Introduction
Summary of the book How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith. Before we start, let’s delve into a short overview of the book. Imagine stepping into a world where every street corner, every statue, and every old house carries a secret story. These stories aren’t soft whispers; they’re loud echoes from the past that still shape our lives today. The history of slavery in America is often hidden beneath layers of denial, myths, and half-truths. Some people prefer not to look, while others struggle to bring it all into clear view. But understanding this past isn’t just for historians—it’s for everyone who wants to know why our world looks and feels the way it does right now. In this journey, we will travel from the busy streets of New Orleans to the quiet corners of Virginia’s cemeteries, from the halls of Monticello’s grand mansion to the harsh fields of Angola Prison. We will uncover how America’s legacy of slavery is remembered, misremembered, and, perhaps, finally confronted.
Chapter 1: Examining a City’s Streets: How New Orleans’ Hidden Slave Markets Still Whisper Their Past in Unexpected Ways.
New Orleans can feel like a living stage, filled with music, laughter, and crowded sidewalks alive with people from all backgrounds. Yet beneath that joyful surface lies a darker past that many have only recently begun to face. Two hundred years ago, this city was not just a place of parties and festivals—it was America’s largest slave market, where men, women, and children were bought and sold like objects. Walking through the French Quarter today, you might see brass bands and friendly street performers, but just around a corner, you may also find a small plaque telling a different story. These plaques, quietly placed on walls or in front of hotels, mark sites where human beings were once auctioned. They connect New Orleans’ lively streets to a history of cruelty and forced labor that shaped not just the city, but the entire nation.
Local historians, like Leon Waters, have worked hard to dig through old documents and uncover long-ignored facts. By sharing stories of the people who were enslaved here, they help visitors and residents alike understand that New Orleans is layered with meaning. Streets named after wealthy slaveholders, grand mansions built on human suffering, and elegant public squares that once watched silent as families were torn apart—the city’s entire landscape is a collection of historical clues. With Leon’s guided tours, curious minds can see beyond the tasty foods and charming balconies to understand how this city thrived on forced labor. When long-hidden truths appear before our eyes, we can start to ask tougher questions: How did so many people accept such cruelty, and how does that legacy still affect society?
As protests in recent years have toppled Confederate statues and sparked national debates, New Orleans stepped into the spotlight. The removal of statues that honored defenders of slavery has pushed many people to see that monuments often tell only one side of history. Some still argue that these statues are heritage, while others point out that they represent years of terror and oppression. By looking carefully at what’s honored in the public square, we begin to understand the importance of honest remembrance. New Orleans, where African influence shaped music and culture, is also a place where enslaved people once suffered. Today, by acknowledging both beauty and brutality, the city encourages visitors and residents to engage honestly with America’s past, seeing it as a powerful lesson in what must never be repeated.
For Clint Smith, who grew up in New Orleans but never truly understood its deep links to slavery, discovering these histories was a shock. Only after Confederate monuments started coming down did he begin asking questions: Why were these statues there at all? Why did schools, streets, and entire neighborhoods carry names linked to those who profited from slavery? Understanding these things reveals that the city is not just a random collection of pretty buildings. Instead, it is a map of memories—some celebrated, some buried. By bringing these stories into public view, activists like Leon help everyone see that the fight for justice and equality is not new. It’s part of a long struggle that began centuries ago, and knowing this past makes it harder to ignore what still needs to be done.
Chapter 2: Unlocking Monticello’s Silences: How a Founding Father’s Perfect Mansion Hid Imperfect Truths about Enslavement.
Monticello, perched high on a Virginia hillside, looks almost like a peaceful painting. Visitors come eager to learn about Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Yet stepping into Monticello, one realizes quickly that this grand home was built and maintained by enslaved people. While Jefferson spoke of liberty, he also owned hundreds of Black men, women, and children who labored relentlessly so he could enjoy a life of reading, writing, and hosting guests. Facing this truth makes people uncomfortable because it contradicts the image of Jefferson as a pure hero. Instead, it shows he was a human being shaped by his times and personal greed. He knew slavery was wrong, but he did not free those he enslaved. This contradiction forms a difficult, but necessary, truth to understand.
Today, Monticello’s guides try to tell a fuller story, one that does not skip over the painful parts. Visitors might listen to descriptions of how enslaved people tended gardens, harvested crops, and built the elegant rooms that so many admire. They also learn about Sally Hemings, who bore Jefferson’s children while living in captivity. Such stories challenge simple, heroic narratives. Instead, they reveal a complex figure who founded a nation built on ideals of freedom, yet depended on slavery to maintain his wealth and status. By embracing honest accounts, Monticello’s curators are encouraging visitors to see history not as a comforting fairy tale, but as a mirror that reflects both noble visions and ugly realities.
Some visitors leave Monticello feeling shaken. They arrived expecting to celebrate America’s early greatness but leave wondering why these truths are not widely known. This discomfort is precisely why honest storytelling matters. Without understanding that Jefferson’s wealth and intellectual pursuits relied on enslaved labor, Americans are left with an incomplete vision of their own past. By interviewing descendants of enslaved families and researching documents long ignored, Monticello’s staff strives to highlight the perspectives that were once silenced. When people hear about enslaved children playing games on Sundays or singing songs in cramped quarters, they begin to understand that these individuals were not just workers but human beings with hopes, fears, and dreams of their own.
Realizing that a founding father like Jefferson upheld a brutal system helps us understand that democracy and oppression coexisted from the start. It shows how some Americans justified inequality to protect their own comforts. This truth is not about making visitors feel bad about their country; it’s about ensuring the narrative is complete and honest. A history that leaves out the voices of the oppressed is not really history—it’s nostalgia or even fiction. By facing these uncomfortable facts, people can have deeper conversations about racial injustice and inequality in modern times. Monticello’s effort to tell the whole story is an invitation to reflect: How can we move forward and create a fairer future if we do not understand the full complexity of our past?
Chapter 3: Revealing the Whitney Plantation’s Secrets: Children’s Statues and Stories of Resistance Demand We Witness Their Truth.
In Louisiana’s rural landscape stands the Whitney Plantation, once a thriving sugarcane business run by enslaved labor. Unlike many plantations that present themselves as charming tourist spots or wedding venues, the Whitney refuses to gloss over the horrors of slavery. Here, visitors do not simply gaze at antique furniture or admire old architecture. Instead, they confront powerful displays, such as life-size sculptures of enslaved children filling a church’s pews. These statues stand in silence, yet they speak volumes about a past where children were born into a system that saw them as property. Such an experience can be shocking, but it also ensures that we cannot ignore the humanity of those who were forced into labor, separated from family, and used to build wealth for others.
The Whitney also sheds light on rebellions and uprisings, moments when enslaved people dared to fight back despite overwhelming odds. An exhibit of sculpted heads displayed on pikes commemorates a large revolt in 1811, when enslaved men and women marched toward New Orleans, seeking freedom. Though quickly crushed, this rebellion stands as proof that enslaved people were never simply passive victims. They were human beings who resisted, who dreamed of a different life, and who refused to accept the chains that bound them. Remembering their courage helps us move beyond simplistic stories of happy servants and kind masters, showing instead a struggle for liberty and dignity that underpinned every enslaved person’s existence.
Many plantations tend to highlight pretty gardens or old-fashioned furnishings, downplaying the fact that these estates once relied on forced labor. By focusing on the enslaved individuals themselves, the Whitney rebalances the narrative. Visitors learn about the daily routines of those forced to pick sugarcane, endure harsh punishments, and live in constant fear of being sold. They discover that after the transatlantic slave trade ended, enslavers turned to a cruel system that forced enslaved women into childbirth, using their own children as future laborers. This horrid cycle continued right up until the Civil War. By exposing these truths, the Whitney challenges the idea that slavery was ever mild or paternal.
For some, the Whitney’s honesty is almost too painful to bear. But without confronting that pain, how can we understand the true cost of America’s wealth? The plantation’s leaders insist that visitors see enslaved people as full human beings, not just nameless figures in old photographs. Through guided tours and carefully crafted exhibits, the Whitney encourages reflection: How does the legacy of these atrocities still shape communities around it, many of which now suffer from pollution and poverty? By connecting the past to the present, visitors realize that slavery’s impact did not vanish at the stroke of an emancipation pen. Instead, it lingers in inequalities, cultural traditions, and social tensions that remain part of America’s story to this day.
Chapter 4: Confronting Angola Prison’s Roots: From Cotton Fields to Modern Cells, Forced Labor Still Lurks in Plain Sight.
The bus to Angola Prison moves through the Louisiana countryside, passing fields that once produced cotton through the sweat and blood of enslaved workers. Today, Angola is a maximum-security prison that sits on the land of a former plantation. Instead of being just an old story left in textbooks, the past here blends with the present. Many of the inmates, most of whom are Black, labor in fields for pennies an hour. They raise crops under the watchful eyes of armed guards, a haunting echo of earlier centuries. For visitors like Clint Smith, seeing these men bent over fields stirs a disturbing realization: Even after the official end of slavery, a system emerged that continued to exploit Black labor through imprisonment and forced work.
This practice dates back to the period after the Civil War, when laws known as Black Codes criminalized small, everyday acts by newly freed Black people. Once arrested and jailed, they could be leased out to plantations or railroads, forced to toil under dangerous and demeaning conditions. It was a way to keep cheap labor alive, even after emancipation. Over time, these practices evolved into the modern prison system, which still disproportionately affects Black communities. People like Norris Henderson, who spent decades imprisoned at Angola for a crime he did not commit, understand the prison not just as a place of punishment, but as a historical structure continuing old patterns of racial inequality.
Within the Angola Prison Museum, visitors might expect to learn about the institution’s complicated past. Yet the museum’s displays often skip over the obvious comparisons between enslavement and prison labor. Instead, they present prison life as a curiosity, offering gift shop souvenirs and tours of Death Row as if it were just another tourist attraction. The guards and officials rarely talk about the land’s past as a plantation or connect the dots between the old slave trade and the modern justice system. This silence makes it seem as if the painful history is not worth mentioning. But ignoring it does not make it vanish.
For those who dig deeper, Angola is a troubling reminder that forced labor and racial injustice never fully ended; they merely changed form. When visitors leave Angola and think about what they’ve seen, they may wonder: How can we celebrate progress if systems still exist that echo the darkest chapters of American history? Recognizing this truth is not about blaming individuals today for what their ancestors did. It’s about acknowledging that certain patterns, beliefs, and policies persist over time. By understanding Angola’s past and present, people can question why such inequalities remain and what must be done to end them. A clearer understanding of history helps us see the present with new eyes, demanding a future where justice is not just a word but a reality for all.
Chapter 5: Strolling Through Blandford Cemetery: How Silent Graves and Stained-Glass Windows Shape the Confederate Story We Choose to Remember.
Blandford Cemetery in Virginia might look peaceful at first glance, with rows of gravestones and well-tended lawns. Yet what rests here are the remains of thousands of Confederate soldiers, collected and honored decades after the Civil War ended. The old church on the grounds contains stained-glass windows celebrating each Confederate state. To some, these windows shine with pride and honor. But to anyone who understands why these soldiers fought—to preserve a way of life built on slavery—these windows can be troubling. Rather than showing the suffering of enslaved people, they pay tribute to those who waged war to keep human beings in chains. This selective memory turns victims into footnotes while glorifying those who defended an unjust system.
The burial and commemoration of Confederate soldiers at Blandford were part of a larger movement known as the Lost Cause. After the war, some Southern whites created a story that cast the Confederacy as noble and slavery as an unimportant detail. They spread the lie that the Civil War was only about states’ rights and Southern honor, not about preserving human bondage. Over time, statues, flags, and memorials popped up everywhere, reinforcing these false narratives. Taxpayer money still supports many Confederate monuments, meaning the public funds memorials to a cause that tried to keep Black people enslaved. This distortion of history is not just a relic. It influences how some Americans view racial issues today.
At Blandford, when Clint Smith asks about these symbols, he receives neutral or dismissive answers, as if the windows are just pretty art. Yet the windows and the cemetery around them do more than decorate the landscape. They show how a community chooses to remember its past, focusing on the fallen soldiers’ bravery while ignoring the cruelty they fought to preserve. This imbalance in memory is no accident. It was planned and protected by groups who wanted to rewrite history. Without honest discussion, visitors might never realize the deeper meaning behind the flags and markers placed among the graves.
The truth is that Confederate memorials have shaped how generations of Americans understand race and slavery. By giving more attention to the Confederates’ sacrifice than to the enslaved people’s suffering, these monuments help keep old myths alive. Recognizing this manipulation of history is essential. People need to understand that remembering the Confederacy without acknowledging its deep commitment to slavery is dishonest. Real history must face all sides: the bravery, the horror, the ideals, and the hypocrisy. By telling a fuller story, we remind ourselves that monuments and cemeteries are not neutral. They are tools that can either hide the truth or help reveal it, depending on how we choose to understand and interpret what we see.
Chapter 6: Marking Juneteenth in Galveston: How a Delayed Message of Freedom Became a Celebration and a Question for the Future.
Galveston Island, Texas, is known for beaches and tourism today, but it holds a special place in the story of freedom. In June 1865, more than two months after the Confederacy surrendered, Union soldiers arrived to announce that enslaved people in Texas were free. This moment eventually inspired Juneteenth, a day celebrated as a second Independence Day by many African Americans. The arrival of freedom was not immediate or neat. For years, enslavers had refused to tell their workers that the war was over and they were legally free. This delay shows that freedom itself can be a messy process, often resisted by those who benefit from injustice.
Today, each Juneteenth, people in Galveston gather to reenact the announcement of freedom. They dress in period costumes, read historical texts, and reflect on the meaning of liberation. Watching elders tear up at the words and children dancing with joy demonstrates that Juneteenth is more than a history lesson. It’s a living tradition that carries the memory of ancestors who longed for equality. It’s also a time to consider what true freedom means. Even after emancipation, formerly enslaved people received no compensation or land. They had to start from scratch in a world that still treated them poorly.
The recognition of Juneteenth as a holiday in Texas since 1979, and more recently as a federal holiday, signals a growing willingness to acknowledge this overlooked chapter of American history. Yet this awareness also prompts tough questions: How have we addressed the economic inequalities passed down through generations of Black families? How have we confronted the trauma that lingers when communities were once torn apart and lives stolen? By learning about Juneteenth, people confront not just a historic date but the idea that freedom requires ongoing work to ensure justice and fairness for all.
For Clint Smith, attending Juneteenth events highlights how understanding the past can shape the present. Teachers and community leaders in Galveston ensure that young people know the story—that freedom did not come as a simple gift wrapped in a bow. It was delayed, denied, and forced into reality only by persistent struggle. The courage and resilience of those who finally tasted freedom can inspire new generations to continue pushing for equality. By celebrating Juneteenth, the community honors the lives of enslaved people who refused to accept their fate and challenges modern Americans to see that the fight for true equality is not over, but ongoing. It’s a reminder that acknowledging historic wrongs can help us build a more just future.
Chapter 7: Searching New York’s Streets: How the Empire City’s Shiny Facade Conceals a History Built on Enslaved Labor.
Mention slavery in America and many think only of the South. Yet New York City, with its towering skyscrapers and global influence, has its own hidden past of enslavement. In the 1600s and 1700s, enslaved Africans cleared forests, built roads, and labored in homes across Manhattan. The city’s growth and wealth owed much to the forced work of enslaved people. Walking tours now expose small plaques that mark where human beings were once sold as property. These reminders disrupt the idea that the North was always the good guy in this story. Instead, they reveal that racism and slavery were woven deeply into the fabric of American society from coast to coast.
Financial institutions in New York City thrived on the slave trade, lending money, insuring voyages, and weaving profit from human suffering. By the eve of the Civil War, millions of dollars had been generated, directly or indirectly, from enslaved labor. Meanwhile, the Underground Railroad also found refuge here, with abolitionists hiding runaway slaves beneath floorboards and inside secret rooms. The city’s story is complex, mixing both those who profited from injustice and those who risked everything to help people reach freedom. Understanding this complexity matters because it breaks down simple, misleading stories and forces us to grapple with moral contradictions.
One stop on these tours is the African Burial Ground, where thousands of Black men, women, and children were laid to rest. For years, this cemetery was forgotten, paved over by development. Its rediscovery in the 1990s shocked many who never imagined that enslaved people had been so integral to the city’s early days. Now, as visitors stand at this sacred spot, they realize that the history of bondage isn’t distant or foreign. It happened right here, under these very streets. These revelations encourage people to question the stories they’ve been told and to think about who has the power to shape public memory.
In a city famous for reinvention and diversity, telling the full truth about slavery offers a more honest starting point for understanding the present. Race is not real scientifically, but it became real in how people were treated, how laws were made, and how wealth was distributed. By recognizing that slavery was not confined to Southern plantations, Americans must confront the idea that no region is free from guilt. A clearer understanding of New York’s past also shines a light on current inequalities. The layers of history below the sidewalks serve as both a warning and a lesson. Without facing these truths, future generations risk building their future on shaky, dishonest foundations.
Chapter 8: Gazing Across the Atlantic: How Gorée Island’s Shores Reflect a Global Web of Human Trade and Trauma.
Off the coast of Senegal lies Gorée Island, a place tourists now visit for its beauty and history. From the 1500s to the mid-1800s, Gorée was a major center in the transatlantic slave trade. Africans kidnapped from their homelands passed through these shores before being shipped across the ocean to unknown fates. The island’s famous House of Slaves stands as a museum and memorial, with the so-called Door of No Return symbolizing a final departure point for enslaved people, never to see their homes again. Though historians debate the exact numbers and details of this door, its meaning as a memorial to suffering and loss remains powerful.
Leaders, activists, and religious figures have visited Gorée to confront the ghosts of the past. For centuries, Africans were treated like items on a shelf—bought, sold, and exploited. Understanding that the legacy of slavery does not belong solely to the United States is crucial. It was a global system, with European powers profiting enormously. Visiting Gorée can feel like stepping into the pages of history, but the lessons are not trapped in the past. They ripple forward, influencing how we think about identity, diaspora, and the rightful place of African people in world history.
At Gorée, discussions about exact numbers—how many passed through this door, how many ships left these shores—can sometimes overshadow the larger truth: Even one enslaved life lost to cruelty is too many. The House of Slaves might present a slightly mythologized version of events, but the broader story it tells—that countless African men, women, and children were stolen and dehumanized—is undeniable. The fact that not every detail matches perfectly does not erase the fundamental reality of human suffering. Instead, it challenges us to consider how memory, history, and myth combine.
By standing before the ocean at Gorée, visitors face a silent reminder that slavery was not just an American tragedy. It was a horror enacted by people of many nations, rooted in greed and racist beliefs. This acknowledgment expands the conversation about slavery’s legacy beyond the borders of the United States. It makes us ask: How does the world remember these events? How do we ensure that future generations understand the scale and cruelty of the global slave trade? Gorée’s powerful symbolism encourages honest reflection and invites people everywhere to engage in a shared reckoning with the past.
Chapter 9: Digging into Monticello’s Descendants: How Oral Histories and Family Connections Repaint a More Honest Portrait.
Returning to Monticello, but this time focusing on the descendants of those enslaved there, offers a more intimate understanding of the past. The Getting Word oral history project began in the 1990s to collect stories passed down through generations of African American families linked to Jefferson’s plantation. These are not tales found easily in textbooks; they live in memories, family recipes, secret lullabies, and old letters preserved in attic boxes. By listening to these voices, historians piece together a richer, more complex image of plantation life that includes the struggles, heartbreak, resilience, and quiet resistance of those forced to build Jefferson’s world.
Through these personal accounts, descendants have reclaimed their ancestors’ place in history, pushing back against old narratives that focused only on Jefferson and his peers. Instead of treating enslaved people as nameless workers, the project identifies them as real individuals with identities, hopes, and contributions. Descendants share how certain family traditions, crafts, or religious practices trace back to Monticello’s enslaved community. In this way, the past lives on not as a distant event but as part of living families’ stories.
These oral histories also highlight that healing from slavery’s wounds cannot happen without acknowledging the full truth. Knowing what Jefferson did and how his family profited from forced labor allows today’s Americans to understand that our nation’s wealth and culture are partially built on exploitation. Descendants’ voices remind us that enslaved people were more than victims. They were survivors and culture-bearers who shaped American cuisine, language, music, and storytelling.
By comparing official records with family stories, we see how historical archives often left out or distorted Black voices. The Getting Word project challenges the idea that truth only comes from written documents. It shows that families safeguarding their memories over centuries provide invaluable insight. These legacies connect the present to the past, demonstrating that slavery’s aftermath lives on in people’s hearts, traditions, and understandings of self. The more we learn from descendants, the clearer it becomes that America’s story is incomplete without them, and that telling a more honest version of history opens a door to understanding where we are today.
Chapter 10: Questioning the Landscape of Memory: Statues, Street Names, and the Battle Over How We Choose to Commemorate the Past.
All across America, countless statues, plaques, street names, and school mascots honor figures who once owned, traded, or fought to keep people enslaved. Many of these monuments were erected decades after the Civil War, not to remember the dead accurately, but to send a message that the old racial order was still powerful. People today are wrestling with what to do about these symbols. Should they be torn down, renamed, or moved to museums where they can be explained in proper context? This debate is not just about stone and metal; it’s about what stories we choose to tell ourselves and future generations.
Critics of removing such monuments argue that the past should not be erased. But thoughtful reformers respond that by celebrating enslavers and Confederates without mentioning their victims, we are distorting the past. History itself can never be erased. Documents, research, and evidence remain. What can be changed is how we present that history in public spaces. We have the power to decide who is honored and what values our monuments reflect. By choosing carefully, we send signals about the importance of equality, justice, and truth-telling.
As Americans confront these questions, they learn that memory is not fixed. It evolves as we gain new insights and values. Monuments reflect the time in which they were built and the beliefs of those who raised them. Reevaluating them now does not mean we deny the past happened. Instead, it means we refuse to let harmful myths stand unchallenged. By creating new monuments—ones that honor abolitionists, enslaved people, or civil rights leaders—we expand the narrative and ensure that public memory is more balanced and accurate.
This process is not easy. It sparks heated arguments, protests, and political battles. Yet it is necessary. The way a nation remembers its past shapes its future. If children grow up surrounded by statues of those who fought for slavery, without understanding what they truly represented, they inherit a warped sense of right and wrong. By confronting these symbols openly, communities can teach honesty over denial, courage over comfort. It’s a chance to reclaim public spaces as places of learning and reflection, ensuring that future Americans never forget the full story of how the word was passed down through generations.
Chapter 11: Personal Legacies Unveiled: How Examining Family Histories Confronts Us With the Ongoing Effects of Slavery.
After visiting sites, reading plaques, and standing in old rooms haunted by history, Clint Smith turned inward. He spoke with his grandparents and discovered a truth he never knew: his grandfather’s grandfather had been enslaved. Suddenly, this horrible institution wasn’t just a topic in a book; it was part of his own family tree. Realizing this brings history close, erasing the idea that these events happened long ago to other people. When the story of slavery runs through your own bloodline, it’s impossible to see it as something distant. It is personal, living inside family memories, shaping who you are today.
He and his grandparents visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture, encountering exhibits that connected past brutality to modern inequalities. They saw reminders of victims like Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy lynched less than a century ago. This event took place near where Clint’s grandfather grew up. In that moment, it was clear that the past and present were intertwined. Segregation, racial violence, and discriminatory laws that his grandparents experienced firsthand are all part of the same story that began with enslavement. Understanding this truth breaks the illusion that America’s racial problems are over or fixed.
For his grandmother, who lived through Jim Crow and remembers standing during a long bus ride because no seats were available to Black passengers, the museum was not just history—it was memory. She had witnessed the legacy of slavery all around her as a young girl. Now, revisiting those times in the museum, she affirmed that these struggles remain embedded in living individuals, not just old records. Acknowledging this helps younger generations realize that the injustices of the past linger, informing today’s debates about policing, voting rights, education, and economic opportunity.
In facing both the monumental history and the personal stories of family members, Clint Smith saw that how the word is passed isn’t just through textbooks or museums. It travels through grandparents’ voices, family traditions, and the streets of their hometowns. Recognizing these links encourages everyone to question what they know, challenge myths, and demand honesty. By listening to elders, studying historical places, and having open conversations, we learn that slavery’s legacy did not vanish. It lives in our communities, laws, and hearts. Only by understanding this can we work toward a future that honors truth, fosters justice, and values every human life equally.
All about the Book
Discover the profound impact of history and memory in ‘How the Word Is Passed’ by Clint Smith. This enlightening work explores monuments, sites, and stories that reveal America’s complex relationship with its past and present race issues.
Clint Smith is a renowned poet, writer, and educator whose poignant insights into race, history, and humanity resonate deeply, making him a significant voice in contemporary literature.
Educators, Historians, Social Activists, Policy Makers, Cultural Analysts
Reading, History Exploration, Photography, Traveling, Engaging in Civil Discourse
Racial Inequality, Historical Memory, Cultural Awareness, Social Justice
The past is never past; it is always present.
Oprah Winfrey, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Amber Ruffin
NAACP Image Award, American Book Award, Gordon Burn Prize
1. Understand the legacy of slavery in America. #2. Learn about key historical sites of slavery. #3. Discover narratives of enslaved people’s experiences. #4. Explore the Civil War’s ongoing cultural impact. #5. Grasp the significance of oral history tradition. #6. Recognize systemic racism’s roots in slavery. #7. Value the importance of historical preservation efforts. #8. Uncover hidden truths of American history. #9. See how history shapes contemporary social issues. #10. Appreciate diverse perspectives on historical events. #11. Identify myths surrounding American slavery history. #12. Analyze the role of monuments in legacy. #13. Understand the Emancipation Proclamation’s limited impact. #14. Reflect on personal connections to historical trauma. #15. Investigate slave narratives’ influence on modern discourse. #16. Contrast Northern and Southern histories of slavery. #17. Discuss reparations in addressing historical injustices. #18. Highlight the resilience of African American communities. #19. Examine economic impacts of slavery over time. #20. Recognize the importance of historical empathy today.
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