Slavery by Another Name
Atlanta author Douglas Blackmon was reviewed in the NYT by Janet Maslin yesterday. His new book, Slavery By Another Name, tells the overlooked story of how slavery continued in some parts of the South well past Emancipation and into the 20th century through the insidious practice of convict lease programs – with criminal conviction being a relatively loose and flexible condition.
Blackmon is the Chief of the Wall Street Journal’s Atlanta Bureau, and he lives in my neighborhood. Do your part to support local writers. You can catch him reading from the book next Tuesday at the Decatur Library.
Tags: Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by another name
Authors, Books, Happenings | Tim | 
April 11, 2008 8:30 am
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By Ms. Journo-friend, April 15, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
I’ve started reading it, and it’s incredible — a damning, relentless description of the re-enslavement of African Americans in the South following Reconstruction.
Yes, Doug was my husband’s editor up until a couple weeks ago, and I have a signed copy with the sweetest note ever, but I would have read this book anyway.
If you can, get Doug to tell you just a few of the stories about his years of arduous research. He haunted courthouses in places like Dothan, Ala., and dug through obscure archives all over the place, along with interviewing descendants and families of the victims he describes in agonizing detail.
And Doug did this amazing work amid some huge news events: First, he postponed his book leave so he could help run the WSJ’s coverage of terrorists following Sept. 11. Then, he had just gotten back into the swing of things when the charter school, which his wife and he helped start, burned down. Then, his work on the book was thwarted again by running the WSJ’s coverage of, you guessed it, Hurricane Katrina.
Through it all, Doug persevered. He’s brilliant, and so is the book.