GREENVILLE, MS — An Airbnb listing for an “1830s slave cabin” in Mississippi has been removed after a TikTok video criticizing the rental garnered widespread attention.
Airbnb apologized Monday for listing Panther Burn Cottage at Belmont Plantation in Greenville and outlined several policy changes in a statement obtained by Patch.
In addition to removing the Panther Burn Cottage listing, the company is removing listings known to include former slave quarters in the United States and is receiving input from experts to develop new policies regarding other properties associated with the slavery, according to an Airbnb spokesperson.
“Properties that once housed slaves have no place on Airbnb,” the company said in the statement. “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 resolve this issue.”
The listing’s rejection gained traction when Wynton Yates, a Louisiana entertainment attorney, released a video expressing his disbelief that the property was being marketed and rented out as former slave quarters.
He was particularly upset with some visitor reviews left on the list.
“We stayed in the cabin, and it was historic yet elegant,” Yates read aloud in a review shown behind him. “A slave cabin is elegant?” he repeated incredulously.
In a response video, Yates said former slave quarters and other similar structures should not be demolished but kept in their original condition. Current owners of properties should feel compelled to research the history of these places and learn more about the slaves who were housed there to help provide an accurate story, he said.
“The history of slavery in this country is constantly denied, and now it’s being mocked by being turned into a luxurious vacation spot,” Yates said in the original video, which has over 2.6 million views.
Owner Brad Hauser recently purchased the property and only gained access to the previous owner’s advertising assets after the video went viral, he told CNN.
Hauser “strongly opposed” the previous owner’s decision to market the property as a place to live and does not intend to rent the cabinhe told CNN.
A now private YouTube video from the previous owner says the hut was originally a sharecropper’s hut that was converted into a medical practice. It was moved from Panther Burn Plantation several years ago, according to CNN.
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