The House passed H.Res. 194, a resolution sponsored by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), by voice vote after the measure attracted 120 co-sponsors. The resolution follows a similar measure by the Senate in February, apologizing for U.S. actions against Native Americans, and a congressional apology and reparations twenty years ago to Japanese Americans and their descendants for the use of concentration camps by the U.S. in World War II.

Please visit the Buy/Use the Film page on this website and place your order today!

I’ve now had Nielsen “ratings” and “shares” of television audiences explained to me. It doesn’t mean I fully understand them, mind you, but it does allow me to pass along one significant conclusion. On the evening of the premiere of Traces of the Trade on PBS’s acclaimed documentary series P.O.V. approximately 1.1 million people tuned in to watch all, or most, of the film. As many as 1.7 million–which includes channel surfers–watched at least part of Traces of the Trade that evening. I don’t know what this means in terms of markets–like Oregon and Rhode Island, for instance–in which the film was broadcast on a date other than June 24. In other words, I’m not sure how the total audience would, or could, be calculated.

On the evening of June 24, P.O.V. received a .8 rating and a 1 share. The “rating” is calculated from metered stations in the top fifty markets that aired Traces and refers to the percentage of households who own TVs in each market who tuned in to watch. The “share” refers to the percentage of households with their televisions turned on that tuned in to watch. For comparison’s sake, on that same evening, NOVA at 8:00pm received a 1.1 rating. Frontline at 9:00pm received 0.9. Cable ratings for the 10:00pm hour (Traces was intended to be broadcast at 10:00pm in most markets) include CNN/0.8, Bravo/0.7, Comedy Central/0.8, HBO/0.3, History/1.0, and MSNBC/0.5.

At appearances I’ve made since June 24 I’ve had many people tell me they watched Traces on P.O.V. I’ve had many more tell me they saw or heard previews, interviews, or articles about it. The numbers of people logging onto the Traces website shot up significantly, as well as visitors to my blog. At the P.O.V. blog, where they offered people the opportunity to ask questions of the author here, the filmmaker here, and to comment on the film here, there are more than 750 postings.

P.O.V. is very pleased with these numbers. We’re also quite pleased. Interest in the film, the book, and the message of hope inherent in this ongoing American journey continues to grow.

http://inheritingthetrade.com/blog/?p=146

The interview was conducted by Early Show anchor Harry Smith, who wrote about the film when it first aired on PBS:

… the journey is painful, tearful and revealing. …and the film displays the difficult road toward reconciliation. See it or get it or pick up the book by Katrina’s cousin Tom DeWolf.

The panel, “From the Door of No Return: The Bicentennial of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” will be moderated by Howard Dodson, the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Other scheduled panelists include Rosanne Marion Adderley (New Negroes from Africa: Slave Trade Abolition and Free African Settlement in the Nineteenth-century Caribbean), Sylviane A. Diouf (Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Last Africans Brought to America), and David Eltis (Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade Database).

The panel is from 4:00-5:30pm in the Langston Hughes Auditorium at the Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, N.Y.

The article, on the front page of the Post’s Style section, features interviews with director Katrina Browne and co-producer Juanita Brown. The story ran in advance of the Washington-area television premiere of the documentary on June 29.

The documentary is airing as the season premiere of the award-winning independent documentary series, P.O.V.

The documentary airs on different days and times in different markets, so be sure to check local listings.

The program was devoted to the legacy of slavery and the socioeconomic consequences of slavery for today’s society.

In addition to presenting a special preview of Traces, Moyers interviewed three guests on tonight’s program:

• Glenn Loury, an economist at Brown University who also writes and speaks about racial inequality and who appears in Traces of the Trade to discuss reparations for slavery
• Orlando Patterson, an eminent sociologist whose work has often addressed slavery and its cultural and economic consequences
• Douglas Blackmon, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal whose latest book, Slavery by Another Name, explores the “neo-slavery” which plagued tens of thousands of freed slaves and their descendants during the century following the Civil War.

For broadcast times in your area, check local listings.

…Let the first of January, the day of the abolition of the slave trade in our country, be set apart in every year, as a day of publick thanksgiving for that mercy. Let the history of the sufferings of our brethren, and of their deliverance, descend by this means to our children, to the remotest generations; and when they shall ask, in time to come, saying, What mean the lessons, the psalms, the prayers and the praises in the worship of this day? Let us answer them, by saying, the Lord, on the day of which this is the anniversary, abolished the trade which dragged your fathers from their native country, and sold them as bondmen in the United States of America.

– Absalom Jones, Minister, St. Thomas African Episcopal Church of Philadelphia and freed slave

With these words, on January 1, 1808, Rev. Absalom Jones hailed the legal abolition of U.S. participation in the transatlantic slave trade, a victory which seeded the ground for greater changes yet to come.

For the first twenty years after the founding of the United States, the slave trade was protected by the Constitution. A compromise had been reached at the constitutional convention of 1787, providing that the federal government could not prohibit the importation of slaves into the southern states for a period of 20 years.

As the 1808 expiration of the constitutional provision approached, Congress was divided on the issue of the slave trade. Then President Thomas Jefferson made a dramatic pronouncement. Jefferson, whose record on slavery was ambiguous but who strongly opposed the slave trade, declared in his annual message to Congress his support for the total abolition of the slave trade. A bill to this effect was introduced in Congress the next day. After heated debate, Congress passed the legislation. It was signed into law on March 2, 1807. The legislation prohibited the importation of any slave as of January 1, 1808, the day the constitutional prohibition on such a ban expired.

The abolition of the slave trade by the United States and by Great Britain (1807) led to the decline of the trade and, in time, contributed to the abolition of slavery itself in the British Empire (1834) and the U.S. (1865). For years after 1808, thanks to Absalom Jones and others, free black communities in the ante-bellum North celebrated January 1st, the anniversary of the abolition of the trade, as a black Fourth of July.

January 1, 2008 marks the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade. This date is not widely known. One key reason is that the slave trade was conducted on Northern ships, with Northern commodities, and Northern financial backing. The complicity of the North in slavery has been obscured, so that many Americans don’t know the history of the trade and of its abolition. The bicentennial presents a historic opportunity to set the record straight.

The year 2008 will be an opportunity to “remember, reflect and respond” to the horrors of the slave trade and the struggle to bring it to an end. Momentum is building throughout the country to use the bicentennial to further the national conversation on race and justice, inspired by the efforts in England in 2007 to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the British slave trade. The British government invested the equivalent of $40 million in major programs, exhibits, and events; a service was held at Westminster Abbey, the BBC aired programs, and the film Amazing Grace was released. Leadership in the U.S. is now being undertaken in Congress, the Smithsonian, state humanities councils, religious denominations, universities, museums and beyond. This bicentennial can inspire us, together, to look around the world and face the challenge of ending the forms of slavery that still exist. Simultaneously, we can rededicate ourselves to the work of tackling the many legacies of slavery that have, in one way or another, shaped all Americans.