"Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves.
In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country’s most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted."
Copies of How the Word is Passed are available for loan on the New Books shelf at the college library.
An ebook is also available to read (single-user license only).
Clinton Smith III, the 2023 - 24 Book in Common author, grew up in New Orleans. He attended three years of high school there, but his senior year was spent in Houston after his family had to flee Hurricane Katrina. He majored in English at Davidson College, where he also played soccer, and eventually earned a Ph.D at Harvard, focusing on the education of incarcerated juveniles.
Smith taught high school English in Maryland and published an acclaimed book of poems before turning to investigating and writing history. How the Word is Passed was published in 2021 and made quite a splash, placing in the New York Times Book Review's Top 10 Books of 2021 and receiving the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Smith has published a second book of poems and is currently working on a book of untold stories of World War II, called Just Beneath the Soil.
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