When a. Will come. On behalf of of the office of a like to welcome you all here for this landmark event honoring the launch of David Brion Davis new book. A couple of acknowledgments and brief introductions then we will turn the program over to the speaker is the first of all, by giving my thanks to harold, the person who arranged the event that brought us together. Also michelle summers, of the publishers of the book as well as leslie from the institute for their help and cooperation to arrange this evening. I would also like to recognize members of the board of trustees of for taking their time to come here this evening as well. Thank you for that. A few brief words of introduction. One of the reasons i was so glad i jumped at this opportunity was the work of professor davis that meant such a good deal and it has benefited from the riding especially years ago researching catholicism online with the breath of the work but yet with the landmark with its own right, also we are greatly indebted to confer antisemitism when it was a time of great controversy and tension but yet he condemned what needed to be condemned in the of a dispassionate manner. It is natural to host this event this center is named after a survivor of the nazi holocaust after liberation devoted his life to bring justice to the victims of the holocaust did become a human rights champion. To insure the lessons of that period are never forgotten that jews or others would ever suffer such a fate again. In a sense there is a great affinity between that and the trail blazing work of professor davis. Does not take more than a glance our own world to see how we have fallen short of the ideal and suppression and genocide are continually present even today. He reminds us in the epilogue of the book that slavery still exist and could even be restored on a large scale in todays world. But the affinity runs deeper. Professor davis is shaped by the events of world war ii. And as he has written and stated the shadow of the holocaust and with the worlds greatest war to embark on his career with the goal with the superficial propaganda in perspective and the comprehensive view what people thought and why they did it. Groups this was written in 1946 and that list has grownr longer and wider. Looking up the relationships of similarities and differences, some examples that came to mind was in the first wave of steady to deal with the holocaust was a landmark study based totally with the nazis perspective on the oppressor side to ignore the impact for a the holocaust itself that leads to the oppressed also with the collaboration that is exemplified that the professor twice brings with self preservation and a loss of selfrespect. That is a question raised have reduce survive . What is the cost of survival and the last of the unjust. With the application antigeneralization that he uses very much and the impact that they have a. That went along way to shape the discourse of human oppression. Fed is also reflected in current literature of the holocaust. Where the nazis slaughtered more victims than they murdered in the death camp. There are differences as well. With the venture that had Great Success in the needs that were coordinated for the pursuits of genocide by the Jewish Population but fundamentally it comes down to that their evils in the past we must learn from to have a Brighter Future or as professor davis includes History Matters and also the Master Teacher to aluminate and inspire us. As professor davis has done for so many years. Tonight is the launch of the third and final body of his trilogy of slavery. the problem of slavery in the age of emancipation and two speakers will join the conversation and anything else they want to talk about. Following that you are invited downstairs for a book signing and wanders through the Interactive Museum of tolerance discussing some of the same issues of professor davis. Firstever ask everyone to silence their cell phones or electronics. We are being filmed by cspan. Now ill introduce our speakers. And in turn they will introduce their teacher as we go along with the venture. With a ph. D. From Yale University honored to be named to the academy steadings slavery in western culture but the work from the documentary he coproduce the Philadelphia Museum of art and also title zero freedom and mother of the American Revolution spoke on the history of ambition published by university press. He wasnt formally at harvard studying africanamerican research now at yale talking about the history what with the executive director of the schools Public Health and was part of the White House Research and Development Institute to develop tools for Money Laundering for the department of treasury. He also collaborated on a young adult books on slavery in the emancipation. John is professor at harvard university. He writes on the civil war era began antislavery in photography. Author and editor including two books our National Best sellers for the most recent is the battle of the republic. And the stone that marches on was a finalist in 2013. His reviews of appeared the Washington Post in Huffington Post and numerous scholarly books but with the state Department Program is a consultant to hollywood films with a screenplay and appearing in a documentary the abolitionist. With that background i think well look forward to an incredibly exciting discussion. [applause] the goal is to have a conversation but before we launch into this discussion we often have dinner together at least once a year and we will share a couple dozen oysters to have a conversation about everything and anything because with the completion of the trilogy it is nice to attempt some to revokes maybe we should have some oysters and a bottle of wine. [laughter] but i will turn it over to john. We will hopefully allow david to give a summary not only the problems with his trilogy and public life. I will start with a very brief summary as most of you noah sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale University and has won virtually every award that a historian can win especially a National Book award. But i want to start by having david talk about the background that leads to the trilogy or the introductory remarks one of the things highlighted that you became interested in slavery in the shadow of the holocaust as a post world war ii soldier. Food you be willing to elaborate on the background that led you to become interested in and slavery and the abolition act a time where in large part to there were a few books but to a large degree held to create the feel of slavery and abolition. As you know, the preface of the problem of slavery in the age of the emancipation that stamp was important to. But in terms of the abolitionist that point very. With a departure from the first book which was of a study of homicide. Publishing with the dissertation and careful to remind me he did the dissertation three and a half years as mine went on and on. Now all of a sudden he turns to slavery and entice slavery in the 60s with a nation torn apart by racial strife. We had this fast social history taking over the whole field of history and i was interested in concrete subject like homicide or universal subjects like homicide or the most extreme form of domination and the way i am looking at changes in moral perception. Forms of behavior. So there was that. As i mentioned briefly in the introduction, in the 30s and 40s my Family Travel well over the country coasttocoast, and went to many different schools, five high school in 40 years but never visited the classroom with africanamericans. Even though i was in the north in a segregated society, that all ended it was drafted into the army in 1945 and was trained for the invasion of japan, and i was down in georgia for the first time, i saw jim crow america at its worst, and the war with japan ended i was on a cruise ship bound for germany and was ordered to go down into the hold of the ship from gambling. I had no idea there were any bikes on the step, this went on until i became a Security Policeman in germany and was called up, a shootout for black american soldiers partly because there were many german girls who love to date black soldiers and there were many white soldiers in an outbreak here. In germany we spent a year, wasnt experienced the first time and introduced me to a racial issue. And there was also the holocaust of course. And some many survivors and protected them going into the streets. Summery called truckload after truckload of survivors. I was opened up to a lot of new things. And to go to college i was very much interested in the racial issue even though i failed to take part in the actable civil rights movement, i read their wasnt anything, when i was in graduate school or hovered, very distinguished historian from berkeley, and teach at harvard and the Fire Department and we became good things good friends. He was about to publish any institution, the first really great book on slavery in the American South was not based on the assumption, a very serious book, and made me realize in my classes at harvard, hardly anything said about slavery let alone abolitionists. This opens up a new prospect while i was working on homicide. The prospect of slavery and anti slavery. So in 1955, a professorship, i began bringing material and slavery into that and to get a fellowship. And the head of the guggenheim, emerged myself in london and became the problem of slavery in western culture, what was going to be a background chapter on the background on slavery became a whole book exo i was launched that way. Did you teach them that . I did. That was supposed to be the first chapter, two of this. I anticipated i would be writing more. And those three books were the top ones . I am not sure exactly. Probably justified that. In the wake of the narrative, both his parents were writers, mom and dad, father wrote the gable first film after the war. His mother was as well. Was there a time when you thought i would like to be a writer as well . I was very much interested in writing that. I actually was an undergraduate, some summer classes at Columbia University in france for language and writing fiction and was a pretty wellknown moment. Net for wind on after is that. I was struck i remember we had a discussion about the necessity to drop the atomic bomb on japan and i remember you telling me they told you when you were ready to prepare for the invasion of japan, that you were going to go away and die after watching that. I dont know about actually dying but when we hit those beaches in japan it would make normandy look like nothing. They emphasized that in our training, having to use all kinds of weapons. Enjoy judge they had fake japanese villages and so on. Actually having had physics in high school, the atomic bombs were bought. Never have any after that. And without those bombs we still would have been in the beaches of japan. You talked at cornell in cultural history which became the basis for yale, slavery and anti slavery. Because you were doing something new and worked against original myths. Rather than just calling it slavery. Well beyond slavery, and intellectual and cultural history. But slavery was only a part of it. People at the time especially coming to yale, a lot of work, attitude toward anti slavery in the academy of. Before i asked the question was curious if you could summarize the challenges for writing the problem of slavery and western culture and the problem of slavery in the aids revolution. In 1966, the second published in 1975, and the challenges they face as you tackle the problem of slavery. The beginning point, there were other works that were related in the problem of slavery in western culture, that was originally an introductory chapter. And give some background in western culture, worked in britain thanks to the guggenheim fellowship, it grew and grew, in antiquity, and slavery in western culture. Somewhat more intellectual history, not much social history in it. Dealing with the Industrial Revolution as well as the american and french revolutions and so on. And the second deal, asking what the abolitionists were up against, the first abolitionists, why at a given moment in history, a small group of men and women achieved slavery, absolutely terrible evil when it was accepted pretty much for millennia. Going back to the hairstyle and so on. The age of revolution, already had a transformation of perception. And slavery is terrible and going to do something about it. Said and prefectorial label get into all these things. In this book i am able to be much more selective because i have written this subject between the age of emancipation and age of revolution including a broad survey called in human bondage the rise and fall of slavery in the new world, which is serving so i didnt want to repeat the survey material here. To select particular themes and subjects beginning with the dehumanization, the attempt to dehumanize slaves and going on to the haitian revolution and i devote quite a few chapters to the socalled pollinization movement. It brought consensus in the u. S. In the north as well as the south that there was no thought of real slave emancipation and deported or moved freed slaves outside the u. S. So i devote a great amount of space to this Colonization Movement which i felt was misunderstood and i have a great deal on the crucial role of free blacks in the north and combating colonization and launching an immediate Abolition Movement, whites and blacks in the 1830s committed to the immediate emancipation of slaves. And so i express again and again the role of blacks themselves whether in haiti or not, finding the french and spanish and english or free blacks as i move on but i am selecting things here and not trying to repeat the hybrid. One of the really unique things about this book for me is the ninth decade, and i slavery, up with and some many monographs that come out and the last of this trilogy managed to do something original. How does one do that . In a yearandahalf we have lunch. Complain about how slow the work was going. This was the middle of a vast fall and a yearandahalf it took. I dont know what is wrong. Quite a few body parts and a few of them. Just touching on the theme of dehumanization that runs through the trilogy i was wondering if you could turn to the haitian revolution, read a bit from the book because dehumanization and analysts asian animalization of the slaves is something you can eloquently this is in the chapter the first immense a pairs. If you would like to read a long. You would like me to read here. Okay. On january 2nd, 1893, Frederick Douglas rose to deliver a speech dedicating the haitian pavilion at the chicago worlds fair. Douglas was intimately involved in planning a pavilion. He took the opportunity of his speech to negate the stereotype that haitians were lazy barbarians who devoted their leisure time to voodoo and child sacrifice but what is more significant is douglas used the speech to reflect on slavery emancipation. Douglas after all was born slave and he had Won International theme through his writing and oratory in the service of black emancipation. As the most prominent black spokesman of the new world, douglas had no difficulty in identifying one of the central events in the history of emancipation and he writes we should not forget that the freedom you and i enjoy today, the freedom 800,000 colored people enjoy in the british west indies, the freedom that has come a from the colored race the world over is largely due to the brave stand taken by the black sons of haiti 90 years ago when they struck for freedom, they struck for the freedom of every black man in the world. He made sure to note blacks and british abolitionists, antislavery society, blacks he noted, incomparably more in haiti and to the mall. It was haiti that struck the first emancipation, the original plan, the emancipate your, haiti instructed when the dangers of slavery had demonstrated the powers and capabilities and only to be awakened. Once awakened the former slaves demonstrated their strength in defeating 50,000 troops. Not only is that that these insurgents turned to independent nation of their own making. The white world could and would never be the same until haiti spoke, douglas road, no christian nation had abolished negro slavery. Until she spoke the slave trade was sanctioned by all the christian nations of the world and our land of liberty, until haiti spoke the church was silent and the pulpit dumb. The history which encompass that. He knew that but was a hell of wars. The very name was pronounced as he noted in the beginning of his speech. And indeed the revolution inevitably had contradictory affects. As an abolitionist 18411865 douglas had avoided mention of the revolution in his public speeches, debate and interviews. His audiences, the abolitionist douglas knew the perceptions all too well. For some the revolution had been an object lesson in the inevitable social and economic ruin that would attend any form of emancipation. For others it signaled blood, a veritable white massacre, racial nightmare made real. This did not change, the haitian revolution was a watershed event. Beautiful. Thank you for reading that. I want to ask a question about colonization. You took four chapters for colonization in this book and could you summarized why colonization is so attractive to so many different kinds of people . In the beginning going back to the eighteenth century colonization rose in terms of simply returning africans, slaves who had been born and brought from africa returning them to their continent to. For example samuel hopkins, a descendant, protege of Jonathan Edwards who was motivated by disinterested benevolence when he moved in 1770 to in newport, rhode island and was very anti slavery, he tries to make it possible for the black slaves who were treated freed to return to africa. So many would want to go. But as you move on into the ni