Slavery by Another Name

FAIN: TR-50123-10

Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. (St. Paul, MN 55101-1492)
Catherine M. Allan (Project Director: August 2009 to September 2019)

Production of a multiplatform project that recounts how in the years following the Civil War new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South keeping hundreds of thousands of African Americans in a brutal system of neo-slavery that would persist until the onset of World War II.

Twin Cities Public Television requests a production grant of $800,000 for a multi-platform initiative entitled Slavery by Another Name based upon the 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Wall Street Journal reporter Douglas Blackmon. Slavery by Another Name 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 of neo-slavery that would persist until the onset of World War II. The project comprises a 90-minute primetime PBS documentary; an online initiative using Web 2.0 tools to foster discussion and gather user generated content; and educational outreach including curriculum for high schools, online teacher training workshops, and community-based discussion guides. In this way, Slavery by Another Name will illuminate and make more understandable a critical but under-recognized chapter of American history.

Associated Products

Slavery by Another Name (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Slavery by Another Name
Writer: Sheila Curran Bernard
Director: Sam Pollard
Producer: Catherine Allan
Producer: Douglas A. Blackmon
Abstract: Slavery by Another Name challenges one of Americans’ most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. The film tells how even as chattel slavery came to an end in the South in 1865, thousands of African Americans were pulled back into forced labor with shocking force and brutality. It was a system in which men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of masters. Tolerated by both the North and South, forced labor lasted well into the twentieth century. Slavery by Another Name gives voice to the largely forgotten victims and perpetrators of forced labor and features their descendants living today. To help fill this void, Slavery by Another Name seeks to educate, demystify, and to capture the forgotten voices in our country’s history so we can learn and move forward as a nation.
Year: 2012
Format: DVD
Format: Film
Format: Web

Prizes

U.S. Documentary Competition Winner
Date: 1/1/2012
Organization: Sundance Institute

Pan African Film Festival Winner
Date: 1/1/2012
Organization: Pan African Film Festival

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