The Tracing Center, and our film, Traces of the Trade, are intended as catalysts for heart-to-heart dialogue, education and action. However, we realize that this kind of dialogue is not altogether common and is often difficult.

The materials you will find on these pages are designed to help you in that process of hosting honest conversations, creating engaging educational experiences, and to prepare your discussion group or classroom to take some form of action together. We urge you to please review these materials as they provide more than just good guiding questions and tips for facilitation. They provide insight into the complicated context that might shape your discussions. They add more information on history, and help you connect your conversations to today. We also encourage you to visit our programs page for suggestions on further steps you might take.

About Traces of the Trade:

“This is more than one family’s painful reckoning. This is the nation’s story—one that strips away the North’s heroic mantle by revealing a broad pattern of Northern complicity in the slave trade.”

— Cecelia Goodnow, Seattle Post-Intelligencer