The Living Consequences

Brown University announced plans yesterday to build a memorial to commemorate Brown’s historic connections to the slave trade, possibly in Bristol or neighboring Newport, Rhode Island.

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Paul Davis, the Providence Journal writer who has previously chronicled Traces of the Trade and the history of the slave trade in Rhode Island, has a new feature story about Tom DeWolf’s Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Family in U.S. History in Sunday’s edition (available online now).

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The Providence Journal, which has frequently covered Traces of the Trade and other stories relating to the history of Rhode Island and the slave trade, has a review in Sunday’s edition of Tom DeWolf’s Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History.

The book review is a companion to a feature story about the film leading the Sunday arts section, but the review is available online now. The review is not kind, but I think the reviewer’s reasoning is highly instructive about Tom’s intended audience.

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Yesterday, we held a screening of Traces of the Trade in Providence for Rhode Island educators.

The screening, sponsored by the Rhode Island Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and hosted by Rhode Island College, was intended to solicit feedback on the uses of the film in the classroom context.

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The local Rhode Island screenings of Traces are generating a fair amount of attention in the state.

Tuesday’s screening in Bristol has resulted in two stories, one in the Providence Journal (“Bristol’s Ties to Slavery Featured“) and another in a local paper, “Slavery Documentary Draws a Packed House.” This is precisely what we were hoping for, as the R.I. screenings are intended to raise the visibility of the film in the state, while the Bristol screening was particularly aimed at giving the residents of Bristol a chance to become familiar with the documentary and to offer their feedback.

And the Phoenix has a story this week, “Buried History: Filmmaker Sparks Fresh Dialogue About RI’s Slave-Trading Past,” focused on last week’s screening in Providence at the Black Repertory Company. (Disclaimer: I was interviewed for the story.)

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Paul Davis, a reporter for the Providence Journal, attended the screening of Traces of the Trade on Tuesday at the Providence Black Repertory Company.

This morning, he has an article in the Journal, headlined “Shaking the Family Tree: Filmmaker Explores Her Family’s Role in the Slave Trade,” and describing the film and its context in detail, as well as responses to it at the screening.

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I went with my cousin Katrina Browne to Providence this evening, for a local screening of her film, Traces of the Trade. This is her documentary about the journey which ten of us undertook to re-trace the footsteps of our ancestors in the slave trade, and to explore the meaning of that legacy today.

The screening was hosted by the Providence Black Repertory Company, which provided an excellent venue and generated a large turn-out.

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