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How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite History & Biography (2021)Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation
Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks-those that are honest about the past and those that are not-that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola Prison in Louisiana, a former plantation named for the country from which most of its enslaved people arrived and which has since become one of the most gruesome maximum-security prisons in the world. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.
In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted.
Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark work of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in understanding our country.
Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks-those that are honest about the past and those that are not-that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.
It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola Prison in Louisiana, a former plantation named for the country from which most of its enslaved people arrived and which has since become one of the most gruesome maximum-security prisons in the world. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.
In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted.
Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark work of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in understanding our country.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2021
4302 people are currently reading
98657 people want to read
About the author
Clint Smith
8 books1,834 followersClint Smith is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2021. He is also the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. His is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 6,097 reviews
January 14, 2022
This book is going to win the National Book Award, mark my words. And it deserves the Pulitzer, too. It is an extraordinary piece of nonfiction.
In How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith seeks to examine how America memorializes, and reckons, with the legacy of slavery. He travels to different plantations, memorials, cemeteries, museums, prisons, etc. and examines how each of these locations reckon with slavery and if they are being honest and truthful, or being dishonest and avoiding the past. It is truly extraordinary. Smith is also a poet, and he weaves his narrative with the prose of a poet in such a lyrical and impactful way.
Everyone needs to read this book, so please preorder it, add it to your TBRs, because this book is going to take the world by storm come June.
In How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith seeks to examine how America memorializes, and reckons, with the legacy of slavery. He travels to different plantations, memorials, cemeteries, museums, prisons, etc. and examines how each of these locations reckon with slavery and if they are being honest and truthful, or being dishonest and avoiding the past. It is truly extraordinary. Smith is also a poet, and he weaves his narrative with the prose of a poet in such a lyrical and impactful way.
Everyone needs to read this book, so please preorder it, add it to your TBRs, because this book is going to take the world by storm come June.
January 1, 2022
One of my favorite books of 2021.
It's always dangerous to go into a book with sky-high expectations, as I did thanks to numerous rave reviews from trusted readers, but I needn't have feared: this is a stunner.
It's always dangerous to go into a book with sky-high expectations, as I did thanks to numerous rave reviews from trusted readers, but I needn't have feared: this is a stunner.
May 10, 2021
Clint Smith can write. This is mostly history with a little personal perspective sprinkled in. A really approachable way to interrogate history and the ways we (mostly focused on Americans) are taught and pass on the legacy of slavery. This is a real look at living history. Well done.
July 25, 2021
To say I learned a lot from this book is an understatement. This should be essential reading for every high school student in America.
March 19, 2022
“The history of slavery is the history of the United States. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it. It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it. This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must, too, be in our memories.”
The author is a poet, educator and scholar from New Orleans who describes his visits to several locations in the United States and Africa, each with a relationship to slavery. He uses each locale as a catalyst to discuss how these various places can inform us; how history can be passed on if we question and listen.
Monticello Plantation was his first stop. There, disturbingly, tours in the 1930s and 1940s were conducted by Black men dressed as slaves. Monticello now attempts to include a more complete picture of Thomas Jefferson than history books used to deliver. A current tour guide said “Slavery is an institution. In Jefferson’s lifetime it becomes a system. So what is this slave system? It is a system of exploitation, a system of inequality and exclusion, a system where people are owned as property and held down by physical and psychological force, a system being justified even by people who know slavery is morally wrong. By doing what? Denying the very humanity of those who are enslaved solely on the basis of the color of their skin.” They also now include discussion of Sally Hemmings and her descendants.
In the United States, the author also visited: Whitney Plantation, whose primary focus is on the enslaved people who lived there; Angola Prison, built on a plantation; Blandford Cemetery, where 30,000 Confederate soldiers are buried, including a discussion of the 11 states that still observe Confederate holidays and observances like Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee Day (his birthday is celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr Day in Alabama and Mississippi); Galveston, Texas and history of Juneteenth; New York City, including it’s role in the slave trade; and the Museum of African American History, that evoked the memories of his elderly grandparents.
The only African location was Gor e Island in Senegal. It’s actual significance to the transatlantic slave trade has been disputed, but it is still a place that has major impact. “When I stood in the room in the House of Slaves that sat adjacent to the ocean, when I opened my arms and touched its wet stone walls, did it matter exactly how many people had once been held in that room? Or was it more important that the room pushed me into a space of reflection on what the origins of slavery meant? When I bent down and crawled inside that small space where I had been told enslaved people who resisted were held, when the darkness of that hole washed itself over me, did it matter whether enslaved people had actually been held there or did it matter that my sense of what bondage meant for millions of people had been irreversibly heightened? Can a place that misstates a certain set of facts still be a site of memory for a larger truth?
The author writes well. Most of the time the book read like history although more personal and less dry than history books, but sometimes the poet in him came out, especially in his use of repetition to make a point. This was a very good book and I would read more by him.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
The author is a poet, educator and scholar from New Orleans who describes his visits to several locations in the United States and Africa, each with a relationship to slavery. He uses each locale as a catalyst to discuss how these various places can inform us; how history can be passed on if we question and listen.
Monticello Plantation was his first stop. There, disturbingly, tours in the 1930s and 1940s were conducted by Black men dressed as slaves. Monticello now attempts to include a more complete picture of Thomas Jefferson than history books used to deliver. A current tour guide said “Slavery is an institution. In Jefferson’s lifetime it becomes a system. So what is this slave system? It is a system of exploitation, a system of inequality and exclusion, a system where people are owned as property and held down by physical and psychological force, a system being justified even by people who know slavery is morally wrong. By doing what? Denying the very humanity of those who are enslaved solely on the basis of the color of their skin.” They also now include discussion of Sally Hemmings and her descendants.
In the United States, the author also visited: Whitney Plantation, whose primary focus is on the enslaved people who lived there; Angola Prison, built on a plantation; Blandford Cemetery, where 30,000 Confederate soldiers are buried, including a discussion of the 11 states that still observe Confederate holidays and observances like Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee Day (his birthday is celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr Day in Alabama and Mississippi); Galveston, Texas and history of Juneteenth; New York City, including it’s role in the slave trade; and the Museum of African American History, that evoked the memories of his elderly grandparents.
The only African location was Gor e Island in Senegal. It’s actual significance to the transatlantic slave trade has been disputed, but it is still a place that has major impact. “When I stood in the room in the House of Slaves that sat adjacent to the ocean, when I opened my arms and touched its wet stone walls, did it matter exactly how many people had once been held in that room? Or was it more important that the room pushed me into a space of reflection on what the origins of slavery meant? When I bent down and crawled inside that small space where I had been told enslaved people who resisted were held, when the darkness of that hole washed itself over me, did it matter whether enslaved people had actually been held there or did it matter that my sense of what bondage meant for millions of people had been irreversibly heightened? Can a place that misstates a certain set of facts still be a site of memory for a larger truth?
The author writes well. Most of the time the book read like history although more personal and less dry than history books, but sometimes the poet in him came out, especially in his use of repetition to make a point. This was a very good book and I would read more by him.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
July 23, 2021
[4.5] How did I not know that? As a New Yorker, how did I not know about the destruction of Seneca Village in Central Park or the origin of the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of abolition? I have tried to fill in the gaps of my whitewashed education, but the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. Smith takes the reader along with him on tours of several historical sites that are linked to the legacy of slavery. He combines scholarship with journalism- chatting with other visitors, adding his own observations and questions - providing a vivid history lesson that I won't forget.
January 30, 2022
Although I can't state that this is a scholarly work, I found it impactful all the same. How the word is passed, the truth of slavery and how much it's history and the ugly truth of its impact on the generations since. Especially important now that so many states are minimizing or hiding this truth from current and future generations. Starting with a tour of Monticello, where the very complicated person of Thomas Jefferson, a man who wrote of freedom but kept and sold hundreds of slaves, including Sally Hemmings who bore him many children. Children whose descendants are alive today.
He goes on to many other sites where slaves worked, suffered, saw their families sold as currency.
I found his trip to New York fascinating and informative. I never knew how much slavery proliferated in the Northern states or rather it's extent. Wall Street, Central park. Also that factual history in my school days had never been complete, nor that depending on where one lived, how this history taught was totally different.
This is a book that makes one think, that informs with verified truth, not lectures but facts. The authors own family's story in the epilogue showed how personally and seriously he took this personal tour..
He goes on to many other sites where slaves worked, suffered, saw their families sold as currency.
I found his trip to New York fascinating and informative. I never knew how much slavery proliferated in the Northern states or rather it's extent. Wall Street, Central park. Also that factual history in my school days had never been complete, nor that depending on where one lived, how this history taught was totally different.
This is a book that makes one think, that informs with verified truth, not lectures but facts. The authors own family's story in the epilogue showed how personally and seriously he took this personal tour..
September 28, 2021
Library overdrive…Audiobook….read by Clint Smith
…..10 hours and 7 minutes
This book was unbelievably exceptional. ….
I mean….my god….I was taking in details of history that was actually going in one ear - and ‘finally’ not coming out the other.
I was either asleep in my history classes growing up — or Ha, Ha — the joke was on me…. I DO NOT REMEMBER LEARNING HALF of the things in this book.
Usually when I listen to an audiobook… I consider my ‘audio-phone-reader’ my daytime companion. My body is either in motion doing mundane tasks or I’m leisurely-luxerizing (yes, I made up that word)…in the sauna or soaking in our saline pool. I know-‘decadent’- but I figure somebody’s got to do it, so why not me.
But while listening to “How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America”….I sat down at our large kitchen nook - took notes - and paused the audio to visit google when I felt it was needed. I NOT ONLY DIDN’T mind approaching this book like a history class—-(with plans to buy the physical copy)—
But…..as painful as the truth continued to unfold —documented REAL TRUTH-
… such as
…..”Thomas Jefferson enslaved over 600 human beings throughout the course of his life. 400 people were enslaved at Monticello, and the other 200 people were held in bondage on Jeffersons other properties. At any given time, around 130 people were enslaved at Monticello”…..
But a side bonus —-
I found this brutal history lesson healing my meshuggah small petty thoughts….
Fabulous -informative- engaging - personal - and deeply devastating-
Clint Smith gave us the book our country needs….
The research he did is incredibly impressive as it was ambitious — from New Orleans were Clint Smith grew up himself — to Monticello, the Whitney plantation, Angola prison, Blandford Cemetery, Galveston, Texas and New York…
The facts and stories that Clint Smith gathered to somehow brilliantly organize his notes into this final masterpiece…is everything and more than one can imagine.
The historic Blandford Cemetery - the second largest cemetery in the Commonwealth of Petersburg, Virginia- where three Confederate generals were buried… is still an active burial ground today. All the details and information the Clint Smith share was really fascinating.
Formerly ….The Louisiana Angola State Penitentiary was the bloodiest prison in the United States. ….. this chapter alone was just so distressing…
sinfully, painfully, gut-wrenching slave labor—lashed immates… electrocuted killing…
that if transformation and redemption was ever a question — abolishing all the lies that have been previously taught— to start teaching the truth — this chapter alone confirms …THE TIME HAS COME ….
TIME IS NOW.. for a total reconstruction, evolution, redevelopment, policy changes, ……
United States must systematically combat racism …and my goodness, this book — gave us hundreds of different ways to see why.
A phenomenal contribution to the truth of black history and information presented for us to learn of ways that we can begin to make a difference.
5+++++
…..10 hours and 7 minutes
This book was unbelievably exceptional. ….
I mean….my god….I was taking in details of history that was actually going in one ear - and ‘finally’ not coming out the other.
I was either asleep in my history classes growing up — or Ha, Ha — the joke was on me…. I DO NOT REMEMBER LEARNING HALF of the things in this book.
Usually when I listen to an audiobook… I consider my ‘audio-phone-reader’ my daytime companion. My body is either in motion doing mundane tasks or I’m leisurely-luxerizing (yes, I made up that word)…in the sauna or soaking in our saline pool. I know-‘decadent’- but I figure somebody’s got to do it, so why not me.
But while listening to “How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America”….I sat down at our large kitchen nook - took notes - and paused the audio to visit google when I felt it was needed. I NOT ONLY DIDN’T mind approaching this book like a history class—-(with plans to buy the physical copy)—
But…..as painful as the truth continued to unfold —documented REAL TRUTH-
… such as
…..”Thomas Jefferson enslaved over 600 human beings throughout the course of his life. 400 people were enslaved at Monticello, and the other 200 people were held in bondage on Jeffersons other properties. At any given time, around 130 people were enslaved at Monticello”…..
But a side bonus —-
I found this brutal history lesson healing my meshuggah small petty thoughts….
Fabulous -informative- engaging - personal - and deeply devastating-
Clint Smith gave us the book our country needs….
The research he did is incredibly impressive as it was ambitious — from New Orleans were Clint Smith grew up himself — to Monticello, the Whitney plantation, Angola prison, Blandford Cemetery, Galveston, Texas and New York…
The facts and stories that Clint Smith gathered to somehow brilliantly organize his notes into this final masterpiece…is everything and more than one can imagine.
The historic Blandford Cemetery - the second largest cemetery in the Commonwealth of Petersburg, Virginia- where three Confederate generals were buried… is still an active burial ground today. All the details and information the Clint Smith share was really fascinating.
Formerly ….The Louisiana Angola State Penitentiary was the bloodiest prison in the United States. ….. this chapter alone was just so distressing…
sinfully, painfully, gut-wrenching slave labor—lashed immates… electrocuted killing…
that if transformation and redemption was ever a question — abolishing all the lies that have been previously taught— to start teaching the truth — this chapter alone confirms …THE TIME HAS COME ….
TIME IS NOW.. for a total reconstruction, evolution, redevelopment, policy changes, ……
United States must systematically combat racism …and my goodness, this book — gave us hundreds of different ways to see why.
A phenomenal contribution to the truth of black history and information presented for us to learn of ways that we can begin to make a difference.
5+++++
November 13, 2021
A must read book! This will absolutely be my go-to recommendation for anyone looking for an engaging, thought-provoking, informational non-fiction book.
Clint Smith takes us through various institutions, memorials, and sites that have some relation either to US history or the history of slavery in this country. From Monticello to the Blanford Cemetry, to Angola Prison and New York City, across the Atlantic to Goree Island and the infamous 'Door of No Return.'
What I loved about this book is its not only a look at a nation's history but a personal reflection from the author. At each location he speaks to and interviews various people, whether they are tour guides, employees or other guests present at the time. He inserts himself into the narrative in a way that felt beneficial to what he is trying to say with this book. Rather than making it about himself, he simply shows that history does indeed affect the individual; that we cannot ignore history or 'forget' it simply because its upsetting or inconvenient, because the effects of history are still felt today.
Clint Smith details the history of these places concisely but with enough context to make his points clear. It's part memoir, part history, part sociological examination. Genre-wise, it's quite unlike anything I've read before.
I highlighted a million passages in this book. I will share a few but would encourage everyone to pick up a copy of this book for themselves and discover a new way to look at US history, particularly as it relates to the enslavement of millions of people. Truly a one-of-a-kind, powerful read!
"But in order for our country to collectively move forward, it is not enough to have a patchwork of places that are honest about this history while being surrounded by other spaces that undermine it. It must be a collective endeavor to learn and confront the story of slavery and how it has shaped the world we live in today."
"'History is written by the perpetrators,' he said. And his goal is to be a part of writing something that challenges that."
"In the nineteenth century, Black people lived in fear that at any moment a slave catcher could snatch them or their children up, regardless of status or social position. In the twenty-first century, Black people live in fear that at any moment police will throw them against a wall, or worse, regardless of whether there is any pretense of suspicion other than the color of their skin."
"What would it take—what does it take—for you to confront a false history even if it means shattering the stories you have been told throughout your life? Even if it means having to fundamentally reexamine who you are and who your family has been? Just because something is difficult to accept doesn’t mean you should refuse to accept it. Just because someone tells you a story doesn’t make that story true."
Clint Smith takes us through various institutions, memorials, and sites that have some relation either to US history or the history of slavery in this country. From Monticello to the Blanford Cemetry, to Angola Prison and New York City, across the Atlantic to Goree Island and the infamous 'Door of No Return.'
What I loved about this book is its not only a look at a nation's history but a personal reflection from the author. At each location he speaks to and interviews various people, whether they are tour guides, employees or other guests present at the time. He inserts himself into the narrative in a way that felt beneficial to what he is trying to say with this book. Rather than making it about himself, he simply shows that history does indeed affect the individual; that we cannot ignore history or 'forget' it simply because its upsetting or inconvenient, because the effects of history are still felt today.
Clint Smith details the history of these places concisely but with enough context to make his points clear. It's part memoir, part history, part sociological examination. Genre-wise, it's quite unlike anything I've read before.
I highlighted a million passages in this book. I will share a few but would encourage everyone to pick up a copy of this book for themselves and discover a new way to look at US history, particularly as it relates to the enslavement of millions of people. Truly a one-of-a-kind, powerful read!
"But in order for our country to collectively move forward, it is not enough to have a patchwork of places that are honest about this history while being surrounded by other spaces that undermine it. It must be a collective endeavor to learn and confront the story of slavery and how it has shaped the world we live in today."
"'History is written by the perpetrators,' he said. And his goal is to be a part of writing something that challenges that."
"In the nineteenth century, Black people lived in fear that at any moment a slave catcher could snatch them or their children up, regardless of status or social position. In the twenty-first century, Black people live in fear that at any moment police will throw them against a wall, or worse, regardless of whether there is any pretense of suspicion other than the color of their skin."
"What would it take—what does it take—for you to confront a false history even if it means shattering the stories you have been told throughout your life? Even if it means having to fundamentally reexamine who you are and who your family has been? Just because something is difficult to accept doesn’t mean you should refuse to accept it. Just because someone tells you a story doesn’t make that story true."
April 7, 2022
A great book about the history of slavery in the United States. Clint Smith integrates journalism, historical analysis, and memoir as he describes several sites in the U.S. in relation to slavery. As trite as it may sound at this point I do think we need to understand the past to create a more equitable and racially just present and future. I appreciate that Smith took on this enormous task to illustrate the legacy of slavery even when some people want to deny or forget about it. Important context for understanding race relations in the United States as they stand today.
December 20, 2021
New York Times 10 Best Books 2021
I've come to realize that there is a difference between history and nostalgia, and somewhere between those two is memory.
David Thornton, Tour Guide, Monticello Plantation, p.41.
How is American Slavery enshrined in memory? To answer this question, Clint Smith, poet, journalist, and staff writer for The Atlantic Monthly, traveled throughout the US to examine the portrayal of slavery in non-formal educational sites: museums, historic sites, monuments, and reenactments.
Smith, who grew up in New Orleans, visited the nearby Whitney plantation Angola prison and Jefferson's Monticello. He attended a Confederate Re-enactment at Blanford Cemetary, Juneteenth celebration in Galveston, and visited several sites in New York City. He also visited Goree island, the largest slave-trading center off the coast of Senegal. He researched each locale, conducted interviews with exhibit staff, tour guides, participants, re-enactors, and observers.
Then, using a lively writing style, he combines a discussion of slavery's depiction with an informal history of slavery. As a result, the reader gains insight into the institution of slavery and the everyday lives of its victims.
Highly recommend
I've come to realize that there is a difference between history and nostalgia, and somewhere between those two is memory.
David Thornton, Tour Guide, Monticello Plantation, p.41.
How is American Slavery enshrined in memory? To answer this question, Clint Smith, poet, journalist, and staff writer for The Atlantic Monthly, traveled throughout the US to examine the portrayal of slavery in non-formal educational sites: museums, historic sites, monuments, and reenactments.
Smith, who grew up in New Orleans, visited the nearby Whitney plantation Angola prison and Jefferson's Monticello. He attended a Confederate Re-enactment at Blanford Cemetary, Juneteenth celebration in Galveston, and visited several sites in New York City. He also visited Goree island, the largest slave-trading center off the coast of Senegal. He researched each locale, conducted interviews with exhibit staff, tour guides, participants, re-enactors, and observers.
Then, using a lively writing style, he combines a discussion of slavery's depiction with an informal history of slavery. As a result, the reader gains insight into the institution of slavery and the everyday lives of its victims.
Highly recommend
Want to read
June 5, 2024i don't often read nonfiction, but a new york times best of the year with a 4.7 average rating is enough to sway even me
July 19, 2021
Page 101 (my book) W.E.B. DuBois
Our histories tend to discuss American slavery so impartially, that in the end nobody seems to have done wrong and everybody was right. Slavery appears to have been thrust upon unwilling helpless America, while the South was blameless in becoming its center… One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over.
This book is about slavery and how it is perceived in the United States. It is also on the Civil War. There has grown, since the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s a myth that the Civil War was fought solely to bring the seceding Southern States back into the Union fold – to reunify the country. This counter history entirely avoids the critical fact that the Southern States broke away to preserve slavery and to continue white domination. They saw the white Northern abolitionists as a dire threat to Southern white power.
Page 171
For decades Black children have walked into buildings named after people who thought of them as property.
After Reconstruction ended there came a building up of white Southern pride – like statues, parks, monuments, and museums on former plantations - all named after Southern Confederate “heroes”. There was no acknowledgement that the fight to preserve slavery was evil.
Page 128
Robert E. Lee was a slave owner who led an army predicated on maintaining and expanding the institution of slavery.
Page 76-77 John Cummings of the Whitney Plantation Museum
As I got into studying slavery, and I’ve read probably eleven hundred oral histories – I thought that sooner or later I’m going to get to the one where the woman was not raped or the man was not almost beaten to death or branded or his fingers cut off or his ear cut off for trying to run away. But I haven’t gotten there yet… and you feel as though someone is talking to you who never had a voice… and all of a sudden, you feel very strange. It’s not a feeling of guilt. It’s a feeling of “discovered ignorance”. I don’t know how else to explain it. When you wonder, how could this have happened and I didn’t know about it?
The author visits various sites around the South – like the Monticello plantation where Thomas Jefferson kept hundreds of slaves. It illustrates the extreme dichotomy and hypocrisy of American life that here was a man writing and espousing on liberty and freedom yet owned slaves.
In a very real sense history and the evils of slavery have been minimized and those that fought for the South canonized with their ancestors celebrating their heritage. Slavery is not discussed along with racial terror and domination. The Confederates were just a bunch of poor folks fighting for “states right”. The author discusses what these “states right” implied.
Page 170
White Southerners’ commitment to the Confederate cause was not predicated on whether or not they owned slaves. The commitment was on a desire to maintain a society in which Black people remained at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Page 191 W. Caleb McDaniel
Slavery did not end cleanly or on a single day. It ended through a violent, uneven process.
The author discussed at length the avoidance of slavery and the glorification of the Confederacy in the United States. This distortion of history applies to school books where one book in Texas contained the following passage (from page 203): “millions of workers [were brought] from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations”. Fortunately, this was removed, but how many other books and historical artifacts contain this whitewashing?
A significant portion of the United States population experienced severe repression, before, during, and after the Civil War when Jim Crow laws were instilled. As a commentator for this book wrote – “We need this book”.
As a follow-up consider the documentary "The Neutral Ground"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoDaH...
and the book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
Our histories tend to discuss American slavery so impartially, that in the end nobody seems to have done wrong and everybody was right. Slavery appears to have been thrust upon unwilling helpless America, while the South was blameless in becoming its center… One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over.
This book is about slavery and how it is perceived in the United States. It is also on the Civil War. There has grown, since the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s a myth that the Civil War was fought solely to bring the seceding Southern States back into the Union fold – to reunify the country. This counter history entirely avoids the critical fact that the Southern States broke away to preserve slavery and to continue white domination. They saw the white Northern abolitionists as a dire threat to Southern white power.
Page 171
For decades Black children have walked into buildings named after people who thought of them as property.
After Reconstruction ended there came a building up of white Southern pride – like statues, parks, monuments, and museums on former plantations - all named after Southern Confederate “heroes”. There was no acknowledgement that the fight to preserve slavery was evil.
Page 128
Robert E. Lee was a slave owner who led an army predicated on maintaining and expanding the institution of slavery.
Page 76-77 John Cummings of the Whitney Plantation Museum
As I got into studying slavery, and I’ve read probably eleven hundred oral histories – I thought that sooner or later I’m going to get to the one where the woman was not raped or the man was not almost beaten to death or branded or his fingers cut off or his ear cut off for trying to run away. But I haven’t gotten there yet… and you feel as though someone is talking to you who never had a voice… and all of a sudden, you feel very strange. It’s not a feeling of guilt. It’s a feeling of “discovered ignorance”. I don’t know how else to explain it. When you wonder, how could this have happened and I didn’t know about it?
The author visits various sites around the South – like the Monticello plantation where Thomas Jefferson kept hundreds of slaves. It illustrates the extreme dichotomy and hypocrisy of American life that here was a man writing and espousing on liberty and freedom yet owned slaves.
In a very real sense history and the evils of slavery have been minimized and those that fought for the South canonized with their ancestors celebrating their heritage. Slavery is not discussed along with racial terror and domination. The Confederates were just a bunch of poor folks fighting for “states right”. The author discusses what these “states right” implied.
Page 170
White Southerners’ commitment to the Confederate cause was not predicated on whether or not they owned slaves. The commitment was on a desire to maintain a society in which Black people remained at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Page 191 W. Caleb McDaniel
Slavery did not end cleanly or on a single day. It ended through a violent, uneven process.
The author discussed at length the avoidance of slavery and the glorification of the Confederacy in the United States. This distortion of history applies to school books where one book in Texas contained the following passage (from page 203): “millions of workers [were brought] from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations”. Fortunately, this was removed, but how many other books and historical artifacts contain this whitewashing?
A significant portion of the United States population experienced severe repression, before, during, and after the Civil War when Jim Crow laws were instilled. As a commentator for this book wrote – “We need this book”.
As a follow-up consider the documentary "The Neutral Ground"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoDaH...
and the book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory
November 2, 2021
Everyone should read Clint Smith’s How the Word is Passed. Certainly every American, but probably every European too. The information and insights here are eye opening and mind-widening, even for one predisposed to want to learn about the Black experience. I am white, with no apparent ties to the American South, but, as Smith so carefully clarifies, I am not excluded from the audience for this book.
In part of his excellent summary, Smith provides the following:
The history of slavery is the history of the United States.
It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it.
It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it.
This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must,
too, be in our memories. (loc 4325)
The material of the book is centered on Smith’s visits to six sites related to slavery in America: Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson writer of The Declaration of Independence but also keeper and father of slaves; The Whitney Plantation, where a new owner is attempting to create a true record of what plantation life and slavery actually were; Angola Prison, which has a long history of “lending” out prisoners for free labor and for cruelty; Blandford Cemetery and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, where festive Confederate Memorial Day events celebrate the heroes of the South to this day, and the Daughters of Confederacy see to the upkeep of monuments and cemeteries to this day; Galveston, Texas and Juneteenth, and the history of slavery in Texas; New York City and its ties to the slavery market long before the Underground Railroad. Lastly, there is a visit to Goree Island, Senegal, Africa and its famous House of Slaves, and the beginning of the slavery industry.
I guarantee that most, if not all, readers will learn something new from this book, something that will cause you to look at history differently and to hope for a better future of more understanding.
Obviously I recommend this book for everyone I know and everyone I don’t know too. It’s that important and that well done.
A copy of this book was provided by Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
In part of his excellent summary, Smith provides the following:
The history of slavery is the history of the United States.
It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it.
It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it.
This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must,
too, be in our memories. (loc 4325)
The material of the book is centered on Smith’s visits to six sites related to slavery in America: Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson writer of The Declaration of Independence but also keeper and father of slaves; The Whitney Plantation, where a new owner is attempting to create a true record of what plantation life and slavery actually were; Angola Prison, which has a long history of “lending” out prisoners for free labor and for cruelty; Blandford Cemetery and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, where festive Confederate Memorial Day events celebrate the heroes of the South to this day, and the Daughters of Confederacy see to the upkeep of monuments and cemeteries to this day; Galveston, Texas and Juneteenth, and the history of slavery in Texas; New York City and its ties to the slavery market long before the Underground Railroad. Lastly, there is a visit to Goree Island, Senegal, Africa and its famous House of Slaves, and the beginning of the slavery industry.
I guarantee that most, if not all, readers will learn something new from this book, something that will cause you to look at history differently and to hope for a better future of more understanding.
Obviously I recommend this book for everyone I know and everyone I don’t know too. It’s that important and that well done.
A copy of this book was provided by Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
March 21, 2021
I will say this first. Clint Smith has written one of the best books I have ever read. It is definitely one of the best work of nonfiction getting published this year. All that to say because you need this book. This country needs this book.
•
I mentioned this before but last semester I took a public history class that blew my mind. We talked about monuments, museums, how Americans get their history after they graduate from high school/college, and, most importantly, how this nation tells its history. It was a course that shifted my way of thinking regarding public history spaces and what public history can do to this nation. In Clint Smith’s upcoming book “How The Word Is Passed,” Clint Smith visits a handful of public history locations across the country—from the Monticello plantation to Houston, Texas—in order to reach a reckoning about history and how it’s told and passed (he also visits Senegal in the end). It is a book that not only examines history through these public spaces but provides a reflection from Smith that is extraordinary to read. It is a book that I personally think everyone should read.
•
I wanted to touch upon Smith’s language and his attention to detail because I don’t think I have ever read a nonfiction book with such lyricism in the prose. Some paragraphs within this book are so beautifully structured and written. I literally got chills from Smith’s attention to details and critical thinking. Sometimes he would focus on small things as the way his subjects talked and sounded to the weather and scenery around him. Other times he would focus his attention on his surroundings and how that contributed to how he experienced this history as well as its relevance to the history. Additionally, I think the strongest parts in this book are the sections where Smith includes his reflections about how these spaces made him feel physically and psychologically. It’s just stunning stunning stunning work that I won’t stop talking about for a long time.
•
I mentioned this before but last semester I took a public history class that blew my mind. We talked about monuments, museums, how Americans get their history after they graduate from high school/college, and, most importantly, how this nation tells its history. It was a course that shifted my way of thinking regarding public history spaces and what public history can do to this nation. In Clint Smith’s upcoming book “How The Word Is Passed,” Clint Smith visits a handful of public history locations across the country—from the Monticello plantation to Houston, Texas—in order to reach a reckoning about history and how it’s told and passed (he also visits Senegal in the end). It is a book that not only examines history through these public spaces but provides a reflection from Smith that is extraordinary to read. It is a book that I personally think everyone should read.
•
I wanted to touch upon Smith’s language and his attention to detail because I don’t think I have ever read a nonfiction book with such lyricism in the prose. Some paragraphs within this book are so beautifully structured and written. I literally got chills from Smith’s attention to details and critical thinking. Sometimes he would focus on small things as the way his subjects talked and sounded to the weather and scenery around him. Other times he would focus his attention on his surroundings and how that contributed to how he experienced this history as well as its relevance to the history. Additionally, I think the strongest parts in this book are the sections where Smith includes his reflections about how these spaces made him feel physically and psychologically. It’s just stunning stunning stunning work that I won’t stop talking about for a long time.
March 26, 2024
I felt that I had a more immersive experience listening to this book as I was reading simultaneously Mr. Michael Twitty's The Cooking Gene and Ms. Joy-Ann Reid's Medgar & Myrlie. Mr. Smith in this book attempts to answer the question of how African Black enslavement history is taught or passed or spread. Mr. Smith visited historical sites, monument sites, museums, and educational centers to interpret how the historical details are presented (or not mentioned as it were).
I took the most interest in the question or debate even of Black Americans interpreting or reenacting enslavement. My husband and I came across an interview a couple of years ago of a woman who was explaining (and defending) her role in reenacting a plow woman/housemaid at Mount Vernon. As a white woman I cannot contribute to the conversation other to say that I appreciate those who do the important work of historical interpreting and reenacting.
Another issue that I cannot add to but that I have mulled over in the past ten or so years are the monuments that are causing hurt and pain for so many and then conversely for some pride.
Mr. Smith is a wonderful narrator. I listened to 8 of 9 discs twice through because I wanted to ensure I did not miss too much while I was driving. I have the text hardcover book in hand too that I plan to dip into in the coming days.
Ms. Brenda Parker's interview on Townsends, aired on YouTube April 21, 2017 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVFds...
I took the most interest in the question or debate even of Black Americans interpreting or reenacting enslavement. My husband and I came across an interview a couple of years ago of a woman who was explaining (and defending) her role in reenacting a plow woman/housemaid at Mount Vernon. As a white woman I cannot contribute to the conversation other to say that I appreciate those who do the important work of historical interpreting and reenacting.
Another issue that I cannot add to but that I have mulled over in the past ten or so years are the monuments that are causing hurt and pain for so many and then conversely for some pride.
Mr. Smith is a wonderful narrator. I listened to 8 of 9 discs twice through because I wanted to ensure I did not miss too much while I was driving. I have the text hardcover book in hand too that I plan to dip into in the coming days.
Ms. Brenda Parker's interview on Townsends, aired on YouTube April 21, 2017 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVFds...
February 28, 2021
How the Word is Passed is a book that deserves a place in today's high school and college curriculum as well as personal reading libraries. The essays are more than the sum of their parts - part research, part history, part personal, part story, part poetic writing, part travelogue, part thoughtful reflection - each part combining to provide a fuller, more accurate account of US history.
I read this slowly (not my typical reading style) really taking in each chapter individually in order not to rush through what I needed to unlearn, relearn and process. Highly recommend!
I read this slowly (not my typical reading style) really taking in each chapter individually in order not to rush through what I needed to unlearn, relearn and process. Highly recommend!
June 22, 2021
If I had the resources, I would buy a copy of this book for every person in the United States. It’s that good, and that important.
A future Pulitzer winner, in my opinion, and maybe the best non-fiction work I’ve ever read.
A future Pulitzer winner, in my opinion, and maybe the best non-fiction work I’ve ever read.
September 20, 2024
Collecting my thoughts for a full review but for now I'll say this was excellent. Easy 5*.
March 7, 2022
I listened to this on audio and it was really great experience. I honestly would have loved for this book to have been even longer with more historical sites and locations because I loved how much I was learning from this.
Check out my full thoughts in this reading vlog: https://youtu.be/a0J7DTAd7xA
Check out my full thoughts in this reading vlog: https://youtu.be/a0J7DTAd7xA
January 24, 2023
No words I write will do justice for How The Word is Passed, a reckoning with the history of slavery across America. Clint Smith starts in his hometown of New Orleans and then travels to visit several monuments and landmarks marking the history of the United States. He took tours by their official guides and often spoke with other visitors and staff to get their takes. Some locations were more forthcoming than others about the true history of the place and not the whitewashing public education version so many students still receive in school today.
The first chapter about Monticello was powerful — To hear Clint describe what he was thinking as he stood there, taking in all that went on and Jefferson’s often celebrated image, while he kept almost 130 slaves at his property, constructing a house that took nearly 40 years to complete.
While I knew about some of the places Clint visited, I learned plenty. The history of New York City was one of the most surprising parts of the book to me. It’s unbelievable that at 35 years old, as an avid reader and someone who took American history in HS and two separate American history classes in college, I hadn’t learned about this yet.
“I’d like to end my tour here," Damaras said. "Thank you for being uncomfortable with me … If there's anything I can leave you with, question everything. Myself, everything you read, everything you hear. Fact-check, fact-check, fact-check."
There is so much to take in in How The Word Is Passed. Clint is an excellent writer and I felt transported through his descriptions. I listened to a lot of this on audio while also reading along in the book. Definitely one I will think of often and revisit.
The first chapter about Monticello was powerful — To hear Clint describe what he was thinking as he stood there, taking in all that went on and Jefferson’s often celebrated image, while he kept almost 130 slaves at his property, constructing a house that took nearly 40 years to complete.
While I knew about some of the places Clint visited, I learned plenty. The history of New York City was one of the most surprising parts of the book to me. It’s unbelievable that at 35 years old, as an avid reader and someone who took American history in HS and two separate American history classes in college, I hadn’t learned about this yet.
“I’d like to end my tour here," Damaras said. "Thank you for being uncomfortable with me … If there's anything I can leave you with, question everything. Myself, everything you read, everything you hear. Fact-check, fact-check, fact-check."
There is so much to take in in How The Word Is Passed. Clint is an excellent writer and I felt transported through his descriptions. I listened to a lot of this on audio while also reading along in the book. Definitely one I will think of often and revisit.
November 8, 2023
I'm kind of kicking myself for taking so long to read this, but better late than never! How the Word is Passed offers a look at the history of slavery in America that is deeply grounded in place, and beautifully written. Each chapter begins with the author's visit to a physical location as a jumping off point for exploring related history, and there's something about that structure that makes everything feel more real and immediate than approaches that are more nebulous and statistical. Smith walked on the ground, touched the buildings (if they remain) where this history took place, and interviews people with personal connections to that history. I've read a fair amount on the racial history and current implications for the United States, but there was a lot of material in this book that was new to me, some of it quite staggering. I cannot recommend it enough.
May 7, 2025
This is a thorough thoughtful book. It is part memoir, part travel narrative/ pilgrimage, part history of slavery, Jim Crow and racism.
Towards the end, the author's grandparents share their memories with their grandson.
The book is built from descriptions of visits to museums and monuments related to slavery and or racism.
The author tells his story of visiting these museums and monuments.
This book made me think and it made me feel.
Towards the end, the author's grandparents share their memories with their grandson.
The book is built from descriptions of visits to museums and monuments related to slavery and or racism.
The author tells his story of visiting these museums and monuments.
This book made me think and it made me feel.
June 26, 2021
This cross-country survey of slavery remembrance by poet and Atlantic staff writer Smith includes 8 locations in the United States and the House of Slaves on Gorée Island in Senegal. There is a visit to the home of Thomas Jefferson who kept an average of 130 slaves and had six children with his slave, Sally Hemmings. He began the relationship when he was in his 40s and she was just 16 years old. Smith also visited Louisiana’s Whitney Plantation where the owner chose to devote tourism to the memory of the enslaved rather than the plantation elite.
I was surprised to learn that Edouard René de Laboulaye, the man who originated the idea of the Statue of Liberty, planned it as a celebration of abolition, not of immigration. And that Central Park was home to a village of Black people until they were evicted to make way for the park. Nor did I know that New Yorkers in the 17th and 18th centuries were major slave holders.
Smith visited the Blandford Cemetery of Confederate Soldiers; and Angola Prison, the place meant to funnel Black men into the convict leasing system to replace the cheap labor source eliminated due to emancipation.
Along the way, Smith talks with tourists, guides, teachers, scholars, ex-convicts, local historians and heritage zealots to understand how Americans perceive their slavery past. We learn that while Southerners tout that the Civil War was fought for States Rights, the States Secession Proclamations stated explicitly that they were seceding because of the perceived threat to the institution of slavery. Smith sought to educate himself to the truth of America’s slave heritage and he has shared what he learned in this beautifully written account. Recommend.
I was surprised to learn that Edouard René de Laboulaye, the man who originated the idea of the Statue of Liberty, planned it as a celebration of abolition, not of immigration. And that Central Park was home to a village of Black people until they were evicted to make way for the park. Nor did I know that New Yorkers in the 17th and 18th centuries were major slave holders.
Smith visited the Blandford Cemetery of Confederate Soldiers; and Angola Prison, the place meant to funnel Black men into the convict leasing system to replace the cheap labor source eliminated due to emancipation.
Along the way, Smith talks with tourists, guides, teachers, scholars, ex-convicts, local historians and heritage zealots to understand how Americans perceive their slavery past. We learn that while Southerners tout that the Civil War was fought for States Rights, the States Secession Proclamations stated explicitly that they were seceding because of the perceived threat to the institution of slavery. Smith sought to educate himself to the truth of America’s slave heritage and he has shared what he learned in this beautifully written account. Recommend.
January 12, 2025
A must read!
A poetic historical account of the true brutality of slavery in America. It is gripping, painful, insightful and elegantly wrote.
A poetic historical account of the true brutality of slavery in America. It is gripping, painful, insightful and elegantly wrote.
August 7, 2023
A lot of information you hear today is going to make you feel very, very uncomfortable. That's okay. That's what learning and development is as a human being, being uncomfortable. -Damaras Obi, in How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
Clint Smith's book How The Word Is Passed is another great book on one person's reckoning with race in America. It can definitely be put in conversation with recent travelogues such as Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy and South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.
In this book, Smith, travels to seven historical sites where he learns about how slavery is taught in those places. He interviews fellow travelers, tour leaders, museum guides, etc, and provides scholarly research that has investigated the questions he wants answers to.
He begins in Monticello, the plantation of Thomas Jefferson, to show how the staff at the plantation have begun to tell a more whole story of Jefferson's relationship with slavery. It was in this chapter where Smith and one of his interviewees tell the reader that telling the whole story is not changing history but it's elevating the voices of those who were not "able to tell their stories".
There were a few times in the book where the fabrication that slavery was a personal "benefit" to Black people was discussed. Very timely especially since Florida's history curriculum is now teaching it. Little do they know but this line of thinking comes from early 20th-century historians, white supremacists, and Confederate sympathizers such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).
The chapter on Blandford Cemetery is probably my favorite chapter because of its coverage of Confederate monuments. The last three chapters on Galveston Island, New York City, and Gorée Island were illuminating and I definitely learned a lot from them.
This book definitely deserves your attention, will lead to great discussions on how we teach slavery not just in the classroom and at historical sites but also how we "pass" it down to future generations.
"I've come to realize that there's a difference between history and nostalgia, and somewhere between the two is memory. I think that history is the story of the past, using all the available facts, and that nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts, and somewhere in between is memory, which is kind of this blend of history and a little bit of emotion…I mean, history is kind of about what you need to know…but nostalgia is what you want to hear. -David Thorson in How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
Clint Smith's book How The Word Is Passed is another great book on one person's reckoning with race in America. It can definitely be put in conversation with recent travelogues such as Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy and South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.
In this book, Smith, travels to seven historical sites where he learns about how slavery is taught in those places. He interviews fellow travelers, tour leaders, museum guides, etc, and provides scholarly research that has investigated the questions he wants answers to.
He begins in Monticello, the plantation of Thomas Jefferson, to show how the staff at the plantation have begun to tell a more whole story of Jefferson's relationship with slavery. It was in this chapter where Smith and one of his interviewees tell the reader that telling the whole story is not changing history but it's elevating the voices of those who were not "able to tell their stories".
There were a few times in the book where the fabrication that slavery was a personal "benefit" to Black people was discussed. Very timely especially since Florida's history curriculum is now teaching it. Little do they know but this line of thinking comes from early 20th-century historians, white supremacists, and Confederate sympathizers such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).
The chapter on Blandford Cemetery is probably my favorite chapter because of its coverage of Confederate monuments. The last three chapters on Galveston Island, New York City, and Gorée Island were illuminating and I definitely learned a lot from them.
This book definitely deserves your attention, will lead to great discussions on how we teach slavery not just in the classroom and at historical sites but also how we "pass" it down to future generations.
"I've come to realize that there's a difference between history and nostalgia, and somewhere between the two is memory. I think that history is the story of the past, using all the available facts, and that nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts, and somewhere in between is memory, which is kind of this blend of history and a little bit of emotion…I mean, history is kind of about what you need to know…but nostalgia is what you want to hear. -David Thorson in How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
August 29, 2021
Blackness is not peripheral to the American project, it is the foundation upon which it is built.
This book is a tour guide about the real history of slavery. And like a tour guide, Clint Smith takes the reader from one historic US site to the next as he uproots the real foundational history of slavery in America and frames it as the quintessential focal point of all American history. While past and modern day thought it is to relegate slavery to the annals of history, Smith reminds us with both passion and patience about how the history of slavery is the history of all of America: how cities were built, how financial systems were stabilized, how our legends are actually white supremacist myths.
From the Monticello museum where Jefferson is exposed as both the framer of the constitution and a border of slavery. He thought he was a benevolent care taker of black bodies when in reality in dealt in the human trafficking of black Americans, adult and children. Jefferson in fact was in so much debt after he died, his slaves were sold to pay for his mismanagement during his lifetime. Smith takes us to the Transatlantic Slave Trade and into the post-abolition era to places like Angola prison which was once a plantation with black slaves and is a modern day prison with something very similar to black slaves.
What we learn, among many things, from Smith is that history is fable and mixed with nostalgia for an era of inequitable and cruel forces. In between history and nostalgia is collective memory, something that attempts to bring the truth to a people that have forgotten a past that has forged who they are.
I highly recommend this book if you enjoyed works by Ibram Kendi.
This book is a tour guide about the real history of slavery. And like a tour guide, Clint Smith takes the reader from one historic US site to the next as he uproots the real foundational history of slavery in America and frames it as the quintessential focal point of all American history. While past and modern day thought it is to relegate slavery to the annals of history, Smith reminds us with both passion and patience about how the history of slavery is the history of all of America: how cities were built, how financial systems were stabilized, how our legends are actually white supremacist myths.
From the Monticello museum where Jefferson is exposed as both the framer of the constitution and a border of slavery. He thought he was a benevolent care taker of black bodies when in reality in dealt in the human trafficking of black Americans, adult and children. Jefferson in fact was in so much debt after he died, his slaves were sold to pay for his mismanagement during his lifetime. Smith takes us to the Transatlantic Slave Trade and into the post-abolition era to places like Angola prison which was once a plantation with black slaves and is a modern day prison with something very similar to black slaves.
What we learn, among many things, from Smith is that history is fable and mixed with nostalgia for an era of inequitable and cruel forces. In between history and nostalgia is collective memory, something that attempts to bring the truth to a people that have forgotten a past that has forged who they are.
I highly recommend this book if you enjoyed works by Ibram Kendi.
September 28, 2023
This book is so so good. You can tell he’s a poet in his beautiful writing, and the research is exhaustive and also aware of the limitations of studying a time period that has been systematically erased. I honestly wish this was taught in schools. Question everything, especially if it makes you comfortable. Yep, this is an all-time favorite nonfiction book of mine.
"It is no longer a question of whether we can learn this history, but whether we have the collective will to reckon with it."
Going to sit with it and review when I collect my thoughts — but this is a must read.
I'm just so grateful to this book, and to the way Smith explores history and historical misunderstandings through the lens of contemporary storytelling. Not only is the subject matter vital for educating yourself as to the past experiences of Black Americans under slavery, but it also is told in a really accessible way, and never loses the common thread of storytelling, which serves sort of as a backbone for this exploration. Stories, how we tell them, how we twist them, how and why we pass them on. This is a very impressive work, and I'd recommend it widely!
"It is no longer a question of whether we can learn this history, but whether we have the collective will to reckon with it."
Going to sit with it and review when I collect my thoughts — but this is a must read.
I'm just so grateful to this book, and to the way Smith explores history and historical misunderstandings through the lens of contemporary storytelling. Not only is the subject matter vital for educating yourself as to the past experiences of Black Americans under slavery, but it also is told in a really accessible way, and never loses the common thread of storytelling, which serves sort of as a backbone for this exploration. Stories, how we tell them, how we twist them, how and why we pass them on. This is a very impressive work, and I'd recommend it widely!
February 2, 2022
Wow, a tour de force!! Extremely thought provoking and emotionally resonant!! rtc
4.5 Stars
Read on kindle
4.5 Stars
Read on kindle
June 20, 2021
I don’t think I’ve read any of the author’s poems before but as soon as I saw the cover of this book for the first time last year, I knew I had to read it. And while I went in not knowing much about what the book was going to be - expect that it was related to the history of slavery - I was totally floored by the way the author approached this painful past.
I have visited one plantation in the US till now, which is Mt. Vernon - but this was a few years ago and I hadn’t yet started reading up on American politics or it’s history - so I didn’t even realize that the place symbolized more than just being George Washington’s estate, it was also built and maintained by hundreds of people he had enslaved. I have come to regret my trip a lot, now that I know a bit more about the estate’s history, but the author here brought more light onto the lives of the enslaved people by visiting Jefferson’s Monticello plantation and also the privately owned Whitney plantation. As I was listening to the audiobook narrated by the author himself, it was pretty evident how the author was feeling during these research visits of his.
While the author comes to know a bit about the work both the plantations are doing to recognize and present their true history without whitewashing the slavery part of the story, it is still not enough. The tour guides and administrators also mention how difficult it is to tell the true history of the place while not being completely negative about it, because there are always white visitors who are not ready to confront the ugly truths about their historical heroes. This felt like a small microcosm of our current reality where more and more Republican politicians and voters want to curb the teaching of the country’s racist history, while also being completely ignorant (or maybe willfully so) about what CRT entails but using it as a scapegoat to pass censorship laws.
But these chapters were probably the easiest to listen to. Because once the author changed his location to the Angola maximum security prison in Louisiana and Blandford cemetery in Virginia, it was very tough to continue to listen to how the administrators of these places try so hard to whitewash their horrific past, especially in Angola prison whose history of extreme violence towards numerous prisoners in solitary confinement is unimaginable. And the caretakers of the biggest mass grave of confederate soldiers in Blandford just want to continue to perpetuate the lost cause myth and how the civil war was about state’s rights - not that they ever try to complete that sentence and say that it was about “state’s rights to keep slaves”.
I however, felt inspired by the story of Galveston and Juneteenth (it was particularly poignant coz it’s 2 days away) and how the declaration of the end of slavery was such a significant event - even if ultimately, it didn’t pan out that way in reality. While it took many many decades of violence by white supremacists and activism of courageous Black people to achieve some semblance of civil rights legislation, we are only now realizing how it’s extremely important not to forget all that history, because forgetting what happened will only result in history repeating itself.
But ultimately it was the chapter about New York City’s history that was eye opening. Because while the north maybe praised as a paragon of liberalism, NYC itself is full of forgotten markers of its own racist past - like being a major trading hub for all the raw materials that were produced by the enslaved people in the southern plantations; being the headquarters for all the major banks which used to accept enslaved people as collateral just like any property; or even how the beautiful Central Park is built upon land owned by free Black people who were forced out of their homes by the NYC government using eminent domain to build the park. And all this business created by the toil of the enslaved people is what built the economy of the country - not that anyone seems to want to acknowledge that while teaching history.
With this brilliant book full of visits to historical places, interviews with scholars and references to primary sources, and also stories told by his own grandparents whose grandparents were themselves enslaved, the author tries to give us a new approach of understanding history. It is painful and emotional to listen to, but it is also unflinching in its honesty, and in its earnestness that we should examine our own biases and not be defensive when confronted with uncomfortable truths. It is a huge responsibility to reckon with the country’s past and but only when we acknowledge it that we can move forward and strive for a better future, and make sure that the history will never repeat again. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic, but I particularly think this would be a good resource for students, despite its tough material.
I have visited one plantation in the US till now, which is Mt. Vernon - but this was a few years ago and I hadn’t yet started reading up on American politics or it’s history - so I didn’t even realize that the place symbolized more than just being George Washington’s estate, it was also built and maintained by hundreds of people he had enslaved. I have come to regret my trip a lot, now that I know a bit more about the estate’s history, but the author here brought more light onto the lives of the enslaved people by visiting Jefferson’s Monticello plantation and also the privately owned Whitney plantation. As I was listening to the audiobook narrated by the author himself, it was pretty evident how the author was feeling during these research visits of his.
While the author comes to know a bit about the work both the plantations are doing to recognize and present their true history without whitewashing the slavery part of the story, it is still not enough. The tour guides and administrators also mention how difficult it is to tell the true history of the place while not being completely negative about it, because there are always white visitors who are not ready to confront the ugly truths about their historical heroes. This felt like a small microcosm of our current reality where more and more Republican politicians and voters want to curb the teaching of the country’s racist history, while also being completely ignorant (or maybe willfully so) about what CRT entails but using it as a scapegoat to pass censorship laws.
But these chapters were probably the easiest to listen to. Because once the author changed his location to the Angola maximum security prison in Louisiana and Blandford cemetery in Virginia, it was very tough to continue to listen to how the administrators of these places try so hard to whitewash their horrific past, especially in Angola prison whose history of extreme violence towards numerous prisoners in solitary confinement is unimaginable. And the caretakers of the biggest mass grave of confederate soldiers in Blandford just want to continue to perpetuate the lost cause myth and how the civil war was about state’s rights - not that they ever try to complete that sentence and say that it was about “state’s rights to keep slaves”.
I however, felt inspired by the story of Galveston and Juneteenth (it was particularly poignant coz it’s 2 days away) and how the declaration of the end of slavery was such a significant event - even if ultimately, it didn’t pan out that way in reality. While it took many many decades of violence by white supremacists and activism of courageous Black people to achieve some semblance of civil rights legislation, we are only now realizing how it’s extremely important not to forget all that history, because forgetting what happened will only result in history repeating itself.
But ultimately it was the chapter about New York City’s history that was eye opening. Because while the north maybe praised as a paragon of liberalism, NYC itself is full of forgotten markers of its own racist past - like being a major trading hub for all the raw materials that were produced by the enslaved people in the southern plantations; being the headquarters for all the major banks which used to accept enslaved people as collateral just like any property; or even how the beautiful Central Park is built upon land owned by free Black people who were forced out of their homes by the NYC government using eminent domain to build the park. And all this business created by the toil of the enslaved people is what built the economy of the country - not that anyone seems to want to acknowledge that while teaching history.
With this brilliant book full of visits to historical places, interviews with scholars and references to primary sources, and also stories told by his own grandparents whose grandparents were themselves enslaved, the author tries to give us a new approach of understanding history. It is painful and emotional to listen to, but it is also unflinching in its honesty, and in its earnestness that we should examine our own biases and not be defensive when confronted with uncomfortable truths. It is a huge responsibility to reckon with the country’s past and but only when we acknowledge it that we can move forward and strive for a better future, and make sure that the history will never repeat again. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic, but I particularly think this would be a good resource for students, despite its tough material.
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