THIRTEEN/WNET NEW YORK ANNOUNCES GROUNDBREAKING DOCUMENTARY, SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA
NEW YORK LIFE IS EXCLUSIVE CORPORATE UNDERWRITER
Four-Part Series To Debut on PBS Stations in Fall 2004
New York, NY — January 10, 2004 — Thirteen/WNET New York announces the groundbreaking television series Slavery and The Making of America, a four-part documentary that will examine the complexities of this period in American history. Slated to debut on PBS stations in fall 2004, Slavery and the Making of America will be the first comprehensive documentary to draw its content from recent scholarship that offers new perspectives. It reveals the courage, ingenuity and strength of enslaved men, women and children, as well as the contributions they made to the wealth, culture and spirit of America. New York Life Insurance Company is the sole corporate underwriter of the series and a companion educational outreach effort.
“Slavery and the Making of America will be a landmark series, one we are extremely gratified to offer to millions of public television viewers, giving them fresh insight into a significant yet often misunderstood period from our nation’s past,” said Tamara E. Robinson, vice president and director of programming for Thirteen/WNET New York. “We are grateful that New York Life shares our profound commitment to this subject and to quality programming as reflected not only with their support of this series, but also of prior programs, The American President and The Rise And Fall of Jim Crow.”
“Slavery and the Making of America will be a compelling series that explores this painful period in our nation's history, giving viewers a deeper understanding of slavery’s effects on American society,” said Sy Sternberg, chairman and chief executive officer of New York Life. “We are pleased to continue our support of the fine educational programming that PBS is known for and to offer a companion Web site that will energize and enhance classroom learning for millions of students.”
The Series Beginning with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in what is now the United States, Slavery and the Making of America will shed new light on the evolution of laws and practices that fostered the institution of slavery. The series demonstrates that although slavery did not originate in North America and was more widespread in other countries, nowhere was slavery more entwined in the social and economic fabric of a nation.
Core to the series will be the examination of the individual lives of enslaved people. It will present accounts that demonstrate that enslaved Africans and African-Americans were never passive victims, but survivors that resisted at every stage – in Africa, during the Atlantic Passage, and at various points in the United States – in the face of persecution, punishment and continual assaults on family structure, belief systems and other essential cornerstones of character and identity.
Forced into proximity with other Africans with different cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic backgrounds, the enslaved, moreover, formed an African-American community, one that was dedicated from the outset to the establishment of freedom and equality.
Shot over a period of 14 months, Slavery and the Making of America will feature interviews with prominent scholars and historians and will depict the history and individual stories of the enslaved through re-enactments shot on film. The series is executive produced by William R. Grant, Director of Science, Natural History and Features programs at Thirteen/WNET New York. Programs produced under Grant’s supervision have won eight National News and Documentary Emmy awards, including one for the 2002 series The Secret Life of the Brain and six George Foster Peabody awards, including one for the 2002 series The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.
Dante J. James is senior producer of Slavery and the Making of America. He also wrote, produced and directed the first installment of the series. A documentary filmmaker, James’ credits include several critically acclaimed and award-winning PBS programs; he was executive producer for Blackside Film’s six-part series, This Far By Faith: African-American Spiritual Journeys (2003); he produced and directed a film for Blackside’s War on Poverty series (1995) and two programs in the critically acclaimed Great Depression series (1994). In 1996, James made the feature documentary A. Philip Randolph: For Jobs and Freedom and has also produced and directed a film on the life of Marian Anderson.
More than 25 prominent historians and scholars consulted on the making of the series, among them the most preeminent experts on African-American history and the issue of slavery including Dr. James Horton, Professor of American Studies and History, George Washington University, and author of, among other books, Free People of Color: Inside the African-American Community; and Ira Berlin, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland and author of Generations of Captivity and Many Thousands Gone, as well as other books on African-American history and slavery.
Companion Materials Thirteen Online, the award-winning Web site that extends Thirteen/WNET New York’s educational and informational mission, will work closely with the series’ producers to create a companion site that details the African-American experience through interviews, rare archival footage and interactive presentations. The Web site will chronicle the stories, oppositions and social breakthroughs of African-Americans from the 1500s to the present using personal narratives and a multimedia timeline.
At the time of the broadcast, Oxford University Press will release a companion book, also entitled Slavery and the Making of America. Written by Dr. James Horton, one of the experts featured in the series, the book will follow the style of the series and will include additional first-hand stories not included in the program.
Educational Outreach New York Life has launched a companion educator’s Web site, www.slaveryinamerica.org designed to offer social studies and English teachers resources on American slavery that were previously unavailable or difficult to access.
Unlike many resources on slavery, this site focuses on the experience of individuals who were enslaved. Narratives, both spoken and written, images and biographies of enslaved men, women and young people emphasize the human face of slavery and recognize the dignity of individual identity to the enslaved. Literature by and about the slavery experience further illuminates the individual stories, sometimes tragic and sometimes heroic, resulting from more than 240 years of American slavery.
The site also features tools developed by teachers such as lesson plans, activities and other educational materials that relate to the PBS television series as well as other Web-based resources to enrich classroom learning.
Thirteen/WNET New York is one of the key program providers for public television, bringing such acclaimed series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Wide Angle, Stage on Screen, Secrets of the Dead, and Cyberchase – as well as the work of Bill Moyers – to audiences nationwide. As the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro area, Thirteen reaches millions of viewers each week, airing the best of American public television along with its own local productions such as The Ethnic Heritage Specials, The Thirteen Walking Tours, New York Voices, and Reel New York. With educational and community outreach projects that extend the impact of its television productions, Thirteen takes television “out of the box.” And as broadcast and digital media converge, Thirteen is blazing trails in the creation of Web sites, enhanced television, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, educational software, and other cutting-edge media products. More information about Thirteen can be found at: www.thirteen.org.
PBS, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, is a private, nonprofit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation’s 349 public television stations. Serving nearly 90 million people each week, PBS enriches the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services on noncommercial television, the Internet and other media. More information about PBS is available at http://www.pbs.org, the leading dot-org Web site on the Internet.
New York Life Insurance Company, a Fortune 100 company founded in 1845, is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States and one of the largest life insurers in the world. Headquartered in New York City, New York Life's family of companies offers life insurance, annuities and long-term care insurance. New York Life Investment Management LLC provides institutional asset management, retirement planning and trust services. Other New York Life affiliates provide an array of securities products and services, as well as institutional and retail mutual funds.
For further information contact:
Goodman Media Thirteen/WNET New York 212/576-2700 212/560-3016 Stacey Sanner x234 Roz Kay [email protected] [email protected] or Olivia Dupuis x250 [email protected]