Please join the Diversity Interest Group for a lecture and facilitated conversation, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North by Dain and Constance R. Perry from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm in the Performance Hall. This award-winning documentary follows the journey of nine cousins into the dark past of the slave trade after they make a devastating discovery about their own family: the DeWolfs of Bristol, R.I., had achieved prosperity and prominence as leading purveyors of the trade in the US. The cousins decided to retrace the Triangle Trade from Bristol to Ghana and, finally, to the ruins of a family-owned sugar cane plantation in Cuba. Dain Perry, one of the cousins, and his wife Constance – a descendant of enslaved people – have screened the film and facilitated over 200 audience discussions about the geographical and psychological roots and ramifications of the American slave trade. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 and was on PBS that summer. It was nominated for an Emmy Award for historical research and won the Henry Hampton Award for Filmmaking, among several others.
