Monday, May 04, 2009
FHI and Duke Human Rights Center inaugurate official affiliation with "In the Name of Humanity" event series
Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
In August 2008, the Duke Human Rights Center (DHRC) becomes an affiliate of the Franklin Humanities Institute. The FHI and the DHRC will present In the Name of Humanity: Atlantic Slavery, Leopold's Congo, and the Legacy of Early Human Rights Pioneers, a series of public events in early October to inaugurate this new affiliation. Click here to download a PDF of the series poster.
The series begins on October 5 (6:00pm, Griffith Theater, Bryan Center) with a screening and discussion of the award-winning documentary film King Leopold’s Ghost, directed by Pippa Scott and based on the acclaimed book by Adam Hochschild. With narration by Don Cheadle, Alfre Woodard and James Cromwell, the film recounts the genocidal plunder of the Congo by Belgian King Leopold II. Under his greedy reign, over 10 million people died, a tragedy that has grim echoes today. Winner of several awards, the film includes original footage from the Congo and Belgium as well as archival materials. The screening will be followed by a panel featuring film director Pippa Scott and journalist Adam Hochschild. Click here to visit the film's official website.
On October 6 (5:00pm, Love Auditorium, LSRC), award-winning journalist Adam Hochschild will give a lecture entitled Freeing an Empire's Slaves, based on his recent work on the Abolitionist movement in 19th-century Great Britain. Hochschild’s most recent book is Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery, one of the inspirations for the film Amazing Grace. He also authored King Leopold's Ghost, the basis for this film. A co-founder of Mother Jones magazine, Hochschild has also written for the New Yorker, Harper's, the New York Review of Books and the Nation. Hochschild teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.
The final event on October 8 (12:00pm, 240 Franklin Center) in the series returns to King Leopold’s Congo to explore an African American’s remarkable role in exposing its horrors and calling the Belgian monarch to account internationally. Noted historian John Hope Franklin, for whom the FHI is named, will talk with holocaust studies scholar Lea Wernick Fridman about the life and work of George Washington Williams, an African American writer, historian, legislator, and pioneer of the keystone human rights concept of “crimes against humanity." Franklin is the author of, among many other works, George Washington Williams: A Biography, winner of the Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize, which traces Franklin's forty-year quest to find information about Williams. A Professor of English at Kingsborough Community College in New York, Fridman has published many scholarly works and a play on the Holocaust. Her current research project focuses on Williams' "Open Letter to King Leopold."
The series begins on October 5 (6:00pm, Griffith Theater, Bryan Center) with a screening and discussion of the award-winning documentary film King Leopold’s Ghost, directed by Pippa Scott and based on the acclaimed book by Adam Hochschild. With narration by Don Cheadle, Alfre Woodard and James Cromwell, the film recounts the genocidal plunder of the Congo by Belgian King Leopold II. Under his greedy reign, over 10 million people died, a tragedy that has grim echoes today. Winner of several awards, the film includes original footage from the Congo and Belgium as well as archival materials. The screening will be followed by a panel featuring film director Pippa Scott and journalist Adam Hochschild. Click here to visit the film's official website.
On October 6 (5:00pm, Love Auditorium, LSRC), award-winning journalist Adam Hochschild will give a lecture entitled Freeing an Empire's Slaves, based on his recent work on the Abolitionist movement in 19th-century Great Britain. Hochschild’s most recent book is Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery, one of the inspirations for the film Amazing Grace. He also authored King Leopold's Ghost, the basis for this film. A co-founder of Mother Jones magazine, Hochschild has also written for the New Yorker, Harper's, the New York Review of Books and the Nation. Hochschild teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.
The final event on October 8 (12:00pm, 240 Franklin Center) in the series returns to King Leopold’s Congo to explore an African American’s remarkable role in exposing its horrors and calling the Belgian monarch to account internationally. Noted historian John Hope Franklin, for whom the FHI is named, will talk with holocaust studies scholar Lea Wernick Fridman about the life and work of George Washington Williams, an African American writer, historian, legislator, and pioneer of the keystone human rights concept of “crimes against humanity." Franklin is the author of, among many other works, George Washington Williams: A Biography, winner of the Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize, which traces Franklin's forty-year quest to find information about Williams. A Professor of English at Kingsborough Community College in New York, Fridman has published many scholarly works and a play on the Holocaust. Her current research project focuses on Williams' "Open Letter to King Leopold."
