crafted by my ancestors. So sometimes, I like to just rub my hands up and down the banister. It just makes me feel so good to be able to put my hands on the woods and think about the construction that went into building this place, how knowledgeable people must have been to construct it, and to build it.
This is not only a historically significant place for my ancestors, and for my people, the descendants of the Mason family. This is Chapel Hill history, because this is where it all began. And this is where the university began. And I think that a fitting homage to the people who established, fed and maintained the university is to make sure that this is always a place that we can come to and remember. And that process, for me, is part of the work that I am about trying to reconcile.
I say oftentimes that I carry my ancestors with me into every meeting, every advocacy, every community gathering, every place I go, I carry my ancestors with me. And they tell me what to say. They keep me still, and they keep me motivated. So to be here in this house, is so significant, because they truly speak to me when I’m here in this house.
Danita Mason-Hogans still remembers the first time she drove down the long, winding gravel road leading to the plantation where her ancestors were enslaved.
“Three miles is a long time to think about the people who worked the land and who toiled in the field,” Mason-Hogans said. “So, it’s a very strange feeling because it’s a feeling of embrace, and it’s a feeling of home, and at the same time, it’s a feeling of incredible sadness at the oppression that these beautiful people had to endure in order to serve others.”
On the drive, a cloud of dust leaves a wake behind Mason-Hogans’ car. Trees line either side of the road and the uneven path forces her to move forward slowly. When the road finally opens up, a farmhouse comes into view.
Mason-Hogans didn’t know the farmhouse was still standing until about two years ago. She had heard about it in stories passed down in her family, but she never knew the John A. Mason House, added to the property in the 1850s, had been fixed up and was only half an hour away from where she had grown up her whole life.
Historian, activist and educator Danita Mason-Hogans stands in the foyer of the John A. Mason House in Chapel Hill, N.C., on July 28, 2023. Mason-Hogans is often in awe that her ancestors laid the original floor boards in the home, and that they crafted the banister from one long piece of wood. It makes her feel good to touch the banister and think about the construction that went into the house.
SIERRA PFEIFER / NEXTGENRADIO
The Mason House, in Chapel Hill, N.C., is part of the plantation where Mason-Hogans’ ancestors were once enslaved. It now sits on game lands by Jordan Lake and is owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
SIERRA PFEIFER / NEXTGENRADIO
Three miles is a long time to think about the people who worked the land and who toiled in the field. So, it’s a very strange feeling…it’s a feeling of embrace, and it’s a feeling of home, and at the same time, it’s a feeling of incredible sadness at the oppression that these beautiful people had to endure in order to serve others.
Over seven generations of Mason-Hogans’ family have been part of Chapel Hill history, with her earliest ancestors tracing back to not only the people who were enslaved, but also to Indigenous people in the area.
A historian, educator, activist and self-described “public memory worker, ” Mason-Hogans says her ancestors have always been an important part of her identity.
“I carry my ancestors with me into every meeting, every advocacy, every community gathering, every place I go — I carry my ancestors with me,” Mason-Hogans said. “And they tell me what to say, they keep me still, and they keep me motivated.”
Mason-Hogans’ father, Dave Mason, was one of the Chapel Hill Nine who began the first sit-in of Chapel Hill’s civil rights’ movement at the Colonial Drug Store in 1960. Her mother, Patricia Mason, was one of the first Black admissions counselors at UNC.
In contrast to her parents’ storied legacies, Mason-Hogans’ more distant relatives, including her great-great grandmother and many family members before her were enslaved on the massive Mason House plantation, which featured sprawling acres across what are now Orange, Chatham and Durham Counties. The plantation existed before the University of North Carolina was established in 1789, and Mason-Hogans said it played a major role in the university’s construction.
“So many of my ancestors built some of the buildings that, right now, are on UNC’s campus. And that’s often talked about. What is not often talked about is that we were also producers of food, we were knowledgeable of the land, we grew corn, we were pig farmers, we had crops that were converted to food and sustenance for the people who went to UNC. So, not only did we lay the physical foundation of UNC, we also served UNC by feeding the people,” Mason-Hogans said, underscoring her relatives’ involvement with the campus’s early days.
This knowledge of the past still affects the way Mason-Hogans thinks about Chapel Hill and moves through the university.
“At UNC, I think about how heavy those stones were. I think about whether or not children were involved with the construction. So I cannot walk through the beautiful construct of Chapel Hill, without it having a deeply personal meaning to me. I remember sitting in the [Wilson Library] archives, and just crying sometimes, while I’m taking notes on the things that have happened here.”
Mason-Hogans is uniquely aware of the messy conglomeration of hope, hurt and struggle that can make up a home. To this day, she is still navigating the mix of intense love she feels for Chapel Hill and the effects she and the town still feel from its racist foundations.
“This is not only a historically significant place for my ancestors, and for my people, the descendants of the Mason family. This is Chapel Hill history, because this is where it all began. And this is where the university began,” Mason-Hogans said. “I think that a fitting homage to the people who established, fed and maintained the university is to make sure that this is always a place that we can come to and remember. And that process, for me, is part of the work that I am about trying to reconcile.”
Mason-Hogans’ great grandparents Ernest and Nettie Edwards (left), grandmother Emma Mason (middle) and her other siblings pose for a photo in Chapel Hill’s Northside neighborhood circa 1950. They are gathered in the front yard between the great grandparents’ and grandparents’ neighboring houses.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DANITA MASON-HOGAN / NEXTGENRADIO
Danita Mason-Hogans (centered, flower skirt) and her family members stand together on the front porch of the Mason House in November 2022. Invited by Karen Howard, Chair of the Chatham Board of County Commissioners and current lessee of the house, the Mason family took a photo after seeing the plantation house for the first time.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DANITA MASON-HOGANS / NEXTGENRADIO
Mason-Hogans’ godmother (far left), mother (middle) and she share stories about their experiences in front of a group of incoming UNC Medical Students at the St. Joseph Christian Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C., on July 31, 2023.
SIERRA PFEIFER / NEXTGENRADIO
Danita Mason-Hogans speaks to a group of incoming UNC Medical Students at the St. Joseph Christian Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, N.C., on July 31, 2023. The meeting was a part of her advocacy to make the UNC medical system more accessible to Chapel Hill’s Black community.
SIERRA PFEIFER / NEXTGENRADIO
This is not only a historically significant place for my ancestors, and for my people, the descendants of the Mason family. This is Chapel Hill history, because this is where it all began. And this is where the university began. I think that a fitting homage to the people who established, fed and maintained the university is to make sure that this is always a place that we can come to and remember. And that process, for me, is part of the work that I am about trying to reconcile.