Link To Video Documentary at pbs.org
Slavery By Another Name
Douglas Blackmon Author
PBS Film
Watch the broadcast of the new documentary film, Slavery by Another Name, on all PBS stations, Feb. 13, at 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m., Central.
Directed by Sam Pollard, produced by Catherine Allan and Douglas Blackmon, written by Sheila Curran Bernard, the tpt National Productions project is based on the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Blackmon. Slavery by Another Name challenges one of our country’s most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery ended with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The documentary recounts how in the years following the Civil War, insidious new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South, keeping hundreds of thousands of African Americans in bondage, trapping them in a brutal system that would persist until the onset of World War II.
Based on Blackmon’s research, Slavery by Another Name spans eight decades, from 1865 to 1945, revealing the interlocking forces in both the South and the North that enabled this “neoslavery” to begin and persist. Using archival photographs and dramatic re-enactments filmed on location in Alabama and Georgia, it tells the forgotten stories of both victims and perpetrators of neoslavery and includes interviews with their descendants living today. The program also features interviews with Douglas Blackmon and with leading scholars of this period. Major funding for Slavery by Another Name is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Coca-Cola Company and the CPB/PBS Diversity and Innovation Fund. PBS broadcast is targeted for early 2012.
The project includes:
- A 90-minute national PBS prime-time television documentary, produced and directed by noted filmmaker Sam Pollard (Eyes on the Prize, The Blues, When the Levees Broke) to be broadcast nationwide in the fall of 2012.
- An online interactive site on pbs.org that will be not only a destination for sharing stories gathered in partnership with the oral history organization, StoryCorps, but also the preeminent resource online for people wanting to learn more about this little-known history.
- Educational outreach, in conjunction with outreach specialists 2MPower Media and content experts at The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, providing a standards-based curriculum for high school educators and students nationwide, along with a college unit on the economics of slavery and a Viewer’s Guide for use by families and community groups.
Media Staff
Producer/Director
Sam Pollard
Sam Pollard is the editor of the Edward Norton feature length documentary, By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, airing on HBO. He served as documentary producer of Blackside production’s Eyes on the Prize II: American at the Racial Crosswords, and Co-Executive Producer/Producer of I’ll Make Me a World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community. He directed Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun for American Masters. Pollard has also worked extensively on Spike Lee’s films, including When the Levees Broke. His productions have won multiple Emmy Awards, George Foster Peabody Awards, the George Polk Award, the NAACP Image Award, and the Pare Lorentz Award from the International Documentary Association. Pollard is also a Professor of Film Studies at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
Executive Producer
Catherine Allan
Catherine Allan is a Senior Executive Producer at tpt National Productions. Her executive producing credits include two Peabody Award-winning productions: Liberty! The American Revolution and the feature-length documentary, Hoop Dreams, named the number one documentary of all time by the International Documentary Association. Other productions include the Emmy Award-winning Benjamin Franklin; Alexander Hamilton and Kinsey for American Experience; the Cine Golden Eagle winner Continental Harmony; The New Medicine; and Jane Goodall: Reason for Hope. Allan’s most recent project is a 90-minute documentary for PBS on Dolley Madison.
Co-Executive Producer
Douglas Blackmon
Douglas Blackmon is the Atlanta Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal. Prior to joining the Journal, Blackmon was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he covered race and politics, and special assignments including the fall of the Berlin Wall and the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. In 2001, he revealed in the Journal how U.S. Steel Corporation relied on forced black laborers in Alabama coal mines in the early 20th century, an article which led to his first book, Slavery By Another Name. His article on U.S. Steel was included in the 2003 edition of Best Business Stories. The Journal’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina received a special National Headliner award in 2006.
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Today is
100 Years Of Brutality, Worse Than Any Slaves ever endured during Days of Slavery
I have made many attempts to talk to my mother about her Mother and her Aunts & Uncles, asking her questions about how well she knew her parent's family members.... and I never got an answer, because my mother truly didn't know her extended family, due to the lack of the family willingness to discuss their lives.
Once I found out about this documentary being broadcasted on PBS, I immediately called my mother and told her to make sure that she watch it..., and she did.
Slavery By Another Name... is the first documentary that provides a semblance of what could be construed as, a quality description of the after math of legalized slavery, based on a span of time. The years and lives of the post slavery blacks were horrendous..., 5 times the degree of what their slave lives were during slavery.
Slavery By Another Name, scratches the surface of what post slavery blacks went through, however, if you take time to allow your mind to view what a 100 year span of time really is, then place a human life at the beginning of that 100 year span of time, then calculate that 100 years as 4 to 5 generations, with a new generation starting, on an average of every 20 years, meaning, a new born would reach 20 years of age, and birth a new child, who would live 20 years before his or her child is born, and again, and again, and again.
5 Generations of post slavery from 1863 to 1963, were some of the most harsh treatment of human beings, in the history of human existence, were taking place against the blacks after slavery..., all supported by the United States Government, State Governments, local Cities and Municipalities
A Child, starting at the age of 5, was subjected to daily abuses, and if that child made it to 20 years old, he or she, would have dealt with beatings, humiliation, degradation, rape, and other human atrocities that can be imagined by the dominant whites, who had no fear of prosecution or retaliation.
Slavery By Another Name describes about 40 to 50 years of "some of the most Egregious Acts" that black men and woman ever suffered, and as bad as these unconscionable lives may seem to you and I today,... attempt to imagine being the human being having to be the person being subjected to these daily life abuses..., is even much worse...
Black Men were taken off the street and sent to jail, based on any reason imaginable, by the white man. The Black men were then sold to businesses by the Jail Systems, serving as hard laborers at the rate of .50 cents per day, paid to the Jail System, and the human body was of no consequences, because if a black man dies, he is replaced by another,,, from the Jail System.
Slavery By Another Name
This Documentary is a must see documentary for all Americans, because White Man hid their abusive behavior from their family members, and even today, there are many White Americans who do not that these abuses took place, because their own parents and grand parents have hidden this information from all.... to this day. A Must see for all White Americans.
For Black Americans,,, if your below the age of 55, this documentary will provide you with a degree of understanding of what your parents were afraid of while growing up.
For Blacks over 65, this documentary will remind you of some of the things that your parents would say, and bring back that thought of, "why do my parents talk about whites like that".
My Mother's Response
My Mother called me the day after she saw this document, we discussed this documentary, and she went back in time..., realizing what her mother had to deal with.., she understood why her uncles didn't talk about their life.
My Mother said that a cousin of hers went missing when he was 14 years old,,, and he was never seen again,,, and it dawned on her, what possibly could have happened to him..., after all, they lived in Baton Rouge LA.
Each State and Each City In The U.S., Have This Type of History
The Records are in the courts and the history of arrests, the abuses of their beings, were documented,,, all over the U.S...
Southern Cities were not the only cities that abused blacks..., all cities in the U.S. did so, because people are natural followers.
It's these types of stories of our American History that must be revealed to all the American Citizens, as a way of educating the consciousness of all Americans.
Some Questions are answered, regarding the behavior of Blacks in the U.S.:
Why were our parents not loving and caring parents?
Why were our parents not giving and attentive to our daily needs?
Why didn't our parents tell us they loved us everyday?
Why were our parents not educated?
Why were our parents so focused on ensuring that I get an education?
Why were our parents a closed book about their parents and family members?
My Dad's Life "A Scenario"
My Dad was put in jail at the age of 14 under false pretences, and he was forced to work, he was beaten, he was abuse, he was humiliated, he was almost starved, he got very sick and almost died....
My Dad went through all of this before he turned 18, and now I know why he is distant sometimes, I know why he was mean sometimes, I know why he didn't show any affection.
Now that he is no longer here, I can't tell him that I understand, and give him a hug. I can't give him the type of love that he was denied, I can't give my dad a reason why he was abused by a society that cared nothing for his flesh.
It's to late for him, and now that I know what he went through, I can only sigh with disbelief.
Douglas Blackman... you did a excellent job on this story, and I hope that you do many more, covering all the abuses by all the cities of the U.S......
Because We All Need To know More.
In My Opinion
ASMFMB
2/14/2012
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