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

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

42 reviews

amsswim's review against another edition

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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discarded_dust_jacket's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

This is such a poignant and well-written book. Smith has such a talent for making the locations mentioned (and by extension, their history) so viscerally tangible; it felt like you were standing there with him, experiencing the weight of those places alongside him.

The locations themselves were well-curated: highlighting both places where we, as present day Americans, are attempting to reckon with our nation’s past relationship with chattel slavery, and places where we are instead choosing to prioritize comfort over truth.

It asks us to question (among other things) all we’ve been taught about a) those who were supposedly “the good guys” like Thomas Jefferson, and b) the “innocence” of northern cities, both pre- and post-civil war. It asks us not to shy away from discomfort, but to face the ugly truth head on. And no matter what was being discussed, it continued to remind us of the personhood of enslaved people—never allowing us to reduce the enslaved population of the United States to a faceless, amorphous concept in our minds, but instead repeatedly giving enslaved people names, identities, cultures, and deep familial bonds. Always always always reminding us: these were human beings. These were people. I really appreciated that aspect of Smith’s storytelling.

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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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leahkarge's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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rachbake's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Stunning. Should be required reading.

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sydapel's review against another edition

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dark informative reflective slow-paced

Part history compilation, part piece of journalism and partly the authors own reflections, but primarily I was fascinated by how Smith keeps coming back to how we teach others about slavery, both in America and abroad. A lot of the images described in this book, as well as the writing, will stick with me for a long time.

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sboley94's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

A phenomenal book that will continue to have a profound impact for years to come. Smith’s methodology and interviews are what scholarship should be, period. A must read, gripping, and compelling. The audiobook and the author’s reading really helped me absorb the information of each site he visited. I can’t recommend this book enough. It details the history of slavery using specific sites in the US and shows the continuing effects in a very real way. 5/5

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annreadsabook's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Just an all-around fantastic book. As someone who majored in history in undergrad, I really appreciate Smith’s contemplation of the intersection of memory and history, and how places explore (or fail to explore) the dark and gruesome past when it comes to slavery and racism in the United States. Something we talked about a lot in one of my history courses years ago is while history itself is comprised of discrete, objective facts, that’s not necessarily true of the act of *telling* history—the question at the end of the day is how close the teller is to the truth of what happened. Smith leans into this idea with deftness and skill, urging his readers to think critically about how the darkest parts of US history are packaged and presented.

Smith’s book is not only a foray into history itself, but the role of collective and selective memory (and, as he mentions, nostalgia). It’s a searing indictment of the ways in which many historical sites in the United States have failed to educate visitors on, and purposely obfuscated, the role such places played in chattel slavery, and the role that chattel slavery played in the US more broadly. I also really appreciated the final chapter on Gorée, as the experiences of enslavement, exploitation, and colonization in West Africa are inextricably bound to the story of chattel slavery in the US.

In my opinion, this should be required reading for all high school students, particularly at a time where many in the US seek to throw a veil over the legacy of slavery, genocide, and racism in this country. All the stars to this book—Clint Smith is just excellent.

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