Who owns Panther Burn Cottage? Outrage forces Airbnb to pull listing of '1830s SLAVE CABIN'
Airbnb on Monday, August 1, removed the listing for "an 1830s slave cabin" from the rental site after a TikTok video about the property sparked outrage. After removing the Panther Burn Cottage located on Belmont Plantation in Greenville, Mississippi, Airbnb issued an apology.
"Properties that formerly housed the enslaved have no place 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,” said the Airbnb statement. It further mentioned that the company is hard at work with their experts to formulate policies that will combat such listings.
RELATED ARTICLES
'Unsafe and scary!': Airbnb renter finds over 10 HIDDEN cameras at property during girls' trip
Influencer Mary Magdalene slammed over GoFundMe to pay $10K bill for 'trashed' Airbnb
Who owns Panther Burn Cottage?
Brad Hauser has been the owner of Panther Burn Cottage for only three weeks. Hauser issued a statement to CNN saying, "As the new, three-week owner of The Belmont in Greenville, Mississippi, I apologize for the decision to provide our guests a stay at 'the slave quarters' behind the 1857 antebellum home that is now a bed and breakfast. I also apologize for insulting African Americans whose ancestors were slaves." He explained that the property was previously owned by Joshua B Cain who advertised the place as such.
Hauser continued that he "strongly opposed the previous owner's decision to market the building as the place where slaves once slept after toiling in the cotton fields in human bondage." He said the listing was a leftover from Cain, who had locked him out of the social media and property rental accounts until the TikTok video went viral.
The TikTok video that went viral
The video was posted by Wynton Yates, a Black lawyer hailing from New Orleans, who said in the video, "How is this okay in somebody’s mind to rent this out? A place where human beings were kept as slaves, rent this out as a bed and breakfast?” Yates shared a series of screenshots which included the description of the property and the above-average rating with 68 reviews and a 4.97 rating.
Yates continued, “The history of slavery in this country is constantly denied and now it’s being mocked by being turned into a luxurious vacation spot." He explained that his brother first pointed out the property in hopes of renting it but Yates felt compelled to call it out. As per the description in the screenshots shared by Wynton Yates, The Panther Burn Cabin is “an 1830s slave cabin from the extant Panther Burn Plantation to the south of Belmont. It has also been used as a tenant sharecroppers cabin and a medical office for local farmers and their families to visit the plantation doctor."