It's a cabin designed to spark a change. But so far, it's only sparked controversy.
Sedalia retired psychologist Dr. Marge Harlan built the replica slave cabin in a historically black part of town.
"I think we need something to get us off being stuck," said Harlan. "I think we're stuck."
Harlan describes Sedalia as a longtime segregated community where blacks and whites don't talk to each other. Her solution was to invest $25,000 of her own money to build the replica slave cabin.
The cabin sits right behind the Rose M. Nolen Black History Library, named after a local journalist and civil rights leader who used to live in the home used for the library. Harlan now owns the private property and operates the library.
The slave cabin, still a work in progress, will feature an exhibit tracing American black history from slavery through the civil rights movement to present day, including America's first black president.
Harlan says the exhibit will explore that history in all its unpleasant harshness.
"I think the slave cabin hopefully is going to be a monument to their courage and their resiliency," she said.
However, not everyone feels that way. Among the critics of the cabin is the longtime president of the Sedalia-Pettis County NAACP chapter, Dr. Rhonda Chalfant, who like Harlan is a white woman.
"I think if Marge wanted to put up an exhibit about slavery, it would've been better off inside the museum rather than out in public and in your face," she said.
Chalfant says reaction from her members and Sedalia's black community in general is overwhelmingly negative.
One exception is Harlan, who's also an NAACP member.
The cabin, located in the town's historically black north side, also has a heritage garden. Included are cotton, peanuts, tobacco, sweet potatoes and sugar cane. They're all crops slaves harvested.
"I think the symbolism of some of those plants carries a negative with it," Chalfant said.
"I thought it would be interesting if folks knew how cotton grew and tobacco grew and sugar cane grew," Harlan said.
"This is like a blatant eyesore to me and the rest of the community over here," said Shawn Sims, a neighbor.
Sims says the cabin reinforces his belief that Sedalia is a racist town.
"You could've had like a community meeting or asked what we thought," he said.
When the 41 Action News Investigators asked Harlan who she talked to before she decided to build the slave cabin, she said, "Oh, just folks that went by."
Harlan says she had no idea the cabin would be upsetting until a group of young black men driving by in a car told her they were going to burn it down.
She says a sign she had made which read "A slave cabin. All who enter, make peace with your past and move on" was also stolen. It's been replaced by a new sign naming the building after Civil War era activist Sojourner Truth, who's pictured with President Abraham Lincoln on the sign.
Next door neighbor Tyrone Carter says overall, he doesn't object to the slave cabin and believes Harlan means well. But he also says his gut reaction to the structure is an unpleasant one.
"I really don't like it because it brings back memories on me when I was a little one, see," Carter said.
Quoting a friend about the cabin, Chalfant said, "It would be like building a replica of Auschwitz in a Jewish neighborhood."
When the 41 Action News Investigators asked Harlan if she was a black woman who came by and saw the slave cabin what would she think, she said, "I'd think, that's my history, that's what I used to be, but no longer."
Despite some negative feedback, Harlan is moving forward with her exhibits for the newly built slave cabin.
There will be a panel discussion on the cabin Saturday, June 25 in Sedalia.
Ironically, that panel discussion will coincide with a celebration marking the end of slavery.
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Andy Alcock can be reached at anderson.alcock@kshb.com.
