The Created Equal: America's Civil Rights Struggle film screening and discussion series continues with the presentation of the 2012 documentary Slavery by Another Name on Monday, April 14th, 6:00 p.m. at the Moline Public Library (3210 - 41st Street). Augustana College's Dr. Christopher Whitt will lead the discussion. This event is free and no registration is required.
It was a shocking reality that often went unacknowledged, then and now: a huge system of forced, unpaid labor, mostly affecting Southern black men, that lasted until World War II. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name tells the stories of men, charged with crimes like vagrancy, and often guilty of nothing, who were bought and sold, abused, and subjected to sometimes deadly working conditions as unpaid convict labor. Interviews with the descendants of victims and perpetrators resonate with a modern audience. Christina Comer, who discovered how her family profited from the system, says that "the story is important no matter how painful the reality is."
A professor in the political science department of Augustana College since 2007, Dr. Christopher Whitt is one of the principal founders and contributing members of the school's Africana Studies program. He received his M.A. and PhD from the University of Maryland, where he researched the impact of the racial wealth gap on Black political participation. He currently teaches the course "Race, Wealth, and Inequality in American Politics" as well as courses on United States government, politics, and citizenship.
Created Equal is presented as part of the six-week series Created Equal and Changing America, which explores our nation's civil rights history through film, exhibition, and presentations. More information can be found online at molinelibrary.com/createdequal
Created Equal: America's Civil Rights Struggle is made possible through a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, as part of its Bridging Cultures initiative, in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
Changing America is presented by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American History in collaboration with the American Library Association Public Programs Office. The traveling exhibition is made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
Local support for Created Equal and Changing America has been provided by Friends of the Moline Public Library, WQPT, and The Moline Dispatch/Rock Island Argus/QCOnline.
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