In February, PBS Film debuted the film Slavery By Another Name based upon the 2009 Pulizer Prize winning book by Douglas Blackmon, with the subtitle The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From The Civil War to World War II.
The PBS website further explains the project:
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.
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Many people we heard from during the highly-publicised firing of John Derbyshire for racist comments, supported Derbyshire because they believed he was saying what everyone else was thinking: That Black men are violent. They misuse and misunderstand statistics about Black-on-Black violence and believe that these statistics somehow prove that white people are in danger from Black people. For me, these comments were shocking. I have been, in a way, nestled in a warm cocoon (as one of my haters accused me of being), believing that racism was dying out. I was rudely awakened by recent issues such as the Trayvon Martin tragedy and the reaction to John Derbyshire’s firing. I knew about our history, but I didn’t truly understand the racism that is still very much alive, very much thriving, in America today.
It’s so easy for many of us to forget what happened not very long ago, in many of our lifetimes or our parents’ lifetimes, to men and women of color in this country. We believe that slavery ended with the end of the Civil War and we go about our merry ways thinking that a Black man in this country has the same experiences and opportunities as anyone else. We forget about segregation and about everything the Jim Crow laws entailed.
As a person with no education or experience in the field of race relations, criminal justice, or even Civil Rights activism, I cannot attempt to explain how the atrocities people of color have lived through in this country connect with the way in which Black people are regarded by society in general, and by police and other institutions as a whole.
But watching a film like this, even just this short preview, it seems we must force ourselves to look at the reality of our history and make a choice to change the future.
What do you think? Did you know this post-”freedom” slavery happened?
Do you think that our country’s legacy of enslavement and racism affects even the young men and boys growing up today?
What can we do, on a day-to-day basis, to change the future?
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About Joanna Schroeder
…Derbyshire because they believed he was saying what everyone else was thinking: That Black men are violent.
While its not everyone its a terrible truth that a lot of people do think that way.
Did you know this post-”freedom” slavery happened?
Most certainly did.
Do you think that our country’s legacy of enslavement and racism affects even the young men and boys growing up today?
Most certainly. You see it all over the place. The idea that one needs to be in one of a narrow set of occupations in order to be “real” (I think it was Jackie Summers that did a post a while back asking for the names of 10 rich and famous black men that weren’t athletes or rappers or something to that effect). The idea that in order to be a “real black man” one must engage in destructive behavior (notice the destructive behavior of Ron Artest). The idea that a “real black man” refuses education (even though this happens with with men/boys in general its very prevelant among black people specifically).
(And while this site is mostly aimed at men I want to add in something that I’m sure you are aware of I just want to put it out there anyway. You can see effects of this in black women and girls as well.)
And speaking of Trayvon if this story is true it looks like some have taken the path of retaliatory justice. Matthew Owens was beaten by a group of black people and according to a (and so far it looks like only) witness one of the attackers said something about the attack being “justice for trayvon”
:http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/24/police-racially-charged-assault-not-probed-as-hate-crime-despite-witness-claim/?intcmp=obinsite
We have a list somewhere of all the corporations that are presently using prisoners for slave labour.
“They misuse and misunderstand statistics about Black-on-Black violence and believe that these statistics somehow prove that white people are in danger from Black people. ”
Progressives are doing that today, but to all men instead of just black men.
Thank you for sharing this film with your audience. I’m a screenwriter and have worked with the author, Douglas A. Blackmon, for the past four years, adapting his book for a narrative feature. We worked separately from the documentary writer, but in harmony, wanting our script to be completed by the time the documentary aired on PBS. Our hope is the feature film will bring the blemish on our nation’s history to a wider audience. Fingers crossed Hollywood has the guts to make it. I urge all who see the documentary to also read Doug’s book. It will forever change your views of race relations today. I’m honored to have been a small part of Doug’s work.
I thought slavery by another name was about the prison system. As for the second part, yes the legacy is still felt by everyone. Actually views of racism haven’t changed since the 50s (according to a Pew study). White folks then as they do now believe racism was defeated, on the other hand black people then as they do now feel that racism is alive. Actually I think we need to be a lot more honest about racism. For instance, the top 10 segregated cities in the US were all in Union States. Contrast that with the top 10 fastest growing cities for black people, only two weren’t in the south (Nevada and maybe Arizona). My point with that we need to stop blaming the south only even if they do make it really easy.
I have to say that I do disagree with Jackie to just forget about the hardcore racists. The truth we can only see appearances and even though we may not believe that people from the darkest parts of what we believe is evil, there are cases where people actually can and have. That’s why I like the book of Jonah because it’s pretty much about that. Other changes though, I think there are just too many political forces at had.
I’m assuming that I’ve missed the broadcast- when will the film be shown again? I’d definitely like to see it
This looks like an interesting film, but I hope that It puts the experience into the perspective of how EVERYONE was treated during the time period. My grandfather lived in a tent and worked in a brickyard in Pennsylvania, right after getting off the boat from the old country in 1901. He was 12 years old. Watch the 1932 film “I Was a Fugitive From a Chain Gang” or read “You Can’t Win” by Jack Black from 1926, both still shocking today in the way that poor white people were treated by the legal system.
Possibly the most insidious and longest term effect from the Jim Crow period, was that when crime occurred in the black community in those days, little notice was taken of it by white authorities, to the point that few statistics were even kept of black on black murders. The press and law enforcement personnel even had a name for black on black murder; “shine killings”. Murders and other serious crimes in the black community were rarely investigated or prosecuted, and unless there was a black press like in northern cities, rarely reported on in the media of the day. How much hostility by many African American communities to the police is a product of lawbreakers being given a pass by the police for years, unless whites were involved? I want to see a documentary on that subject.
Thank you for this.
As I’ve stated here before, black males are by far the most oppressed and disadvantaged demographic in this country, largely due to this very fact. The anger, frustration, and despair exacerbates, reinforces, causes the doubling down on the discrimination suffered by black males and the negative view of them that results from ignorance, insensitivity, and behavior resulting from hundreds of years of slavery.
Thank you again.
Wow. I am just amazed other people besides myself actually read this article.
I feel black males carry a heavy burden in our society