Watch Katrina Browne and Juanita Brown’s interview with Karen Saupe of Calvin College.

Dear friends,

I am so pleased to be sending the first newsletter from our new non-profit: The Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery.  Here you can read great stories about what we’ve been up to this year with many different collaborators … all over the U.S. and overseas.  We wholeheartedly invite you to get further involved with our efforts, through programming and/or financial support.

We formed the Tracing Center in 2010 as an organic extension of two years of work screening Traces of the Trade, having heard, again and again, about the ongoing need for programming about slavery and race that works at a more systemic level, such as in the fields of education and public history.  We received encouraging feedback in a comprehensive on-line survey about our 2009 programming, showing high demand for broader and deeper programming.  You can read our mission statement here.

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Photo credit: Michelle Dismont-Frazzoni

In April, Katrina Browne, executive director of the Tracing Center and producer/director/writer of Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, was invited to Bermuda by the anti-racism organization Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda (CURB) to present the film and speak to high school students and community members about her journey and our work around racial justice and reconciliation.

The dialogues in Bermuda deeply moved hundreds of people and a short video, Discussing the Trade, was created by local filmmaker Alex Dill to record the impact of our visit. You can see the video here.

Photo credit: Michelle Dismont-Frazzoni

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Tom DeWolf is a regular guest contributor and the author of Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History. This entry is cross-posted from Tom’s blog, and the opinions expressed are his own.

I had never heard of “Flat Stanley” when my lifelong friend Mike Godfrey wrote and asked if his son could send me his “Flat Justin” to spend some time with me. Mike and I grew up together because our parents were best friends. We went on vacations together and our families jointly owned a cabin in the mountains. We had some serious snowball fights over the years. I’m not sure there is anyone I spent more time with growing up than Mike until I moved to Oregon to attend college almost 40 years ago. I was honored that JJ chose me to send Flat Justin to.

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