Slavery North invites you to the seventh in our series of eight Fellow Talks in Spring 2026. Documentary filmmaker Zadi Zokou will share his research on the entrepreneur and abolitionist Captain Paul Cuffe.
This hybrid talk is open to students, faculty, staff, and members of the public/
Date/Time: Thursday, April 30, 2026, 2:30-3:30 PM (EDT)
Location: Room 301, Herter Hall, 161 Presidents Drive, UMass Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003
Online via Zoom:
https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/j/93659599564
Meeting ID: 936 5959 9564
Speaker: Zadi Zokou, Artist-in-Residence Fellow, Spring 2026
Moderator: Dr. Martha McNamara, Associate Professor of Public History & Associate Director Slavery North
Lecture: Captain Paul Cuffe: Achieving Entrepreneurial Success as a Person of Color in the Era of Slavery
Lecture abstract: Zokou will discuss his documentary film examining the remarkable life of Captain Paul Cuffe. Cuffe was the son of a freed Black man and Native American woman, who overcame racial barriers to become a leading entrepreneur and abolitionist.
Bio: Zadi Zokou has been a filmmaker for over 20 years. He is trained in both screenwriting and the technical aspects of film and audio-visual production in his own country of Cote d’Ivoire, as well as in Burkina-Faso, Tunisia, France, Canada, and Japan. He has written screenplays for several internationally funded, feature-length films that were screened throughout the West Africa region to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS.
Since moving to the US in 2005, Zadi has produced several documentaries, including: Eliza My Songbird (A Documentary About Autism,); Praying Town, a feature-length documentary on the history of Native Americans and enslaved African Americans of Southern New England; and Black N Black, a documentary that examines the relationships between African Americans and African Immigrants to the US. Zadi is currently editing his next documentary, Our Names, a story about naming practices in the Black community worldwide.
