Airbnb removes former ‘slave cabin’ listing, apologizes after TikTok backlash

GREENVILLE, Miss. — A viral TikTok video slamming a Mississippi property described as a former “slave cabin” in its Airbnb descriptions prompted the property-rental giant to apologize and remove all listings where enslaved people in the U.S. once lived.

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“Properties that formerly housed the enslaved have no place on Airbnb,” Airbnb said in a prepared statement provided to NBC News. “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.”

The property in question is the Panther Burn Cottage at the Belmont Plantation in Greenville, Mississippi.

According to The Washington Post, Wynton Yates, an entertainment and civil rights attorney in New Orleans, criticized the listing in a now viral TikTok post on Friday, saying, “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?”

“The history of slavery in this country is constantly denied, and now it’s being mocked by being turned into a luxurious vacation spot. This is not OK in the least bit,” Yates, who is Black, added.

He also shared screenshots of the listing that referred to the Panther Burn Cabin as “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,” NBC News reported, noting that the listing had 68 reviews and a 4.97 rating when the screenshot was saved.

By comparison, Yates’ video had garnered more than 443,000 likes and more than 16,500 comments by Tuesday, the network reported.

Brad Hauser, who took over ownership of the Greenville property in July, said in a statement to The Washington Post that even though the building served as a doctor’s office rather than quarters for enslaved people, it was “the previous owner’s decision to market the building as the place where slaves once slept.”

Hauser, who is white, told the newspaper that he “strongly opposed” the previous owner’s decision and vowed to provide guests with a “historically accurate portrayal” of life at the Belmont Plantation.

“I am not interested in making money off slavery,” Hauser, 52, said.

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