REVIEW: How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith

 

This is also part of my Southern Reading Literature Challenge - I'm plugging away at it and will likely hit my goal of between 7 and 10!  This was also author Clint Smith's debut non-fiction work and it was really, really good. It covers a lot of ground, but man, it did so really well. The author looks at slavery and how its story is told by visiting a number of sites: Monticello, NYC, the Whitney Plantation, Angola (Louisiana State Pen), Blandford Cemetery, and New Orleans among them.  For me, this was a timely book in light of the discussions that are being had about the teaching of critical race theory in our schools. 

During the course of his travels, Smith consistently tells the stories not only of the places that he's visited but also describes his interactions with the people that he encounters there - tour guides, tourists, the people that are from the area - and their reactions to his questions as well as the information that he provides.  I'm a reader that finds it really hard to read about statistics - they're important to a degree but not very interesting - and he would weave that information into the narrative so well that I didn't find myself glossing over them as I would normally have done. I loved reading about the reactions of the people he encountered, some of whom were very self-aware and some of whom were not.  The amount of research into this book was very meticulous and the level of detail made me feel like I was actually experience what Smith was experiencing as he experienced it. He was also, obviously, a very sensitive interviewer who was able to put his subjects at ease in a manner that encouraged them to talk. And talk they did.  

He connects the past to the present articulately and not in a heavy handed manner.  For instance, I learned that the descendants of the slaves on the Whitney Plantation are still living in the immediate vicinity of the plantation.  In Charlottesville, less than a thirty minute drive from Monticello, a White Pride rally was held in 2018 that resulted in deaths of protestors and counter protestors. In Angola, white CO's regularly take out chain gangs of mostly black and brown people, with the CO riding on horse and wielding a shotgun, crating a picture that is evocative of a time when slavery was legal. 

This is an important work. Smith frames education as the way forward, with an eye toward thinking really critically about what we are taught and seeking out additional sources of information.  This is an important read. Highly recommended.