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

When I was about 21, I visited Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. I was working with L’Arche, DC, at the time and was encouraged to take a weekend off, away from the community. I asked around and someone suggested that that Harper’s Ferry would be a good place to visit. I packed a bag and caught a train down for the weekend. The train arrives in the town through a mountain tunnel and a bridge which crosses over the Potomac river, which comes together with the Shenandoah river at the town. I stayed a night in the Hilltop Hotel, but did not know that it was the first hotel in town to accept Black guests. I remember the John Brown Wax Museum, the federal armory building, and St. Peter’s Catholic Church, which was used for treating the wounded during the US Civil War. In particular, I remember a National Parks building where I saw quotes on the walls from northern intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, expressing opinions about abolition. I remember especially the ambivalence of Thoreau. Most vivid in my memory is that of the John Brown Wax Museum. The museum had a kind of sentimentality to it to rouse the emotions, but at the same time a curious lack of judgment with regard to Brown. The events of Brown’s life could be viewed as a morality tale of rebellion ending with hanging for treason, or one could see Brown as a martyr for the cause of abolition. Today, Harper’s Ferry attracts nature lovers, hikers on the Appalachian Trail, Civil War buffs, persons interested in the history of the struggle against American slavery, as well as people looking to stay in bed-and-breakfasts and eat and shop in a historic town.

I thought of my visit to Harper’s Ferry when I read Clint Smith’s book, How the Word Is Passed: a Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. In this book, Smith visits eight American sites and Gorée Island in Dakar, Senegal (and its Door of No Return). The American sites he visits are Monticello Plantation (VA) , Whitney Plantation (LA), Angola Prison (LA), Blandford Cemetery (VA), Galveston Island (TX), New York City, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (Washington, DC). The book is a travelogue, a survey of American history focusing on slavery, and a journalistic review of various attempts at remembering or erasing slavery and its continuing legacy in the United States.

In each location, Smith speaks to curators, guides, and visitors to see how they view the history of American slavery, and how attitudes are changing or resistant to change. Smith brings a personal perspective to the book, having grown up in New Orleans, taught high school in Maryland, and interviewing his mother’s father and father’s mother to further show the current impact of slavery. He also supplements the visits with the voices of formerly enslaved people as recorded by the Federal Writers Project. He has a lyrical voice, describing vividly the locations which he visits. It is a deliberately selective snapshot, limited to a few representative sites. There are enough sites in the United States to fill several more books. And there are other efforts at reckoning with the legacy of slavery. For example, there was a recent exhibit on Redlining in Kansas City at the Johnson County, Kansas Museum. Smith does not aim at being comprehensive in his book, but these examples suffice to show a range of willingness to confront the history of slavery at different site, not only in the south but in the north as well. As Smith recounts his travels, he is careful to supplement incorrect information and myths with historical sources.

In the end, Smith summarizes his judgement on his travels. He says that:

“in order for our country to collectively move forward, it is not enough to have a patchwork of places that are honest about this history while being surrounded by other spaces that undermine it. It must be a collective endeavor to learn and confront the story of slavery and how it has shaped the world we live in today.” (289)

I enjoyed reading How the Word Is Passed. It has a great balance between descriptive passages, interaction between Smith and others at sites, and historical context. Although he addresses many of the traumas and harms of slavery, the format allowed me time to breathe and to process things. It made me aware of different initiatives around the United States which focus on doing justice to the history of slavery. As such, it awakened in me a desire to travel and visit some of these locations, like the Whitney Plantation or the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I’ve already watched a couple of videos from the Whitney Plantation. I agree with Clint Smith that Americans need to work together to confront the history of slavery. Maybe over time, the patchwork efforts of various locales will help this to happen.

On the subject of travel and American history, the Netflix documentary High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America comes to mind. In 4 episodes, host Stephen Satterfield looks at yams (NOT sweet potatoes) and okra in Benin, rice in the Carolinas with Gullah cuisine, enslaved chefs James Hemings and Hercules, and Senagalese cuisine in Texas. There is a second season in development. High on the Hog takes a different approach from that of How the Word Is Passed. By focusing on cooking, High on the Hog has been able to tell stories of Black American culture by centering Black creativity, culture, and joy without ignoring the oppression and trauma along the way. Along the way, viewers see Benin and its Door of No Return, Monticello, Juneteenth in Texas (in writing this post, I realized that there are two places in West Africa with a Door of No Return). While High on the Hog and How the Word Is Passed have different approaches, I find them to be complementary and am excited to see these and other attempts at reckoning with the history of slavery. After all, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie warns about The Danger of a Single Story.