Friday Movie Night: "Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North" at St. Jude's

Friday Movie Night: “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North”

February 19, 2016. Movie starts at: 7:15pm

The history of the slave trade in the United States is most commonly associated with Southern States, but the enslavement of Africans was a cornerstone of Northern commercial life as well. The Triangle Trade drove the economy of many port cities, and slavery itself existed in the North for over 200 years.

In this feature documentary, filmmaker Katrina Browne discovers that her New England ancestors, the DeWolf family, were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. The film follows ten DeWolf descendants 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. Back home, the family confronts the thorny topic of what to do now. In the context of growing calls for reparations for slavery, family members struggle with the question of how to think about and contribute to “repair” and gain powerful new perspectives on the black/white divide.

The film runs 90 minutes. No charge.

St. Jude’s Episcopal Church,20920 McClellan Road, Cupertino CA 95014. www.saintjudes.org