A discussion of "Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery"Complicity: How The North Profited From Slavery
January 12, 2006
Anne Farrow writer
Joel Lang writer
Jenifer Frank writer
Conventional wisdom is challenged as Anne Farrow, Joel Lang, and Jenifer Frank, the authors of Complicity: How The North Promoted, Prolonged, And Profited From Slavery, discuss their findings in a public talk. A century and a half after the end of the Civil War, most Americans still think of slavery as a purely Southern institution. The enduring image of American bondage is that of lines of black men and women picking cotton on a plantation in a Southern state. In fact, the North was equally responsible for American slavery, as shown by the authors of Complicity. Before the Civil War, Northern industries such as textiles and shipbuilding flourished as a result of the free labor of millions of black people. The only difference was that Northerners could profit from slavery at a distance and were in a better position to deny their complicity.
The Boston Public Library and the Museum of Afro-American History are offering the Words of Thunder Lowell Lecture Series to honor the bicentennial of the birth of William Lloyd Garrison, Boston abolitionist and editor of The Liberator. The lecture series is designed to continue Garrison's efforts to expand the public's knowledge of slavery and of collaborative efforts of abolitionists.
If you have about 80 minutes, take a listen.
Sounds like two northern companies, if the authors are to be believed, were responsible for the deaths of two million blacks. Amazing.
What is it one contributor says over and over? Oh, yeah.....it was about slavery. Of course, he only directs that at the South. Seems he might be 180 degrees off.
