Reckoning with Public History: A Review of How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith

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

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For almost a decade Americans have once again attempted to grapple with its history of slavery, segregation, and racism. Yet current political movements for justice are not the only ways in which Americans can do so. In many of our public historic sites attempts are made to explain this history as well. Sometimes this story is told well, other times it is not. In this combination of history and travelogue, Mr. Smith takes his reader on a journey to several places across America and one place in Africa that have a direct connection to America’s history of slavery to see how that history is presented or, in some cases, obfuscated.

Starting with Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello, and ending in one of the many ports where Africans were forcibly removed from their homeland to the slave markets and plantations of America and elsewhere, Mr. Smith does a tremendous job of showing how central these places are to America’s history of slavery and, by extension, how central the history of slavery is to the development of the United States of America as a nation.  Like any book dealing honestly with this subject, this is not an easy read.  The amount of suffering and death that the system of chattel slavery incurred is staggering, disheartening, and quite counter to the story of America many of us learned in our classrooms.  And yet, illustrating this counter narrative is exactly the point of this book.  By showing how many of our public historic sites tell the story of slavery in America, and too often fail to do so, it forces the reader to seriously question the traditional story of America as the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Once that narrative is questioned, it then becomes possible to tell a more complete and honest history of our country and ask what can be done in the present to make this country what we have always been told it was.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  As a poet, Mr. Smith brings his skill with the written word to bear on a difficult topic and thus puts the reader in these places as though they were there themselves.  His interviews with tour guides and average people alike helps to illustrate just how our educational system and our public historic sites have failed to tell a full and honest story about the history of slavery in America.  And at the sites that Mr. Smith visits that obscures that history, whether by design or by accident, he does a tremendous job of setting the record straight.  Though this book is not a comprehensive examination of these public sites, this book can be the starting point for discussing how we do talk about America’s past and what can be done to improve it.  Judging by the number of politicians and “parent groups” that are currently seeking to ban books and textbooks from schools and libraries that try to tell a more honest history of America, a book like this couldn’t be more timely.

Whether you are a lifelong American history buff or new to the subject, whether you have visited all of these historic sites or none of them, this is a great book to start with when examining the full story of America’s slave past.

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Reckoning with a (Racist) Past: A Review of Stony the Road by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As America continues to grapple with its checkered past in the wake of recent and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, one period that is seeing a resurgence of interest is the Reconstruction period. Between the end of the Civl War and the Compromise of 1876, America made its first tentative forays into multiracial democracy and equality. Eric Foner’s book Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 is a critically praised history of that period worth a look. But what Dr. Gates contributes in this book is a cultural history of Reconstruction and the immediate period afterwards known as Redemption. While the racist imagery in this book can be hard to look at at times, Dr. Gates does a great job of showing the violent and propagandistic origins of many of today’s racial issues, but also how important Black artistic movements, particularly the Harlem Renaissance, were to resisting these racist narratives.

The first thing you need to know about this book is that it is not a straight narrative history.  There are not a lot of dates or explanations of key historical events during the Reconstruction and Redemption periods.  Thus the narrative can often go back and forth through time.  One minute Dr. Gates may be talking about something that happened in 1886, then move forward to something in 1903, then back to 1877.  What the reader needs to keep in mind though is that this book is structured thematically, with the first three chapters showing the origin and perpetuation of violent and racist myths about this period in this period, myths that still plague America to this day.  Each chapter also comes with a section of photographs and images from the period, much of which is incredibly difficult to look at.  It includes some of the most racist images I’ve ever seen in a book and it even includes some gruesome photographs of lynched Black Americans.  Anyone who is triggered by violent or racist imagery, be warned.

The best part about this book is how it is all tied up neatly at the end.  The last chapter is about Black Americans’ response to the white supremacy that robbed them of their rights and lives.  As Black Americans struggled to define themselves as a people after the collapse of Reconstruction and the violent rise of white supremacy, it led to incredible instances of artistic expression.  If the Redemption period from 1876 to the early 20th century is the counter-revolution that overturned Black Americans’ gains during Reconstruction and established white supremacy across much of the South, then Dr. Gates makes a great argument for considering the Harlem Renaissance as a cultural counter counter-revolution that sought to overturn the racist imagery and mythology of the Redemption period.  Through the great works of artists and scholars such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Locke, and others, the racist stereotypes of Black Americans perpetuated by white supremacists became much more difficult to uphold, thus paving the way culturally for the Civil Rights Movement of the mid 20th century.

While this may not be the narrative history of Reconstruction I thought it would be, Dr. Gates nevertheless offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of this vital period of American history.  Though the racist and violent imagery may be difficult to see, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about this period in American history that now feels more relevant than ever.

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America's Prophet: A Review of Fredrick Douglass by David Blight

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The 19th century in American history is filled with amazing historical figures, but few stand out as much as Fredrick Douglass. In this wonderful biography, Mr. Blight dives to deep into the life of the preeminent American of the 19th century and, by doing so, holds up a mirror to an America once again having to reckon with its dark racial past.

The life of Fredrick Douglass is one that many Americans already know as he wrote three different and highly praised autobiographies at various times in his life. Born into slavery, Douglass taught himself how to read, escaped from slavery, and became one of the greatest abolitionists of the period. He would go on to use his voice and his pen to denounce slavery in the South and racism in the North, recruit black soldiers for the Union effort during the Civil War, and hold the country accountable to the promises it made to former slaves during Reconstruction and long afterwards. Mr. Blight deftly navigates Douglass' career and gives a nuanced picture of the fiery American prophet. At the same time, Mr. Blight also reveals the home life that sustained and frustrated him, particularly in the latter half of his life. All the while, he doesn't look away from Douglass' faults, particularly his prejudicial language towards Native Americans and Catholics, or the compromises he would make later in life as a loyal-to-a-fault member of the Republican party. Thus, this biography gives one of the fullest pictures you are likely to find of Douglass anywhere.

The best part of this biography is how not a word is wasted even in such a large biography. At times Mr. Blight can get a wee bit preachy, but it is always in the context of Douglass' life and it never really feels out of place. Thus, this biography is not just a life of Douglass the man, but a call to America, past and present, to heed Old Man Eloquent's words and live up to its promises of liberty and justice for all as laid down in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and especially the Reconstruction amendments.

Whether this is you are new to the life of Fredrick Douglass or not, this is a necessary biography for our times on one of the most important figures in American history. I highly recommend this book to all interested in American history or in the lives of great Americans.

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Moving On: A Review of Lincoln in the Bardo

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of the great tragedies to happen in the midst of the tragedy that was the U.S. Civil War was the death of Pres. Abraham Lincoln's young son Willie in early 1862. Distraught, Pres. Lincoln visits the grave of his son several times in the dead of night not long after the body is interred. Using this, George Saunders spins a ghost story about love and loss and how hard it is for both the living and the dead to move on.

Before you dive into this novel, it is important to note that Mr. Saunders does not follow the typical grammar conventions. For nearly every line of dialogue, rather than the typical "[dialogue]," said Mr. Smith you would find in a typical novel, Mr. Saunders uses citation, almost like what you would see at the end of a block quote in a non-fiction work of history or an academic paper. I found this to be both helpful and confusing. It was helpful because Mr. Saunders uses a large number of characters to narrate throughout, so the citation at the end of each bit of dialogue helped me to keep track of who was speaking at any given time. Mr. Saunders also does quote several memoirs and history books about Lincoln during this time, so the citations helped ground this work of historical fiction in some reality. However, because Mr. Saunders could move rapidly between different characters, this method of narrating could get confusing at times, especially when the action begins to really pick up at the climax.

I used the phrase "ghost story" at the top because the main cast of characters is entirely dead, though many of them either don't know it or refuse to believe it for reasons you have to read the book to understand. The way that the dead interact with the living, or attempt to, is fascinating, though it is unclear how much influence the netherworld has on the living in this book. If anything, the living seems to have a far greater influence on the dead in Saunders' telling. And yet, both sides are trying to figure out how to move on, or whether or not they want to. It's an interesting mediation on loss and grief.

There is much to like and even love in this book. The picture of Lincoln as a man is one of the best I have read outside of my typical history books. For fans of literary fiction, historical fiction, and Abraham Lincoln, I would recommend this read be put on your list. 

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