Spencer Crew '71 emphasized the importance of giving "a human face to slavery" at a screening of the PBS documentary "Unchained Memories" and discussion sponsored by the Committee on Slavery and Justice Monday night. Crew, the executive director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, is speaking tonight at 7:30 in Salomon 001; his lecture is titled "The Fight Against Slavery: The Story of the Underground Railroad."
The documentary, which is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and includes readings by other African-American celebrities, features slave narratives collected in the early 1900s but not discovered by historians until the mid-1950s. Despite the common conception then that oral histories were untrustworthy sources, these narratives - along with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s - helped to change slavery's depiction in history books forever.
The documentary tells the stories of African-American men and women from around the country who were slaves. Most were in their eighties when they were interviewed. They recounted their memories of slave auctions, running away, being taken from their families and, for the lucky few, being freed.
One man, asked by his master to kill a fellow slave, decided he would rather flee than commit murder. He took the other slave with him and became one of the 50,000 slaves who escaped each year during the height of slavery in the United States, reflecting with bittersweet satisfaction in his narrative, "Today I is an old man, and my hands ain't stained with no blood."
Katie Rowe was a slave on an Oklahoma plantation when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. She recounted the speech her white master delivered to his slaves that afternoon in her narrative: "You darkies know what day this is? This is the fourth day of June, and it is 1865. And you is always going to remember this date, because today, you is free."
"The old-school historians gave an interpretation that slavery was this benign institution, that slave owners were kindly and gave direction to these lost souls," said James Campbell, associate professor of history and chair of the Committee on Slavery and Justice. "That lasted right until the Civil Rights Movement, which forced a reconceptualization of slavery."
Crew was a consultant in the late stages of the documentary's production, but he worked more extensively on the book version of "Unchained Memories." He told The Herald he hopes by screening the documentary, the slavery and justice committee is continuing to "offer a different access point to discussions about slavery and the impact that people can have to the way (that subject) is approached, including its relevance to today's world."
In a short discussion following the screening, audience members contributed thoughtful reactions to the documentary - for example, that the problem of illegitimacy in African-American families today stems from a time when whites were responsible for splitting up slave families, and that slavery is difficult to capture in any sort of Hollywood smash-hit context.
"The number of people who see these (documentaries) compared to the number who see (blockbusters) - it's miniscule," Campbell said. "I don't ever think I've seen a film that does this institution justice. Representing this in literature or film - we have so many narratives in our heads, tropes that are corrupt - we sentimentalize it. (The film) 'Amistad' comes close (to representing slavery accurately) - but the hero in 'Amistad' was white."
"You cannot make a successful Hollywood version of this," Crew agreed.
In response to a question about how to make the memory of slavery more immediate - these narratives were recorded less than a century ago - Crew expressed the need for people to realize the close ties Americans still have to the institution.
"The way slavery defines race has not changed in this country, and in a lot of ways it's still around," he said. "You don't have to go back to the 1860s to see that."
