Sam Pollard might not be a household name outside of film industry circles, however, if you’ve ever watched Style Wars, Juice or When the Levees Broke, you know his work. For the last four decades, Pollard has edited, directed and/or produced some of the most important films about the Black experience. Also known as Spike Lee‘s go-to editor–on movies such as Jungle Fever and Bamboozled as well as documentaries like the Oscar-nominated 4 Little Girls–he has now grabbed the reins of his own project.
Pollard’s latest is Slavery By Another Name, an illuminating documentary about the new system of human labor trafficking and involuntary servitude that White Southerners developed to subjugate many African-Americans for years after the abolition of slavery. The film is adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name by journalist Douglas Blackmon and features narration by Laurence Fishburne. BlackEnterprise.com caught up with Pollard to discuss the film, which premieres tonight, February 13, 2012 at 9pm EST on PBS, and how it opens a door to a largely forgotten episode of American history.
What struck you about Douglas Blackmon’s book that said it would make a great documentary?
What struck me was that there was this little known part of African-American and American history. I’ve done a lot of stuff related to the African-American experience, but I didn’t know about this story of the re-enslavement of African-Americans after the Civil War through chain gangs and debt peonage. The subject really fascinated me. Then Douglas had created some very visual characters, like the gentleman named John Davis who was arrested walking [along some railroad tracks] and a woman whose brother had been taken and never found again. I thought that because he had such vivid characters that it would be great to translate it to film.
What are some of the biggest challenges you faced making the film?
The biggest challenge when you do these historical docs is how you visualize it. You have stills. We used interviews with historical scholars and in my past experience I’ve done reenactments on a particular level I didn’t think were really well produced. I thought because of the budget we had and with the support of Twin Cities and Doug [Blackmon] that we could raise the money needed to do reenactments that were quality and that had great production values. Then we hired some interesting actors that could give you the feeling that you’re not really watching a documentary but a good strong fiction film.
Perhaps the strongest character is Ezekiel Archie, who was a young child when slavery ended but wound up toiling in Alabama coal mines as an adult and later caught in convict leasing, a system where inmates were loaned out to private companies to do hard labor. His letters complaining of the conditions are incredibly moving.
He wasn’t in my initial conception. But as we started to do research and found his letters and then when I cast Raymond Spencer, the actor, that was like gold. There’s something about his eyes. I auditioned him with about four or five other actors. I knew immediately that this was the guy.
What do you think the film says about American history? It’s such a little known part of it but such a huge part of it at same time…
That American history is very complicated. It’s as easy to say that the Emancipation Proclamation freed all these African-Americans and life was better for them. In lots of cases, it wasn’t. It was a constant struggle. What’s always interesting about unearthing this history of the African-American experience is that it’s always been a constant struggle to find our places culturally. It goes back to what W.E.B. Dubois said about double consciousness…where we as Black people are struggling with our identity about who we are as Americans. Are we African-Americans or just Americans? It’s a constant struggle because this country is constantly pillorying us to say we don’t have an identity, we don’t amount to anything. But the thing is that we as people, not matter what the obstacles, we love this country. No matter what White people and the American government do to us, we love this country. We will fight in the Civil War. We will fight in the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and we get the door stopped in our face. We’re told to go to the back of the bus, we’re told we can’t drink at the water fountains but we still love America. It’s amazing.
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One of the most captivating parts of the film is the commentary from family members who are descendants of slaves or White slave owners. Why was it important to include their perspectives?
I have to tip my hat to Doug Blackmon. When Sheila Bernard, who wrote the script, and I were shaping the story and Doug mentioned the idea of including descendants, I kind of poo-poo’d it. I was like, “Why are we going to have them? What are they going to know or what are they going to say? They don’t have any real historical reference. They’re not going to be able to give us facts like historians.†But Doug and [executive producer] Catherine Allan kept fighting for it. And in retrospect, the descendants didn’t have to have historical knowledge, what they brought to it was personal responses. These people brought their own humanity as descendants who could understand on a personal level the impact of this history, which for a documentary gives it another level of power, another level of emotional resonance.
Aren’t you from the South as well?
No, I was born and raised in New York City but like a lot of African-Americans, my family is from the South. My father is from Mississippi. My mother is from Georgia. I spent a tremendous amount of time in the south in my early 20s. I’m impressed about how my uncles and my father and my aunt and my mother grappled and struggled and made it out of there at a young age without losing their lives. Ever since I’ve been involved in the film business, I’ve been down there lots of times shooting documentaries. I feel that complicated relationship with the South–part of me loves being down there, and part of me always feels the remnants of Jim Crow.
How would you compare Slavery By Another Name with your past work?
This film is as important as when I did Eyes on the Prize or 4 Little Girls. To me it’s got the same relevance as When the Levees Broke, too. It’s an opportunity to give the viewing public a look into another aspect into American history that doesn’t give you the same old pablum that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and he was a great man. Or that Black people during Reconstruction didn’t know what they were doing and that’s why White people had to retake the South. This film gives you a whole other look at how history should be investigated. In some ways, it’s more than a film. It’s an invaluable history lesson. That everyone should partake of.
You’ve worked with Spike Lee many movies. What’d learn from him about filmmaking and what would he say about you?
We’ve worked on and off for 25 years. He knows I always bring a level of professionalism and honesty to the work because I respect what he does so much. One thing I like about Spike–he is fearless. Fearless in terms of saying, I have a story that’s important. It’s about our people. And I’m going to fight tooth and nail to make sure it gets out there. If there’s anything that I learned from Spike, it’s that–to be tenacious in terms of telling our stories.
Click here to see exclusive images from Slavery By Another Name.