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The films of the Civil War are rich in the conflicts between the slave South and the abolitionist North.
February 12, 4:00pm: Ride with the Devil
Ang Lee’s Ride with the Devil (1999) dramatizes the parallel war fought by irregular guerillas—the Missouri Bushwackers and the Kansas Jayhawkers–who may have begun as Southern and Northern sympathizers respectively but who terrorized communities with murder, rape, and pillage.
February 19, 4:00pm: Freedom Road
Jan Kadar’s Freedom Road (1979) captures the rare moment in South Carolina when Reconstruction created opportunities for free blacks to run for public office, own land, and even from protective alliances with poor white sharecroppers for mutual economic gain and self-protection.
February 26, 4:00pm: Slavery by Another Name
Samuel D. Pollard’s Slavery by Another Name (2012) documents how debt peonage or involuntary servitude took the place of slavery for as many of 80,000 African-Americans in the South after the Civil War — 9,000 of whom died in captivity.