Author Returns, Speaks about New Book

Staff Writer

   Author of “Slavery by Another Name” and Atlanta Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal, Douglas A. Blackmon, attracted a responsive crowd April 3 at the University of Arkansas-Monticello Fine Arts Center.

Photo by Eric Bell

Well Spoken - Former resident and author Doug Blackmon spoke at the FAC Auditorium April 3.  Blackmon read exerts from his book, "Slavery by Another Name," and how the contents relate to all Americans.

   Blackmon spoke about the new release of his book and how the contents relate to both black and white America. The book discusses what Blackmon refers to as “neo-slavery,” the re-enslavement of African Americans from the Civil War to World War II.

   Blackmon also expressed the need for those devastating times to be documented and carefully examined.

   He compared and contrasted the Holocaust and slavery. The Jews and other forced laborers in the Holocaust were predominantly literate and able to document the suffering endured in the Nazi camps, whereas most slave owners in America prohibited slaves from learning to read and write, thus preventing most documentation of slavery from the slaves’ perspective.

   Blackmon said the documentation forced Germany to deal with its past, as opposed to black America, who experienced no real reckoning with its past of slavery.

   As a child, Blackmon said he began to speculate about the differences between whites and blacks in his hometown in Mississippi.

   “I found myself questioning why things were the way they were,” Blackmon said.

   He said he wondered why most of the children at his church did not attend his predominantly black school.

   In his book, Blackmon discussed the role of major banks in slavery and J.P. Morgan’s financing of white supremacists during the Civil Rights movement. He proposed the question, “What does a company owe for its past?” and what is the corporate responsibility to those still affected by those times?

   “Every African American family has a story that belongs in this book,” Blackmon said, referring to the stories of Green Cottonham, an African American who died during the times of re-enslavement. Cottonham, a character closely researched by Blackmon, died in coal mine in Alabama, serving a sentence for vagrancy.

    “Vagrancy, the offense of a person not being able to prove at a given moment that he or she is employed, was a new and flimsy concoction dredged up from legal obscurity at the end of the nineteenth century by the state legislatures of Alabama and other southern states,” Blackmon said in his book.

   Blackmon said he spent seven years researching and writing “Slavery by Another Name.”

   “This is not the version of history that most of us were taught or that most of us think we know,” Blackmon said, in reference to his book. “Every person and interview is true.”

   Blackmon ended his speech by opening the floor for questions and comments. One audience member asked Blackmon about his background and what in his personal past motivated him to write such a book. Blackmon told her about the obvious disadvantages to blacks his age that grew up in his town.

   Michael Binns Sr., a choir director at Monticello High School for 33 years where Blackmon graduated high school, spoke about his pride in Blackmon’s accomplishments.

   Binns said to the crowd, “You really don’t know what went on; there were riots at Monticello High School. We had to go to school on Saturday.

   “Doug was a student there, but we became personal friends. I was an administrator for the swimming pool, and he was a life guard. He, at that time, saw no color, and he has not changed,” Binns said.

   Robert Graber, associate professor of finance at UAM, talked about Blackmon’s speech in terms of economics and the production possibilities’ curve.

   “I thought it was an excellent speech and certainly thought provoking. I think there might be parallels about people’s attitudes towards illegal aliens and African Americans,” Graber said. “It would be nice if we learned from experience and respect everyone. It’s kind of a lose-lose situation when people are not able to use their potential. We have a situation when people don’t contribute and work to their full potential; everybody suffers.”

   Graber said when people discriminate against others, we, as a nation, lose talent and things those people could freely give. This puts the nation inside the production possibilities’ curve, not at full potential.

   “Instead of being a slave, people could be doctors and lawyers,” Graber said. “You don’t have people working to their comparative advantage.”

   Blackmon gave his speech one day before the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination April 4, 1968.

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