Douglas A. Blackman was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal when he explored “the possibility of a story asking a provocative question: What would be revealed if American corporations were examined through the same sharp lens of historical confrontation as the one then being trained on German corporations that relied on Jewish slave labor during World War II and the Swiss banks that robbed victims of the Holocaust of their fortunes?”
The African-American interest group at Barnes & Noble, led by Barbara Flythe, will discuss his book on Monday, August 22, at 7 p.m. at the Market Fair store. The Pulitzer Prize- winning book, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, is cited as “a groundbreaking historical expose of this shameful era in American history……which unearths the lost stories of the thousands of slaves and their descendants who were forced by political, social, racist, and economic pressures into involuntary servitude and poverty.”
Flythe’s group meets on fourth Mondays. One of the co-founders of Not in Our Town, she is a Presbyterian elder and past moderator of the New Brunswick Presbytery. The fall schedule includes:
September 26, 2011 The Grace of Silence by Michelle Norris is a memoir written by this well-known and widely-respected NPR co-host in which she examines her family’s racial roots, its secrets, and eventually reveals what it means for “all that has been unsaid to be finally spoken.”
October 24, 2011 Colorblind: The Rise- of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity by Tim Wise. The author is a long-time writer and essayist on matters related to racism, justice, and diversity in contemporary culture. In this book, he argues
“against colorblindness and for a deeper color-consciousness in both public and private
practice…..in order to move toward authentic social and economic justice in America, it is critical that we acknowledge the diverse identities that have shaped our perceptions.”
Photo: Chain gang in Thomasville Georgia, from “Slavery by Another Name.”