How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

I was given this book as a gift for pre-registering for the Illinois Library Association Annual Conference 2021. I'm so lucky as a trustee, that when I say I want to go, I get booked into these things early. And this was an amazing perk!

I'll give you the books Mr. Smith recommended at the end of this blog. I'm just saying, if you have a chance to hear him speak about this book, take it! 

Now, onto reading it. 

I know most of us don't want to spend our days thinking about America's ugly past with slavery. We're a nation that doesn't like to remember yesterday, much less something that happened over 150 years ago now. Surely the rise of the geek and the anonymity of the internet has subsumed our culture. How in the world could this thing, so far out of the reach of living memory, possibly have any bearing on tapestry of our culture today? 

And yet it does.

This is not a book about slavery, the evils of slavery, or a sermon on how to talk about slavery and it's repercussions in our lives in America today. It is a book about how sometimes we tell the whole truth, sometimes we tell a part truth, sometimes we ignore the truth, and sometimes we choose to forget the truth. 

Clint Smith took his time in the later half of the past decade to visit eight places, both in America and overseas, that have ties to slavery. And he explored how each of these places passes on the story, the American Story. of slavery in our modern times. Some places, like Whiney Plantation, are very honest, direct and unrelenting. Some places, like Blandford Cemetery, choose not to tell the story at all. 

He writes eloquently and viscerally, a balance that is quite difficult to achieve. His purpose is to push us, the reader, into understanding America better. And in understanding, maybe we can have a conversation about what is real. And from there, maybe, just maybe we can embrace America's ideals. 

But he is also pushing us to realize another truth. Our ideals, the best of what America is, has always been shadowed by a darker, uglier side. A zero sum game mentality, that causes a culture war. A war he wants to win. You don't have to buy his argument, to learn something new from the book. He is a stimulating writer. And agree or disagree with his view point, it will be difficult to forget his work, or to quit the book not wanting the world to be a better place.