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A review by dkatreads
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
4.0
Wow. Clint can write. Some of the lines in this book floored me.
A difficult but important read on how we narrate the story of our collective past. Be prepared to learn about the history of chattel slavery, myth-making of the “Lost Cause,” and how it all manifests today.
Clint artfully explains this history and modern reality not through comprehensive analytical argument, but through story: his own experiences at locations memorializing our past like Monticello, NYC and Angola Prison in Louisiana, among many others. Reading about these places welled up in me a desire to visit and witness them for myself, to continue engaging this history and reckon with its inertia careening through to today’s America. He provides ample historical evidence and research to back up all of his remarks though.
Highly recommended- beautifully written, well-researched, important for us to know.
A difficult but important read on how we narrate the story of our collective past. Be prepared to learn about the history of chattel slavery, myth-making of the “Lost Cause,” and how it all manifests today.
Clint artfully explains this history and modern reality not through comprehensive analytical argument, but through story: his own experiences at locations memorializing our past like Monticello, NYC and Angola Prison in Louisiana, among many others. Reading about these places welled up in me a desire to visit and witness them for myself, to continue engaging this history and reckon with its inertia careening through to today’s America. He provides ample historical evidence and research to back up all of his remarks though.
Highly recommended- beautifully written, well-researched, important for us to know.