Douglas Blackmon, The Wall Street Journal’s former bureau chief in Atlanta, will discuss his book, “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II,” tonight at 6 p.m. in Gorgas Library Room 205.
The book was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 2009, in addition to appearing on The New York Times Bestseller List.
Joshua Rothman, a professor of history and African American studies and the director of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South, spoke about the basic idea behind Blackmon’s book.
“In practical terms, for generations after the Civil War, black people in the South remained vulnerable to arbitrary imprisonment, forced labor and systematic brutality that arguably was far worse and more insidious than slavery,” he said. “It’s a vital part of our national story that we’ve largely buried and ignored.”
“Slavery by Another Name” was published in 2008 and discusses the issues surrounding slavery after the Civil War.
“[The book] sheds light on the ways that effectively un-free workers laboring under abominable conditions continued to serve as a backbone of American economic development well into the 20th century and might serve as a reminder that such circumstances continue to make our lives possible today,” Rothman said. “It has a vital connection to the history of the South generally and Alabama specifically.”
Blackmon was with The Wall Street Journal from 1995 until this year, when he became a contributing editor at the Washington Post and joined the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, a national television program dedicated to public policy.
During his time as a senior editor and correspondent at the Wall Street Journal, Blackmon wrote about many national topics, including the Tea Party movement, the 2012 presidential campaign and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Along with a team of other journalists, Blackmon’s work on the oil spill was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. Blackmon is a Mississippi native and graduate of Hendrix College in Conway, Ark. He is now a resident of Atlanta, Ga., with his wife and two children.
“Mr. Blackmon has been prominent in his field and an important voice on issues of race and civil rights, both historically and in the contemporary world, for some time,” Rothman said when asked what drew his attention to Blackmon when searching for a speaker. “I would hope attendees would take the opportunity to learn that in some very important ways, slavery only ended in a technical sense in 1865.”
The event is being sponsored by UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Summersell Center for the Study of the South, New College, the Blount Undergraduate Initiative and the departments of American studies, journalism, gender and race studies, history and criminal justice.
For more information, contact Josh Rothman, director of Summersell Center for the Study of the South, at 205-348-3818 or [email protected].
