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Madison native talks on modern slavery on Tuesday's Nightline
Native Madison author E. Benjamin Skinner will be discussing his book on modern-day slavery Tuesday night on Nightline on ABC at 11:05.
Skinner, a 1994 graduate of Madison West High School, will be discussing his newly published book "A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery," which is receiving much critical acclaim.
Skinner traveled to numerous countries across the globe to interview slaves, former slaves and slave traders among others, and uses narratives of those involved in slavery to show that despite the efforts dating back to the U.S. Civil War, slavery is not only still alive in the world but probably more widespread now than at any time in history.
Numbers, however, are not what Skinner's book is about. "I knew I couldn't count all the slaves, but I could talk about individual stories," he said in an interview with Capital Times book columnist Heather Lee Schroeder in March.
Skinner, who was raised in a Quaker household in Madison, said slavery was often the topic of conversation in his home. "The Quakers were the original abolitionists, and when I was growing up, we talked a lot about what slavery meant and what the duties or the rights of men were," he said in that interview.
"The early abolitionists were considered nut jobs, but now there's no question in anybody's mind that slavery is wrong," he said.
"The question is, to what extent does it really exist? That's why I've done this book."
Author E. Benjamin Skinner, a Madison West alumnus, will discuss the topic of his book, contemporary world slavery, on Nightline tonight at 11:05.
