GREAT BOOKS PROGRAM DIALS UP `CELIA' AUTHOR

Melton A. McLaurin, a North Carolinian who wrote the surprise bestseller "Celia, A Slave," was on the phone. Thirty-three participants in the Great Books Program at Southeast Missouri State University were on the other end.

The exchange Monday afternoon between writer and readers via speaker phones culminated a two-hour discussion of the book in the Missouriana Room at the University Center, and gave the readers a rare chance to ask questions that perhaps only the author could answer.

"Celia" is a true story about a Callaway County, Mo., slave who killed the owner who had been sexually abusing her since she was 14 years old. After a trial in which she did not have the right to testify, then-19-year-old Celia was hung, six years before the start of the Civil War.

The book has been well-reviewed in both the popular press and academic journals, and the current moral and social questions that resonate with "Celia" is interesting Hollywood.

Some of those in the Great Books Program, composed mostly of seniors who are able to meet at 2 in the afternoon, were themselves riled up by the book and by the myriad ways in which slaves were denied the slightest claim on humanity.

"We're all so proud of our names," said Loreen Gladish of Cape Girardeau, pointing out that Celia was deprived even of a full one. "She never had the dignity of a name."

Before McLaurin came on the line, Southeast history professor Charles Sharp led a discussion of the book's themes, which go to the heart of why America went to war with itself in the 1860s and why the fighting continues, albeit in a more civilized form.

Born a Southerner himself, Sharp said he often was told that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery but over states' rights and high tariffs.

"The only way to arrive at that judgment is to ignore an awful lot," he said.

"... This was not just a way to get cheap labor. It was a way to render these people utterly powerless."

In an informal poll of the group, Smart found that while few had changed their religious or political affiliations from those of their parents or grandparents, about half said they have significantly different attitudes about other races than their forbearers did.

Many in the group clearly saw the similarities between the issues involved in slavery and abortion, Smart pointing out that both the pro-life and pro-choice sides believe that slavery proves their argument. The pro-life movement compares itself to abolitionists, while the pro-choice forces say outlawing abortion enslaves women.

McLaurin, a University of North Carolina-Wilmington history professor, told the group he ran across a brief mention of Celia's story in another book back in he 1970s. He spent 10 years researching government records and newspapers in Missouri and finally writing the book.

The book "tells a great deal about the social hierarchy in the antebellum South," McLaurin said, along with the methods of "cloaking slavery in respectability."

"`Celia,'" Sharp said, "forced me to recognize we're only two lifetimes away from this time. That's not very far."

"... You may be able now to behave differently, but that still doesn't mean we don't have some of these attitudes."

On Nov. 8, participants in the program will discuss "Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America" by Pulitzer Prize-winner Gary Wills. Frank Nickell, coordinator of the program, said an attempt is being made to reach Wills by phone as well.