“Slavery by another name”, the 90 minutes documentary which was aired on February 13, 2012, and directed by Sam Pollard, is an adaptation of the book by same (authored by Douglas Blackmon) name which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 (Pbs,"Slavery by another Name"). Like the book, this documentary has some very strong analytical insights on breaking the most popular misconception that the African- American (referred as ‘blacks’) were actually emancipated with the Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of the year 1963. The documentary specifically works on the time span between the civil war and the World War II when the situation of black slavery actually worsened to extremely treacherous levels and the African-Americans suffered its impact.
The plot of the film is portrayed by using the character of a child of former slaves of the Cottenham family who got victimized of the newer version of the racial prejudice exerted via the legal system. As per the then prevalent laws, the black residents were brought before the judge and arraigned for even the pettiest crimes. Although the defendant was granted with a few rights but his ultimate verdict was deliberately predetermined to be guilty because of the racial prejudice. As the judge passed his verdict of calling him guilty, he was then fined with a penal amount and the court’s fees that were practically impossible for him to remit. Consequently, the accused was then converted into a wage slave who started working for the county governments. The legal system and the governments in the south were unanimously applying these laws over the accused African Americans and also had the right of selling the wage slaves to local businessmen and farmers if they had a better monetary deal for their barter.
The central character, Green Cottenham was charged with the crime of traveling in a freight train without a valid ticket in the year 1908 and he was ultimately ordered to serve three months of strict wage labor for a subsidiary firm of the U.S. Steel, which was Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad. Unfortunately, Cottenham's slavery tenure as a hard labor was extended because he was financially incapable of paying the extra fines that were levied upon criminals. The following span as a slave was extremely brutal when the slaves were treated like animals and kept with extreme measures to utilize the most of their time for productive results. The film has given enough insights and testimonies from the survivors of such slavery system and concluded that the corrupt judicial system was actually inclined towards enslaving a majority of the accused blacks for the exchange of monetary benefits resulting from their trade.
The movie spans the crucial eight decades from 1865 to 1945 (between the Civil war and the Second World War) when the mutually linked forces in the South resulted in the inception of the ‘Neoslavery’ which persisted throughout this span (Pbs,"Slavery by another Name"). The documentary is although focused on using some interviews from the descendants and families of the perpetrators and victims of that time who exist in the modern world. The narrative account of these people gives an insight on the topic that how the slave armies of bought-over black people were used as laborers without any monetary compensation and the worst part was that they were repeatedly traded by their owners (bought and sold) with other businessmen and plantation owners.
The documentary shows some interviews from scholars and historians about how the slaves were forced by using lashing and physical torture to do the task indicated by their masters and most of them were frequently moved from one type of task, irrespective of their actual monetary obligation to be traded as per the bidding of their white masters for many years. All this happened in the South where the emancipation of the blacks was already legally prescribed in 1863.
I feel that the central issues of the slave trade and forced labor are very well justified in the documentary because its script is a direct adaptation of the award winning book which has so many accounts of people’s experience that went through such social menace for almost eight decades. The documentary also exposes the issues of racial bias and corrupt judicial system that interlocked with the powerful whites who not only used the judiciary for their gains but they also violated the slavery prohibition act of 1863. The most intriguing aspect of the documentary lies in the reaction of the white Americans who consider this entire menace of forced slavery for commercial purposes to be an inevitable aspect owing to the prevalent socio-economic situations of the African Americans in the South.
Finally, it is extremely sad to conclude that the anti-slavery laws introduced by Lincoln were practically futile for the next century because all of the ‘black rights’ promised in the 13, 14 and 15th amendment were fully passive during this span. Although the notion of African-American slavery was legally abolished in 1863, it was actually an entire span of hundred years which the blacks suffered through to gain its true implementation in their lives.
Works cited
" Slavery by another Name ". Online video clip.pbs. Pbs.org, 22 Apr. 2014.Web. 8 May. 2016.
