The Living Consequences

Tom DeWolf will be bringing his book tour to New England during the next two weeks.

As readers of this blog know, Tom, a distant cousin of mine, has written a memoir entitled Inheriting the Trade: A North Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History. The book chronicles Tom’s journey of self-discovery as a descendant of the D’Wolf family of Bristol, R.I. and parallels the making of Traces of the Trade, the Sundance-nominated documentary which is scheduled to air on PBS in June.

Here is the schedule of Tom’s upcoming appearances in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut:

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Traces of the Trade is featured this evening in a thoughtful article, “Slavers in the Family,” which serves as a cover story for tomorrow’s edition of the Philadelphia City Paper.

The article, by Sam Adams, carries the subhead, “How Philly native Katrina Browne confronted her ties to America’s original sin, and why the nation should follow her lead,” and features interviews with Katrina Browne and Tom DeWolf. This coverage is motivated by screenings of the documentary at the National Constitution Center on April 24; as the article explains, the screenings were originally to be held as part of the Philadelphia Film Festival, until a conflict arose with the Democratic debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

As I indicated, this is a particularly thoughtful article. Adams does review the film itself, describing it as “gripping” and “a fascinating and largely unknown story,” but he focuses on the family’s introspection about the legacy of the slave trade and delves into Katrina’s and Tom’s backgrounds and motivations as coverage of the film and book rarely do.

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Florida’s legislature passed a non-binding resolution yesterday expressing its “profound regret for Florida’s role in sanctioning and perpetuating involuntary servitude upon generations of African slaves.”

Florida thus joins six other states, from Alabama to New Jersey, which have passed such resolutions since early last year.

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Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North will have its broadcast premiere on Tuesday, June 24 at 10:00pm on PBS.

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The Nation has just posted an article, “Tracing Slavery’s Past,” which is centered around Traces of the Trade.

The story (web-only) is by Te-Ping Chen, who, as I’ve noted before, has previously written about Traces in the Providence Phoenix.

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The U.S. Senate will consider an apology for slavery and the subsequent history of legalized discrimination, under a plan announced by senators Sam Brownback and Tom Harkin and covered in an article made available by USA Today this evening.

Harkin and Brownback have already lined up 14 co-sponsors, including presidential candidates Clinton and Obama, for their proposed apology, which they plan to introduce in the Senate as early as March.

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Tom DeWolf, the author of Inheriting the Trade, was interviewed this afternoon on the Cliff Kelley Show on WVON-AM radio (“The Talk of Chicago”).

This turned into a lengthy and well-received interview, with Tom being asked to stay well into the show’s second hour to continue the conversation and being asked to return another time.

I have several comments after the jump, but the full interview with Tom can be heard here.

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Ed Ball, the author of the award-winning Slaves in the Family and an early supporter of Traces of the Trade, has a fascinating essay at The Root, unpacking the slave-owning history of the Bush family.

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 The Christian Science Monitor has a review of Tom DeWolf’s Inheriting the Trade in tomorrow morning’s edition, entitled “An Honest Look at a Slave-Trading Family’s Past.”

The reviewer, book editor Marjorie Kehe, finds particular value in Tom’s “spirit of honesty and the willingness to confront the ugly parts of human experience,” concluding that while Tom offers no easy answers to the difficult questions he raises, “honest self-examination remains an excellent place to start.”

The online version of the review also offers an audio interview which Kehe conducted with Tom.

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H.R. 3432, “A bill to establish the Commission on the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” has now become law.

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