The College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center will host an event featuring the award winning documentary “Traces of the Trade: a Story from the Deep North” with director and producer Katrina Browne. The screening and discussion will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 17 at the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, located at 125 Bull Street, in the McKinley Washington Auditorium.

As seen at the Sundance Film Festival, on POV on PBS, filmmaker Katrina Browne discovers that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. She and nine relatives retrace the Triangle Trade, uncovering the vast extent of Northern complicity in slavery, and gaining fresh perspectives on the racial divide.

The film will be followed by comments from Browne and a panel discussion chaired by Dr. John Fleming, Director of the International African American Museum.  Along with Browne, the panel will feature several local individuals who have done extensive work on their genealogy and can talk about the emotional highs and lows in uncovering one’s personal past, including Wevonneda Minis, founder of GullahRoots.org and writer of the “Kinship” articles in the Post and Courier.

This event is co-sponsored by the Office of Institutional Diversity, the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World Program, and the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston.

For more information, contact Jane Aldrich at 843.953.3393 or Simon Lewis at 843.953.1920.