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A review by sarahbythebook
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
In this moving exploration of places with inseverable ties to America's practice of slavery, Clint Smith brings his readers with him to grapple with the memory of slavery, examine how it is remembered, explore how it should be remembered, and meet the people both helping and hindering this country with an honest reckoning. There are examples of good-faith efforts and intentional obstruction as well as demonstrations of the vast web of slavery economics that often gets forgotten in our collective national memory.
How the Word is Passed is not a history of chattel slavery. It isn't a history of post-Civil War emancipation. It is a history of memory. The Germans have a word for this specifically with regard to the Holocaust: Vergangenheitsbewältigung, literally the overcoming of problems of the past. While the history of the practice of slavery itself is not something everyone needs to dive deep to understand, this history of how we remember is important to everyone because our collective national memory of African enslavement was tailored by pro-Confederate groups after the Civil War, sanitized and made consumable. It is not the truth, even if it feels more comfortable to us. This practice of questioning, dismantling, and reshaping the average American's understanding of how slavery impacted societies then and how it continues to impact society now is one of the many avenues to bring about much needed change.
White Americas practice of enslaving people of African descent is a difficult subject even for those of us who want to have the hard conversations. Smith and those who are working to improve our collective national memory--to make it more honest and move away from nostalgia--are gentle but firm, asking hard questions and expecting those listening to engage with the discomfort that comes from such discussions.
The first two chapters of this book hit especially close to him for me, literally. As a Louisiana native, I grew up going to plantations and Civil War battle grounds for classes and for family outings. As I've gotten older, visiting these sites has gotten harder specifically for the issues Smith highlights in this book. The enslaved people on those plantations are still rarely talked about on tours, though I do believe some places are improving. In my 18 years in the state, however, I had never even heard of the Whitney Plantation. It is now on my list of places to visit as soon as I am able.
More startling, though, was the chapter on the Louisiana State Penitentiary, or Angola. I drove past the turn-off for the prison every time I traveled to Arkansas to visit family. I passed the same road and got stuck in the Angola Prison Rodeo traffic on a regular basis when I volunteered at a Girl Scout camp nearby. I knew of the prison, and I grew up with my mother being horrified by the rodeo, but the rest of what Smith lays out was news to me. I was also well aware of the convict lease system that takes advantage of the state's imprisoned population. Even Louisiana's heinous lack of unanimous jury was something I had learned about just recently before reading this book. But the fact that you could tour the prison, even death row? That it was a former plantation? That the incarcerated workers make only seven cents an hour for their labor? I'm horrified and hope even more for the continued push for reforms in the state.
I hope that our country is moving in the right direction when it comes to our collective understanding of slavery and the role it has played in the continued subjugation of Black Americans. Clint Smith's How the Word is Passed gives some hope to that end but also highlights just how far we have to go.
How the Word is Passed is not a history of chattel slavery. It isn't a history of post-Civil War emancipation. It is a history of memory. The Germans have a word for this specifically with regard to the Holocaust: Vergangenheitsbewältigung, literally the overcoming of problems of the past. While the history of the practice of slavery itself is not something everyone needs to dive deep to understand, this history of how we remember is important to everyone because our collective national memory of African enslavement was tailored by pro-Confederate groups after the Civil War, sanitized and made consumable. It is not the truth, even if it feels more comfortable to us. This practice of questioning, dismantling, and reshaping the average American's understanding of how slavery impacted societies then and how it continues to impact society now is one of the many avenues to bring about much needed change.
White Americas practice of enslaving people of African descent is a difficult subject even for those of us who want to have the hard conversations. Smith and those who are working to improve our collective national memory--to make it more honest and move away from nostalgia--are gentle but firm, asking hard questions and expecting those listening to engage with the discomfort that comes from such discussions.
The first two chapters of this book hit especially close to him for me, literally. As a Louisiana native, I grew up going to plantations and Civil War battle grounds for classes and for family outings. As I've gotten older, visiting these sites has gotten harder specifically for the issues Smith highlights in this book. The enslaved people on those plantations are still rarely talked about on tours, though I do believe some places are improving. In my 18 years in the state, however, I had never even heard of the Whitney Plantation. It is now on my list of places to visit as soon as I am able.
More startling, though, was the chapter on the Louisiana State Penitentiary, or Angola. I drove past the turn-off for the prison every time I traveled to Arkansas to visit family. I passed the same road and got stuck in the Angola Prison Rodeo traffic on a regular basis when I volunteered at a Girl Scout camp nearby. I knew of the prison, and I grew up with my mother being horrified by the rodeo, but the rest of what Smith lays out was news to me. I was also well aware of the convict lease system that takes advantage of the state's imprisoned population. Even Louisiana's heinous lack of unanimous jury was something I had learned about just recently before reading this book. But the fact that you could tour the prison, even death row? That it was a former plantation? That the incarcerated workers make only seven cents an hour for their labor? I'm horrified and hope even more for the continued push for reforms in the state.
I hope that our country is moving in the right direction when it comes to our collective understanding of slavery and the role it has played in the continued subjugation of Black Americans. Clint Smith's How the Word is Passed gives some hope to that end but also highlights just how far we have to go.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Slavery
Moderate: Racial slurs, Violence, and Colonisation