Reviews with content warning for Confinement - How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

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

30 reviews

tlh239's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

A beautifully written excavation of the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and racism in America. The book is shaped around visits to major historic sites, with the author using those conversations and visits to interrogate our thinking and communicating about slavery. He also weaves in well sourced and convincing counterpoints to teach the reader the lie, so they can recognize it as false when they encounter it again.

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chels_ro's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective fast-paced

4.75

a informative book on the origins of chattel slavery to its modern connections of the prison industrial complex and civil rights. Smith breaks down common misconceptions and whitewashed history through each chapter as he visits a different place. my only complaint is that it’s not longer.

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smileymiley550's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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mnatale100's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

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lizziaha's review against another edition

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4.5

Prose written by a poet is just so lovely. And it was interesting to see how a story takes shape: the twists and turns, the reconstructions and the lies. The way that place holds such a deep meaning, and that place is imbued with history. The way that we are still molding history, that our current actions are both informed by history and become history. This book is part of that story that we tell about history. One particular section that I (a white southerner educated in the public school system) plan to revisit is Smith’s discussion of the South’s rallying cry of States Rights and how the story diverges from the history.

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wifeslife's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

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amsswim's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I very much encourage everyone to read or listen to this book. Follow the author to important heritage sites to the legacy of slavery through the US and beyond; plantations, prisons, confederate cemeteries. Made me very reflective on random interactions I have had over the years and how the people in my family history may have interacted. The content is graphic and unflinching, which is entirely necessary. It is also one of the best written non-fiction books I have read, I believe because you are going on a journey with the author. I am unable to summarize so much of one amazing book, so I am just going to say again read it.

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jaiari12's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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analenegrace's review against another edition

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challenging informative

I was fortunate enough to meet Clint Smith and get a free signed copy at a university book event over a year ago, but I just now got to reading it. Smith is an amazing writer whose poetry clearly influences his prose, and it is written in such a compelling and beautiful book, even with the difficult subject matter.

I cannot recommend reading this book, especially if you're trying to deconstruct what racism in America looks like. While there are so many lines I marked as pivotal to the book, the most important comes on page 289 in his epilogue,

"The history of slavery is the history of the United States. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to it. It is not irrelevant to our contemporary society; it created it. This history is in our soil, it is in our policies, and it must, too, be in our memories."

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heatherilene's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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