OPERA HOUSE ARTS’ SPECIAL FILM PRESENTATION:
“TRACES OF THE TRADE”
Members of the DeWolf family, featured in the film, on hand for post-show discussion

STONINGTON, MAINE—Opera House Arts’ (OHA) is proud to present a special screening of the new documentary film Traces of the Trade on Friday, August 8, at 7 p.m. This screening, and discussion with members of the family portrayed in the film, will be hosted by OHA at Heritage House on Route 15A in Sunset.

In Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, filmmaker Katrina Browne discovers that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history, the DeWolfs. She and nine cousins retrace the Triangle Trade and gain a powerful new perspective on the black/white divide.

The DeWolfs sailed their ships from Bristol, Rhode Island to West Africa with rum to trade for African men, women and children. Members of the DeWolf family will be on hand for a discussion after the screening.

“This is more than one family’s painful reckoning. This is the nation’s story—one that strips away the North’s heroic mantle by revealing a broad pattern of Northern complicity in the slave trade,” wrote Cecelia Goodnow in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
“According to the filmmakers, Traces of the Trade was created to act as a catalyst for heart-to-heart dialogue, education and action—and this is exactly the kind of community event that deeply interests us,” said Linda Nelson, OHA’s Executive Director. “Obama’s candidacy and other current events are forcing us as a nation to get real with each other on issues of race in America, and the history portrayed in this film is one of the terrible barriers we face as we try to do so.”

2008 is the bicentennial of the U.S. abolition of the slave trade. This special screening and discussion will offer a chance to discuss how we as individuals and communities might take this as an opportunity to face the past, to understand its impact on present day race relations, and address this unresolved legacy. Efforts in other states and communities have included book discussion groups; the creation of task forces to research local histories of slavery; special school curricula; support for campaigns to end modern slavery, which still exists in many parts of the world today; and, in six states to date, legislatively-enacted resolutions of apology for their roles in slavery. A similar resolution in the U.S. Congress is gaining momentum.

This special screening is made possible through the efforts of Bob and Maurine Tobin. Admission is by free will donation at the show. For more information, go to www.tracesofthetrade.org or call the Stonington Opera House, 207-367-2788.