Back in April, Joe wrote about the major new book, Inheriting the Trade by Thomas Norman DeWolf, about a slave-trading family of “The Deep North.” Tonight, the related documentary, “Traces of the Trade,” by Katrina Browne airs on PBS (check your local listings). And, while I’m not great at predicting future trends, I think we will increasingly see non-fiction books combined with documentary films geared for (near) simultaneous release. Mark my words, this is a trend in search of a name, and it has implications for those of us in the classroom as well.


And, I stumbled upon another documentary called “Resolved,” (currently available on HBO in demand). It’s a documentary about high school debaters, predominantly white, and one debate team from a predominantly black school. It’s deeply engrossing – and not just because I did speech and debate in high school. I was unexpectedly blown away by this film, especially the Freire-ian-turn it takes. I highly recommend this film.


Finally, a brief thanks to Melissa F. Weiner, Assistant Professor at Quinnipiac University, for her suggestions for additional video titles. I’ve updated the video page with her suggestions.


Addendum from Joe: I just finished reading the very personal book by Tom DeWolf, Inheriting the Trade, and it is indeed dynamite. You learn not only about the central role of New Englanders in the slave trade, but also about the way in which some members of a large and extended white family learned about their heavy slavery history and tried to come to grips with it, including travels to slave regions of the US and to Africa. I highly recommend the book to you and for class use from high school to graduate school. It will likely change, a little or a lot, all who read it seriously.