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Related Links Interview: Edward Ball1998 National Book AwardsInfoplease Celebrates Black History MonthThe Emancipation ProclamationPBS Online: Africans in AmericaShould the Government Apologize for Slavery?Views on Affirmative ActionCan filling in those missing pieces of our national history help to set the stage for some reconciliation between groups of Americans between whom some peace still needs to be made? If Slaves in the Family is any indication, it is in those gaps that those groups may, for better or worse, find their most intimate connections. Ball seems determined to find out. He is collaborating with members of his family and descendants of Ball slaves to set up a foundation to design restitution projects to benefit people affected by the Balls' plantation past. During his acceptance speech at the National Book Awards, Ball announced that this "as yet unnamed entity" would be initially funded by one-quarter of the book's proceeds. Whatever form the foundation ultimately takes, its efforts are not likely to involve the writing of checks to individual persons, or any kind of unilateral largesse. The money and land accumulated by the Balls in their slave-holding days is long gone, having fallen prey to Reconstruction and the failure of the South Carolina rice industry (the last plantation was sold out of the family in 1920). Restitution will instead take the form of a "joint reckoning" whose effects, Ball hopes, will extend —if only by example—beyond the sphere of the Balls and Ball slaves. "I hope that whatever we do," he says, "causes others who have been fortunate in this society to measure the nature of their fortune against the racial history of this country... perhaps they can draw their own conclusions." One Small Step Current Features | Spotlight Archive | Daily IQ
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Can filling in those missing pieces of our national history help to set the stage for some reconciliation between groups of Americans between whom some peace still needs to be made? If Slaves in the Family is any indication, it is in those gaps that those groups may, for better or worse, find their most intimate connections.
Related Links
- Interview: Edward Ball1998 National Book AwardsInfoplease Celebrates Black History MonthThe Emancipation ProclamationPBS Online: Africans in AmericaShould the Government Apologize for Slavery?Views on Affirmative Action
Ball seems determined to find out. He is collaborating with members of his family and descendants of Ball slaves to set up a foundation to design restitution projects to benefit people affected by the Balls’ plantation past. During his acceptance speech at the National Book Awards, Ball announced that this “as yet unnamed entity” would be initially funded by one-quarter of the book’s proceeds.
Whatever form the foundation ultimately takes, its efforts are not likely to involve the writing of checks to individual persons, or any kind of unilateral largesse. The money and land accumulated by the Balls in their slave-holding days is long gone, having fallen prey to Reconstruction and the failure of the South Carolina rice industry (the last plantation was sold out of the family in 1920).
Restitution will instead take the form of a “joint reckoning” whose effects, Ball hopes, will extend —if only by example—beyond the sphere of the Balls and Ball slaves. “I hope that whatever we do,” he says, “causes others who have been fortunate in this society to measure the nature of their fortune against the racial history of this country… perhaps they can draw their own conclusions.”
One Small Step
Current Features | Spotlight Archive | Daily IQ
.com/spot/sif6.html
Sources +
Our Common Sources
Our Common Sources
Modern Slavery
- Modern Slavery
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
TrendingHere are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.
Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Current Events This Week: January 2023
African Americans by the Numbers
Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
- Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs?
- The Twelve Dancing Princesses
- Current Events This Week: January 2023
- African Americans by the Numbers
- Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
- The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales
