For Immediate Release
Tuesday, March 21, 2023

“Thomas Jefferson and the Curse of Slavery” is the theme of the Ethan Allen Institute’s 30th annual Jefferson Day Event. It will be held at the Rutland Free Library on Court Street on Wednesday, April 12 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public, but reservations are appreciated and may be made at www.ethanallen.org.

This year’s program will feature a showing of the second half of Ken Burns’ acclaimed PBS documentary on Thomas Jefferson’s life with a focus on how, over the years, the Apostle of Liberty finally reached a troubled standoff with slavery in the early years of the new nation.

The program will be presented by a man deeply involved in the production of this splendid documentary. Kevin Kertscher is a noted film editor who worked closely with Ken Burns and his script writers to give viewers a revealing and fair minded account of Jefferson’s life, his philosophy and his relationship with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman on his Monticello plantation who was Jefferson’s deceased wife’s half-sister.

Following the showing of the film Mr. Kertscher will describe the challenges of putting together the film from the historical record, much of it still mired in controversy.

Mr. Kertscher is the founder of Big Ocean Film Company in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia and has a master’s degree from Dartmouth College.`

The program is co-sponsored with the Jefferson Legacy Foundation and will be introduced by EAI President Myers Mermel.

The Ethan Allen Institute, founded in 1993, is Vermont’s leading nonprofit research and educational organization whose mission is the advancement of individual liberty, private property, economic opportunity, constitutional rights, and limited government. Each year since its founding the Institute has presented a program to honor Thomas Jefferson’s legacy of liberty whose principles are reflected in the Institute’s mission.