HOW the WORD IS PASSED: A RECKONING with the HISTORY of SLAVERY ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Clint Smith

 










Clint Smith decided to explore several key historical sites that have ties to American slavery and how the consequences of American slavery has echoed down throughout American history.

He is looking for constant threads in American history from the perspective of African Americans. He visits Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, New Orleans, Angola Prison, a plantation in Louisiana that emphasizes the lives of the majority of the people that lived and worked there (the slaves and the Jim Crow era labor that was trapped there), a Confederate grave yard, the place were Juneteenth happened in Texas, New York City (a slave stronghold in the North for a surprisingly long time) and finally a fortress used as a slave market in Africa.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Sally Hemings (c. 1773-1835)
This is a difficult book in many ways. Smith intentionally digs into difficult questions and is an excellent interviewer. His first location is Monticello and his interviews and observations are just about perfect. He explores the contradictions that should fill every discussion of Jefferson. There is a powerful discussion about Sally Hemings, how slavery has been dealt with on the Monticello tours and how the refusal to acknowledge this complicated past reflects the history we want to hear rather than the history that actually happened.

Monticello provided a strong start and the rest of the book was not quite as strong but still provided plenty to think about. This is a topic that America seems to want to avoid at all costs. This is evidenced by all of the furor over the 1619 Project and the abject fear that someone might be teaching something similar to Critical Race Theory in America somewhere. 

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: HOW the WORD IS PASSED: A RECKONING with the HISTORY of SLAVERY ACROSS AMERICA (audiobook) by Clint Smith.

This book would go well with these books that I have read in the last year: 

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