Ahhh, it’s the weekend. And, as we so often do on weekends, I had planned to take in a movie with my teenage kids. Although I need to confess I have not read the book, I was planning to take the kids to see “The Help.” Now, please afford me a little prologue, which some might actually call digression. Either way, bear with me.

It’s been a powerful year for my kids, as our nation commemorates the 50th anniversary of America’s Civil Rights movement. Through the programming here at the Freedom Center, my three teenagers have had the privilege of meeting and hearing the inspirational first-hand accounts of human rights activists, such as Freedom Riders Betty Daniels Rosemond and Dr. David Fankhauser; the daughter of Malcolm X, Ilyasah Shabazz; the Honorable Nathaniel R. Jones, retired U.S. Circuit Court Judge; and, Little Rock Nine member Carlotta walls LaNier. I may be a bit biased, given my position, but I dare say these up-close and personal encounters are far richer than any classroom could offer. I like to believe these opportunities supplement what my children are learning in school. Sometimes, however, I feel they may actually supercede the classroom instruction. But back to my point.

I thought seeing “The Help” would make for a nice family night out and would, much like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” shed additional light on our nation’s struggles with segregation. But it seems I may have hoped for too much. A friend of mine has just shared this link to film critic Alyssa Rosenberg’s review of “The Help”

Yikes! I’m taking from this then that “The Help” is a far cry from “To Kill a Mockingbird?” In fact, Rosenberg even makes reference to Harper Lee’s classic as she takes a swipe at “The Help” and its character Skeeter. “While Skeeter may have Richard Wright’s Native Son and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in her bedroom in Mississippi,” Rosenberg says, “The Help” is “a pastel ghost of those predecessors.”

So, am I now, as a Freedom Center Blogger attempting to pass myself off as a movie critic? Heavens, no, especially since I haven’t seen the film yet. Will I still see this film? Absolutely. And, do I still plan to take my kids? You bet! But thanks to the friendly sharing of this review, I’ll view this film a bit more carefully, if not critically. And you can be certain that afterward there’ll be a meaningful family discussion about the danger in white-washing ugly realities “lest history repeat itself.”

Planning to take in this film? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Sooo, I may be a little on the extraordinary side…. In my free time, I’ve been reading Great Speeches of the 20th Century, edited by Bob Blaisdell. It’s actually pretty interesting – I’m looking to see if they have some for other centuries as well because that would be A-Ma-Zing!!!! But, let us not get distracted – what is the question all those judges ask during those Miss… pagents?!?! Oh, wait, it doesn’t matter; the answer is always… WORLD PEACE!

Annnnyywwayyy, John F. Kennedy just happened to give a pretty interesting speech about world peace the other day – a.k.a. June 10, 1963 – entitled “The Strategy for Peace”.  The context is the Cold War, but let’s think a little bigger – peace and freedom, friends, peace and freedom! Below are a few excerpts for your thoughts….

“What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of peace do we seek?… I am talking about genuine peace – the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living – and the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children – not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace in all time….

Let us focus… on a more practical, more attainable peace – based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions – on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interests of all concerned…. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process – a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace , like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor – it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors….

So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interest and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity…. not only in defending the frontiers of freedom, but in pursuing the paths of peace….

Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude towards peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives…. But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete…. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of others….

All this is not unrelated to world peace…. the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation – the right to breathe air as nature provided it – the right of future generations to a healthy existence…. we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just….”

As we watch a world in transition, let us remember the history of peace and freedom so that we may plan for a future of increased peace and freedom.

There is a spark within each of us…. Fan the Flame!

The Anatomy of Hate reveals the shared narratives found in individual and collective ideologies of hate, and how we can overcome them.

Documentary filmmaker Mike Ramsdell worked on The Anatomy of Hate for six years. He stood amid white supremacists and anti-gay picketers. He dodged stones and rubber bullets in the West Bank, rode combat patrols outside of Baghdad, and worked amidst the bodies of dying and deceased soldiers in the CASH. As you watch the documentary unfold, it feels as if you are standing there with him.

Not only do you listen to the rheortic of the anti-gay picketers from Westboro Baptist Church, but you also see the passion and conviction behind their words.  They believe they are stalwarts for morality.

You not only witness a Neo-Nazi White Supremacy rally, but also witness Ramsdell’s videos and interviews children, many of whom are very young, playing among the crowd.  The “game” played by the children in the documentary is not for the faint of heart and serves a brutal representation of the disregard for “lesser life forms” with which these children are being reared.

Not only do you hear about the violence in the West Bank from surviving family members, you are also immersed into the hostile battleground with bullets and bombs going off.  Ramsdell interviews teenagers who, viewing that their lives are not currently all that worth living anyway, pledge to continue the fight in the West Bank.

Intermixed with the images of violence and ideologies of hate, Ramsdell interviews scholars on cognition (Dr. Terrence Deacon), fear (Sheldon Solomon) and philosophy (Sam Keen).  The verdict – hate isn’t instinctual – it is created, fostered, and taught.  What you are witnessing, throughout the majority of the documentary, is a creation of human fear – the fear of anything different. This fear is fed in these individuals until there exists not only an unwillingness to accept or acknowledge what is different, but more importantly a genuine belief that whatever is different must be destroyed before it can destroy.

Just as you begin to feel you can’t take any more, Ramsdell introduces the dialogue of hope.  You meet a classroom of Palestinian and Israeli children learning together in a classroom; and, you hear the story of a former white supremacist as he describes the moment he knew what he was doing and what he believed were wrong.  Hope comes with the realization that change is possible – but it takes work and determination.

There were moments during the documentary I felt overwhelmed – how can there be so much hatred in this world?  This is a graphic documentary. It can be challenging and upsetting to watch, but every image is real.  These are real people, real acts – happening in our midst.

I left the Harriet Tubman Theater with a feeling of purpose. I can be a light to those around me – I can be a beacon for acceptance, equality and peace.  I can refuse to tolerate hatred and exclusion. I can – and will – fan the flame for tolerance.

Have you seen The Anatomy of Hate?  What did you think?

Anyone engaged in the anti-human trafficking cause today is bound to notice a certain sameness to the ongoing discussions about the issue. It’s no surprise that people are passionately against modern forms of slavery, abuse and exploitation, and it is certainly good that they communicate that passion at local meetings, regional and national conferences and especially by posting their outrage at traffickers and concern for victims in the social media world. I know, because I often do this myself.

Yet cumulatively, I feel a growing sense that modern-day abolitionists (again, myself included) are existing in an echo chamber where our thoughts, ideas and suggestions are repeated in a continuous loop, with very little that is new or insightful about the issue and what to do about it.

There’s a lot of conventional wisdom, as a consequence, that may actually be preventing us from seeing the issue clearly and objectively.

This point came home to me rather abruptly in an early December during a meeting with three visitors to the Freedom Center from Thailand. One runs an anti-trafficking NGO; the other two are police officers who deal with the reality of trafficking every day.

I asked about efforts in Thailand to raise public awareness about sex trafficking, which, as most everyone asserts, is virtually endemic in this south Asian country. All three, through their interpreters, gave me an insight about the situation in their homeland that I had not heard, or considered before. Yes, they said, sex trafficking is a major issue in Thailand. But forced labor was the the much broader and difficult trafficking issue. Thousands of men, women and children from Cambodia, Myanmar, Viet Nam, as well as Thai citizens, were working as virtual slaves in back alley sweatshops and isolated manufacturing plants throughout the country. This, they said, was Thailand’s trafficking nightmare.

What they said called into question my assumptions about Thailand. More broadly, their comments about what’s the real problem in their country was a reminder that it’s always helpful to question long-held assumptions about the nature and extent of trafficking in the world.

A similar reminder came from an article on Huffington Post about a person who’s engaged in the trafficking issue, but is an iconoclast who has no problem challening conventional thinking about the problem. Laura Agustin, who describes herself as the “Naked Anthropologist,” delights in going against the grain of the anti-trafficking establishment on her website, http://www.lauraagustin.com/ and in her controversial book, Sex at the Margins.

Agustin recently took part in a “debate” at a well-publicized anti-trafficking conference in, of all places, Luxor, Egypt.  The conference attracted the usual coterie of celebrity abolitionists, government officials and anti-trafficking leaders, but Agustin was apparently not on the guest list until the BBC asked her to participate in a debate on trafficking trends. Her presence set sparks flying, as recounted in the Huffington Post interview.

The point of all this is to say that while the anti-trafficking movement is still in its infancy, it would be a shame to cut off internal debate just because some may have already determined the parameters of the issue.

There’s much about trafficking and forced labor that we don’t know (because the data is so suspect and many of its victims remain invisible) and much that we don’t know we don’t know. Outliers like Laura Agustin provide a valuable check on reality. If we want to abolish slavery and trafficking — and we’re all agreed on that — let’s keep an open mind, and regularly tip over our apple carts of assumptions.

On a fairly regular basis, travel writers pass through Cincinnati, pausing to check out the local historic sites, as well as our restaurants, performing arts and cultural attractions.  More often than not, the writers come to the Freedom Center, often as the result of tips from hotel concierges or from seeing promotional material about the museum.

One such writer, Rosemary Michaud, from Charleston, South Carolina, specializes in writing about traveling on a shoestring.  This summer, during a particularly hot, dry August, she was in town and — because of her interest in the Ohio River as an Underground Railroad crossing point, she ended up at the Freedom Center.

“The Freedom Center is one of the most effectively designed, educational and moving museums I’ve ever visited,” Michaud wrote.

Here’s the rest of her article.

Thanks, Rosemary!

Gwen Ifill, the astute reporter and political anchor for PBS who has attended her share of luncheon and dinner speeches, said she couldn’t off hand recall a similiar moment.  “When the Dalai Lama began to speak,” she said, an hour later, “you could feel the hush come over the room . . . it was like everyone at the exact same moment really came into focus on why they were there and who they were listening to.”

Ifill served as moderator Wednesday as His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, was honored with the International Freedom Conductor Award by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.  The event was a noon lunch at cavernous Duke Energy Center, where a sold-out crowd of 1,300 people (some from as far away as California) came to be in the presence of a renowned political and spiritual leader whose message of peace, compassion and freedom never goes stale.

photo credit: FerneMillen

Certainly not for the Dali Lama himself, who has lived in exile from his native Tibet for more than 50 years, unable to pry freedom and independence for his mountain nation from the grip of the People’s Republic of China — but not for lack of trying.  In that quest, during which His Holiness (or “HH,” as many call him endearingly) has grown from an inexperienced, uneducated teenager thrust into political leadership to a now 75-year-old sage statesmen and global figure who can be both intensely serious and disarmingly self-deprecating.

One example of the latter occurred as the Dalai Lama entered the banquet room to a standing ovation. Bothered by the bright stage lights in his face, the Dalai Lama reached into his flowing red robe and after foundering around briefly, brought out a golf visor which he affixed to his bald head.  “I prefer to see those who I am speaking to,” he explained in halting English.  Everyone laughed, suddenly at ease in the presence of someone so famous.

HH didn’t disappoint.  In brief remarks upon accepting the IFCA, he praised the Freedom Center’s mission and purpose, saying he was “deeply impressed” with the museum’s new exhibition on modern forms of slavery and urging the audience to become involved in fighting exploitation.  Then, with Ifill as interlocutor, he answered several questions — some geopolitical, others personal.   Highlights:

• Freedom, the Dalai Lama stated, was a matter of personal positive thoughts and actions that are affirming, compassionate and transparent.  Freedom also is built upon mutual trust and respect; when these are absent or perverted, freedom disappears.
• Faith — religious belief — can and should unite humankind, not divide peoples and cultures.
• On the all-important issue of Chinese-Tibetan relations, the Dalai Lama reiterated his position that has created some controversy in recent years.  Tibet, he said, does not need to be free from the People’s Republic of China.  “We are not anti-Chinese,” he said. “Tibet should have right to preserve our culture, language, and all these things.”  He added that as China itself become a more open society — an evolution he said was inevitable — Tibet’s freedom would be secured.
• With global poverty a serious, seemingly unending challenge, the Dalai Lama expressed his regard for Marxist philosophy because of what he said was its emphasis on equality.  But, he quickly added, classic Marxism was taken over by Lenin and Stalin who transformed the philosophy for political repression.  Chairman Mao, he said, was a classic Marxist revolutionary who became corrupted with power and led China to near economic ruin and cultural repression. Those policies, he said, still affected the millions of Chinese today hoping for an open, democratic society.
• He lavished high praise on the United States as the leader of the free world, the strongest voice in history for democracy, and the nation that best exemplified in its life and culture the values of free speech, free expression, and liberty.  In response to a written question from the audience, the Dalai Lama said the current economic downturn and its impact individuals were not cause for despair because, he said, America was built upon “confidence” that enabled this country to overcome obstacles.  His sense of humor showed when he pointed at Ifill and said, “Obviously, answers should come from you, not from me.”
• When Ifill read an audience question about how a person can find time for meditation and reflection while living a fast-paced, multitasking life, the Dalai Lama’s humor returned.  Perhaps, he said, people could emulate his practice of rising each day at 3:30 a.m. for an hour’s worth of quiet thought.  Then, through the day, he advised thinking in dual, parallel tracks: one inner-directed, the other focused on outward tasks and activities.  Finish the day, he concluded, by retiring at 7:30 in the evening — to widespread laughter.

Earlier in the day, as the event opened, Freedom Center President and CEO Donald Murphy, as well as Board Co-Chair John Pepper  each stated that the crowd then assembling were in for a real treat . . . a chance, as Murphy stated, to be present in the same place with a man who cared deeply for the rights, freedom and well-being of all humankind.

It was a prediction surely — and wonderfully — fulfilled.

The new Invisible: Slavery Today exhibition at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is important for the way it casts light on the little-known presence of slavery in the world today.

Just as important, the exhibition — or perhaps more accurately, the setting of the exhibition — is a reminder of how important current events can be linked to our historical past.

The Freedom Center’s main exhibitions focus on America’s early struggle with the ugly, and lawful, presence of chattel slavery.  It was an especially brutal and spirit-draining form of exploitation that, thankfully, was outlawed in the United States as the result of the four-year Civil War, a conflict that settled the issue of slavery at the cost of more than 660,000 lives.

Yet slavery did not end.  That is to say, exploitation of humans did not end but in fact has flourished in the world under many forms and guises.  Now, in the same museum where the history of slavery is explored in such detail, the new exhibition brings visitors up-to-date with what’s happened to slavery in the modern world.

As Invisible makes clear, some 12 million people, and perhaps twice that number, are working under some kind of forced labor all over the world, including not just adults but also children.  There are many differences between historical slavery having mostly to do with its legality and underlying economics.  But the coerced nature of exploitation — then and now — offer an important lesson about the long threads of history.

The widely-read antislavery website Change.org emphasizes this essential point in its review of Invisible.  Well worth reading, and sharing, to anyone who wants to take up the cause of modern abolitionism.

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center’s new exhibition on modern-day slavery and human trafficking, Invisible: Slavery Today, has drawn the attention of the local and national news media, with strongly positive coverage.

The new exhibition — the first of its kind — opened on Saturday and is housed on the Freedom Center’s east wing, third floor.

The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Mark Curnutte, for example, writes: “The realms of labor, child labor, sex trafficking, domestic servitude and bonded labor — work demanded as repayment of a loan — are humanized by real-life stories that greet visitors to the exhibit warehouse . . .”

Later in the article, he observes: “Slavery remains a scourge.  ‘Invisible’ is designed to keep slavery visible and connect its contemporary applications to its root in America.”

In the New York Times culture critic, Edward Rothstein writes that Invisible reflects an expanding sophistication and relevance of Freedom Center programming.

“The new exhibition,” Rothstein writes, “. . . is a vast improvement, expanding the slavery theme and pointing the way to a more modest social mission. Though much more could have been done, we get a sense of how contemporary slavery differs from what had come before. While slavery had always been about human property — whether taken in conquest or purchased in vast commercial networks — it was, until recently, out in the open, part of the social and legal structure of nearly every society. American slavery was a special case: by surviving the Enlightenment, it was exposed in all its venality.

“But contemporary slavery is something else. It is hidden. And the victims are not institutionalized property but anonymous prisoners. In addition, while slaves once had significant economic value — in the mid-19th-century South, a slave could be worth the modern equivalent of $35,000 — now they are disposable, resembling, as the author Kevin Bales points out, “cheap plastic ballpoint pens.” “

Slavery has always made people uneasy, but there’s been a corresponding fascination with the subject, and this curiosity has found its way into not just reams of scholarly research, but also novels, movies, and movies adapted from novels.

The Wall Street Journal recently surveyed some of the best of the works of fiction on slavery.  The article should be a help to those — like the thousands who visit the Freedom Center each year — who finish their tour of our exhibitions wanting to know more about “the peculiar institution”  — how slaves lived, how they were treated (or mistreated), and how they became enslaved in the first place.

Fiction about slavery raises, yet again, the age-old conundrum:  is truth stranger than fiction?  Put another way, can a white writer such as William Styron, get inside the head and heart of a rebellious slave named Nat Turner, who led a slave revolt in Tidewater Virginia in 1831?  Many people thought so;  Styron’s “Confessions of Nat Turner” was a best seller and won a Pulitzer Prize.  But the question continues to be raised, just as it is when a film maker or novelist born after World War II creates something meaningful — and objectively accurate — about the Holocaust, or the war itself.

Several of the books cited are available in the Freedom Center Gift Shop.

On Tuesday evening, Sept. 8, the Freedom Center is offering a free showing of a most unusual documentary film, entitled “Traces of the Trade,” about one family’s journey of discovery about its slave-trading past.

The subject would be remarkable enough if the family were from a Southern state of the old Confederacy. But the family in “Traces of the Trade” is from Rhode Island — in the heart of New England — and in fact was purported to operate the largest slave trading business in American history.

The film was produced and directed by Katrina Browne, whose forefathers — the DeWolf family — carried on a slave trade from 1769 to 1820. They sailed their ships from Bristol, Rhode Island to West Africa with rum to trade for African men, women and children. Captives were taken to plantations that the DeWolfs owned in Cuba or were sold at auction in such ports as Havana and Charleston. Sugar and molasses were then brought from Cuba to the family-owned rum distilleries in Bristol. Over the generations, the family transported more than ten thousand enslaved Africans across the Middle Passage. They amassed an enormous fortune. By the end of his life, James DeWolf had been a U.S. Senator and was reportedly the second richest man in the United State

The film follows ten DeWolf descendants (ages 32-71, ranging from sisters to seventh cousins) as they retrace the steps of the Triangle Trade, visiting the DeWolf hometown of Bristol, Rhode Island, slave forts on the coast of Ghana, and the ruins of a family plantation in Cuba where slaves were sold at auction. The film grippingly chronicles the descendants trip of discovery and how they came to terms with their past.

“Traces of the Trade” will be shown at 6 p.m. in the Harriet Tubman Theater. There is no admission charge, but to RSVP, please call 513-333-7554.

More information and background about the film is available at http://www.tracesofthetrade.org/synopsis/.

A book review by Carl Westmoreland, Senior Historian, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

The history of the Underground Railroad in the United States is rooted in the soil of Black self-sufficiency. A growing number of Americans and members of the world community are being drawn to the universality of the drama of the struggle of America’s most despised people to become free — slaves. A new book expands and enriches the palette of those ordinary people who composed America’s second revolution. “Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith,” by Chandler Saint and George Krimsky, is a book well worth reading and savoring.

It is agreed by most American historians and scholars that the revolution of 1776 was instituted by and for the benefit of white males. While the Revolutionary War was underway, men of African descent were petitioning the Massachusetts legislature to initiate laws that would emancipate. Venture Smith, who had been enslaved in Long Island and Connecticut, was singlehandedly engaged in his own battle to secure emancipation. Born near present-day Ghana and transported as a slave to the Caribbean island of Barbados, Broteer Furro was an anonymous slave for more than 25 years. Before his life’s journey ended, Venture Smith (as he was renamed) purchased his freedom, bought land, and help secure the freedom of other African men.  As a businessman, Smith learned how the American economy worked. And to the highest extent possible, he used that knowledge to earn the respect of his peers — white and black.

Freed from slavery, he became an active and respected member of society in late 18th Century New England, and even narrated his life experience, published in a book entitled Venture Smith, 1729?-1805 A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa, but Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America. Related by Himself.

Venture Smith’s story is a celebration of the power of the ordinary. What appears to be a predictable rhythm of work of loyalty to family and community left a mark on those who knew or Smith. Venture Smith led no army, he slew no dragons; however, he cleared pieces of rocky land, bought a pew in his church and secured a final resting place — and purchased a granite head stone — for his wife and himself in a white cemetery.

Dr. Krimksy’s and Mr. Saint’s research of the public record resulted in a detailed documentation that defies the redundant excuse that the lives of Africans in America could not be properly researched. The archaeological work at Venture Smith’s grave site was witnessed and monitored by his direct descendants, whose very presence enables us to put a Black face on a family that goes back to America’s founding.

The story of Venture Smith illuminates the lives of ordinary Black men and women who would not be denied personal freedom. Smith was never given a banquet; to our knowledge, no brass band played for him during or after his life. His legacy and his bloodline have been preserved by the existence of men and women who carry his name. Venture Smith’s descendants cooperated with the authors, and it shows: they participated in the telling of an inspiring personal history that allows all Americans to see great, great-great, great-great-great grandsons and daughters of a son of Africa.

What would really make Venture Smith’s story live on would be roundtable discussions between the authors and members of Smith’s family, perhaps on radio or through a television documentary. That would be something special and productive for us all.

Local public radio station WVXU’s weekly “Around Cincinnati” program featured an in-depth interview with the Freedom Center’s Dina Bailey, who explained the meaning and significance of the Freedom Center’s new exhibit, entitled “Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art.”

To hear the interview, click on this link to access the Around Cincinnati online home page. Scroll about halfway down the page and click on the “Grass Roots” link.

The exhibit opens to the general public on Tuesday, February 10, and will be here through April 20.

Around Cincinnati airs on Sunday evenings at 7 p.m. on WVXU, 91.7.