When filmmaker Macky Alston was a child in Durham, North Carolina, he wondered why so many African-American children in his class had the same last name as his white family. In history classes to come he would learn the reason, but he knew implicitly that he was never to discuss it with his family or with the black Alstons he regularly encountered growing up. In Family Name, Alston sets out to find the descendants of slaves and slave owners who once lived together on the plantations his family owned in North Carolina. His goal is to get to the bottom of his own family history and to have the conversations that were forbidden in his childhood, believing that perhaps the truth spoken can lay groundwork for honest relationship and renewed commitment to a more just society. Family Name premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997, where it won the Freedom of Expression Award. It was released theatrically and aired nationally in 1998 as the kick-off to P.O.V.’s Television Race Initiative on PBS.