Lilli

“Just as he did during the Slavery at Monticello tour, David did not mince words. "There’s a chapter in Notes on the State of Virginia,” he said to the five of us, standing in front of the east wing of Jefferson’s manor, “that has some of the most racist things you might ever read, written by anyone, anywhere, anytime, in it. So sometimes I stop and ask myself, 'If Gettysburg had gone the wrong way, would people be quoting the Declaration of Independence or Notes on the State of Virginia?' It’s the same guy writing.”
― Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

“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.”
― Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America