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originally published: 06/20/2022 

(NEWARK, NJ) -- NJ PBS, New Jersey’s public television network, announced it will air a two-part documentary entitled The Price of Silence: The Forgotten Story of New Jersey’s Enslaved People. Part one will premiere on Wednesday, June 22 at 8:30pm on NJ PBS (check local listings). Part two will be scheduled in July. The documentary seeks to fill a gap in Garden State history by sharing the little-known legacy of slavery across New Jersey through the testimony of experts who have devoted their careers to studying it. 

“New Jersey is known as the Garden State,” says author Beverly Mills in the film. “We’re known for our blueberries. We’re known for our corn. We’re known for our peaches. But we’re not known for the slaves that were here tilling the soil.  We’re not known for the whole history of slavery connected to New Jersey and how slavery was the underpinning of much of the wealth of New Jersey.”

Enslavement was prolific from the very founding of New Jersey in the 1600s as a colony and eventual manufacturing hub that supplied the Southern states with leather goods and other products. Its eye on production and profit created a demand for the cost-effective services of the enslaved, a demand that only grew as New Jersey developed into a major maritime port. What’s more, white slave owners at the time could receive the equivalent of land rebates based upon the number of enslaved working their land.

“New Jersey was the last Northern state to even attempt to abolish slavery,” says Linda Caldwell Epps, Ph.D. and CEO of 1804 Consultants, in the film. "And (it) was probably the Northern state with the strongest sympathies towards the South. Because it was the Southern-most Northern state, it had a lucrative trade policy with the Southern states.”

The film treks across New Jersey to bring stories of the enslaved to life, from the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cape May and the Stoutsburg Cemetery in Mercer County to the Bainbridge House at Princeton University, Perth Amboy where slave ships docked and Hopewell, an area where Black families were among its founders.

 

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“I never learned about this in school,” says Mills in the film regarding the history of slavery in New Jersey, “If anything, we were taught to feel shame. And today…I feel nothing but pride and I feel empowered.”

The Price of Silence: The Forgotten Story of New Jersey’s Enslaved People is a production of Truehart Productions and Public Media NJ, Inc. Truehart’s Executive Producers are Ridgeley Hutchinson and Andrew Schmertz; Keyon Williams is producer/editor; Antoinetta Stallings is producer. Joe Lee is Executive in Charge for NJ PBS.

NJ PBS, New Jersey's public television network, brings quality arts, education, and public affairs programming to all 21 counties in the state. Headquartered at the Agnes Varis NJ PBS Studio in Newark, the network offers diverse local programs including American Songbook at NJPAC, Chat Box with David Cruz, NJ Business Beat with Rhonda Schaffler, Here's the Story, Drive By History, One-on-One with Steve Adubato, State of the Arts and Treasures of New Jersey and PBS favorites such as Nature, NOVA, Amanpour and Company and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Its award-winning news division, NJ Spotlight News, provides multiplatform reporting from across the Garden State on its weeknight newscast, NJ Spotlight News with Briana Vannozzi, and digitally via NJSpotlightNews.org, plus live news specials, community engagement events and daily newsletters. It recently launched its first podcast, Hazard NJ, investigating the effect of climate change on NJ Superfund sites.

The MyNJPBS.org network website offers streaming programs and free digital resources for educators via PBS LearningMedia New Jersey. NJ PBS is operated under an agreement with the state of New Jersey by Public Media NJ, Inc. (PMNJ), a non-profit affiliate of The WNET Group, the parent company of award-winning New York public television stations THIRTEEN and WLIW21.