Rutgers–Camden Offers Free Screening of Emmy-nominated Film "Traces of the Trade"

CAMDEN – In March, NBC will air “Who Do You Think You Are,” a televised unearthing of celebrity family trees that result in surprising and tragic revelations. Next week, Rutgers University—Camden will offer a free screening of a powerful documentary that follows a New England family in its horrific discovery that it is part of the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history, and then revisits the slave trade’s “triangle,” from Ghana to Cuba to Rhode Island.

At 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 24, a screening of  “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North” will be followed by a discussion, led by Jude Ray, co-director and executive producer of the film, and Wayne Glasker, an associate professor of history at Rutgers–Camden, where he directs the African American studies program. The free, public event will take place in the Science Lecture Hall, located in the Science Building on Third Street, between Cooper Street and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge on the Rutgers–Camden Campus.

According to Ray, the film, which held its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and has been shown at prestigious venues across the globe, recasts the questions of race relations from the perspective of a family that has inherited a pretty terrifying legacy.

“We witness the growth and transformation of this family as they confront the responsibility of privileged white people for the profound inequalities African Americans have suffered in this country,” says Ray, who like the film’s star and co-director Katrina Browne, grew up in Philadelphia.

“It’s very rare for people from their class and background to take personal responsibility for exposing the myth behind how they got their privilege.”

For directions to Rutgers–Camden, visit camden.rutgers.edu.