MIDDLEBURY — Historian and filmmaker Douglas Blackmon will discuss his film and Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Slavery by Another Name,” in a talk at Ilsley Public Library on Thursday, Feb. 8, at 7:00 p.m. His talk of the same name is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open to the public. (Note: This talk takes place on a special date on a Thursday.)
“Slavery by Another Name” chronicles the return of forced labor across the South between the Civil War and World War II, when hundreds of thousands of African-American men were convicted of trivial or trumped-up offenses — or simply kidnapped — and sold into the forced labor camps of a new system of slavery. Blackmon’s talk will include brief film clips.
Blackmon has written extensively over the past 25 years about the American quandary of race — exploring the integration of schools during his childhood in a Mississippi Delta farm town, lost episodes of the Civil Rights movement, and, repeatedly, the dilemma of how a contemporary society should grapple with a troubled past.