How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
This "important and timely" (Drew Faust, Harvard Magazine) #1 New York Times bestseller examines the legacy of slavery in America--and how both history and memory continue to shape our everyday lives.
Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on 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 more than four hundred people. 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, a former plantation-turned-maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers. 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, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted. Informed by scholarship and brought to life by the story of people living today, Smith's debut work of nonfiction is a landmark of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the Stowe Prize
Winner of 2022 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism
A New York Times 10 Best Books of 2021
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Community Reviews
Wow. This was just a fabulous book. Well written, well researched. Smith invites us on a pilgrimage designed to learn about the history of slavery and his lyrical writing helps us to vividly see the people and places that he visits. From place to place, he creates images and narrative that are compelling and immediate:
"I half sang and half looked around the room, observing the way people' mouths moved over the words, how the vowels at the center of each lyric stretched out and hung like the laundry on a warm day." (p. 181)
Throughout the pilgrimage, Smith cites primary sources that often run counter to the history that we learned, both here and abroad. He recounts conversations with many people on his path, in a way that invites you in to the conversation, as a welcomed eavesdropper. Some of the narratives he found are actively trying to grapple with the dismal legacy of slavery, others are still glossing over it, and an early question pervades the work "How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?" (p. 83).
"I half sang and half looked around the room, observing the way people' mouths moved over the words, how the vowels at the center of each lyric stretched out and hung like the laundry on a warm day." (p. 181)
Throughout the pilgrimage, Smith cites primary sources that often run counter to the history that we learned, both here and abroad. He recounts conversations with many people on his path, in a way that invites you in to the conversation, as a welcomed eavesdropper. Some of the narratives he found are actively trying to grapple with the dismal legacy of slavery, others are still glossing over it, and an early question pervades the work "How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?" (p. 83).
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