Clint Smith's New Book Challenges Americans to Rethink What We Know About Slavery

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KQED

News Commentary, News, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Poet, teacher and Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith joins us to talk about his new book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America. Smith takes readers on a tour of eight sites to examine the history of slavery in America and how that history lives on through stories -- who tells them, how and where. Along his journey, he discovers buried facts, false narratives and often willful ignorance of a dark time in our nation’s history that still has implications. We’ll talk about how Americans’ understanding of slavery -- or lack of it -- plays out today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KQED podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport.
0:05.3	You can fly back in time and visit SFO's Aviation Museum and Library to learn about the history of commercial aviation.
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0:17.0	Support for forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:24.8	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:31.2	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an
0:36.9	unspeakable crime, it propels them into an
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0:47.1	parade plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th. Tickets
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0:58.0	From KQED.
1:04.8	From KQED, public radio in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim.
1:15.6	Coming up on Forum, in his new book, How the Word is Past, Clint Smith takes readers to
1:20.9	sites across America, where he says, The Story of Slavery Lives On, Monticello, Angola
1:26.6	Prison, a cemetery for Confederate soldiers.
1:29.8	On his travels, Smith discovers buried facts, false narratives, and willful ignorance about slavery.
1:36.4	And through conversations with people he meets along the way, he shows us where we are as a nation
1:42.2	when it comes to reckoning with our history of slavery.
1:45.0	A conversation with Clint Smith. Join us.
2:07.1	This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Poet and Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith visited eight places in the U.S., among them a functioning prison and former plantations that tell the story
2:13.0	of slavery. Literally tell the story through tours and reenactments, with varying degrees of accuracy.
2:20.3	Smith engages with visitors at these places, walks the paths, and absorbs the sights and smells.
	...

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