Part memoir, part history, part grappling with ideas of national and collective identity, this book has been on my mind constantly since April. Clint Smith has a historian’s sense of the big picture—in this case the legacy of slavery we all live in—but it is his poet’s voice that gives those historical arcs and details such incredible power. Smith does not shy away from describing the horrific violence of slavery or the long dark shadow it’s legacy continues to leave on our nation and the world, and yet this book is neither depressing nor despairing, and we are left with a glimmer of hope that in understanding the history of slavery and taking ownership of it, we can begin to change the way that legacy impacts all Americans. Our church book group spent considerable time talking about the reparative work about our own less than stellar congregational history requires. HOW THE WORD IS PASSED embodies the idea of the William Faulkner quote: “the past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” I hope you will read it too. An absolutely exceptional and vital work.