The Living Consequences

This morning’s interview on The Early Show on CBS is now available to watch online.

The interview was conducted by anchor Harry Smith with Tom DeWolf, Katrina Browne and Juanita Brown, on the occasion of the release of Traces of the Trade on DVD.

Harry Smith had previously blogged about the book and the film, and he ends the interview by saying, “I cannot recommend [the book and the film] highly enough.”

The interview was focused on Tom’s book, Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History, and on the film, for which Katrina served as director and producer and Juanita was a co-producer.

I thought that Tom, Katrina, and Juanita all did a fantastic job in a fast-paced interview, live on national television. Katrina was able to speak the most, and she managed to highlight several key lessons of the film, including: the dependence of the nation, particularly the North, on slavery and the slave trade; and the extent to which the benefits of slavery have accrued even to families which immigrated after the Civil War.

Update: My cousin Tom has just updated his blog with an inside account of the interview this morning. He includes the fact that The Early Show draws an audience of roughly 3 million people each morning.