"Slavery By Another Name" Panel Discussion
Humanities Forum - Dresher Center for the Humanities
Monday, February 9, 2015 · 4:30 - 6 PM
On Campus
The Dresher Center for the Humanities invites for the first discussion panel of Spring 2015.
In this first event, Dr. Spencer Crew, Robinson Professor of American, African American, and Public History, George Mason University, will discuss the film Slavery By Another Name **.
The film explores a reality that often went unacknowledged: a huge system of forced, unpaid labor, mostly affecting Southern black men, that lasted from the 1800s until World War II. Based on the Pulitzer-Prize-winning book by Douglas Blackmon, the film Slavery By Another Name tells the story of black men who were forced to work as convict laborers in factories, mines, and farms. These men were bought, sold, and abused by law enforcement officers who cited regulations against vagrancy, loitering, or walking near railroads.
These 'black codes' were laws that essentially re-enslaved blacks; many former slaves and their descendants were not free in reality. These laws existed despite the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, and the Confederate defeat in the Civil War. Although Congress enacted the Fourteenth Amendment (enshrining birthright citizenship and equal protection of the law) in 1868 and the Fifteenth Amendment (guaranteeing the right to vote for all men regardless of race) in 1870, Southern communities ignored these federal mandates. The film includes interviews with the descendants of victims and perpetrators. Panelists will discuss the film and what it suggests about life in America today.
** The film Slavery By Another Name will be screened at 12 p.m. on February 2nd and 4th in the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery.
You can also watch the film at PBS: http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/watch/
