How the Word Is Passed Summary

The whole city is a memorial to slavery." This book asks, "What happens when we confront the untold truths of our history?

1. New Orleans: A City Built on Forgotten Layers

New Orleans offers a vivid picture of how history can be embedded in a city's landscape and yet remain obscured. The author, Clint Smith, discovers that his hometown, once the largest slave market in America, hides layers of its legacy beneath the surface. Through plaques, statues, and street names, the city tells a partial story while carefully avoiding its full role in enslaving people.

Smith learns from local historian Leon A. Waters, who highlights how signs of slavery are everywhere—on buildings like the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, formerly a place where humans were sold, and in tourist-packed Jackson Square, once a site of executions of those who dared to resist bondage. Despite these remnants, many of New Orleans' symbols of white supremacy remain intact, often glorified in the names of streets, parks, and landmarks.

Groups like Take ’Em Down NOLA are pushing for a reckoning, fighting to remove such monuments while educating others about their deeper meanings. Smith notes how reinvestigating the history of New Orleans after events like the removal of Robert E. Lee's statue can further our understanding of systemic oppression and inspire change.

Examples

• Plaques in New Orleans now acknowledge its history as the nation’s largest slave market.
• Bottled-up racial pain erupted after events like George Floyd's death, leading to renewed focus on Confederate statues.
• Activist groups like Take ’Em Down NOLA aim to dismantle symbols of oppression in the city.

2. Monticello Plantation: A Founding Father’s Contradictions

Thomas Jefferson is often celebrated for championing liberty, but Monticello, his plantation, reveals the glaring contradictions in his life. While he wrote the sentence “all men are created equal,” he owned slaves and relied on their forced labor to maintain his privileged life.

Touring Monticello, Smith sees a broader effort to bring transparency to Jefferson’s legacy. Guides do not shy away from discussing his exploitation of Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who bore six of his children. Such revelations challenge visitors, most of whom are white, to rethink the glorified image of Jefferson they grew up with.

The story of Monticello is a reminder of how historical narratives evolve. Exhibits and oral history projects now include the voices of Jefferson's enslaved descendants to create a fuller, more honest picture. For many visitors, this truth—acknowledging Jefferson as a beneficiary of a violent system—can be deeply unsettling.

Examples

• Jefferson used enslaved labor to finance his debts and lifestyle, including building Monticello.
• Sally Hemings' story is now part of Monticello tours, forcing people to confront exploitative dynamics.
• Efforts like the Getting Word project document the realities of slavery from the descendants' perspectives.

3. Whitney Plantation: Reframing the Story of Plantations

Unlike many plantations that glorify the antebellum era, the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana focuses squarely on the enslaved people’s lived experiences. Through sculptures, exhibits, and chilling accounts, it aims to rewrite a narrative often sanitized by nostalgia.

The plantation’s exhibits center the humanity of enslaved people. Sculptures of children remind visitors that many slaves were under the age of 20, and rooms document the physical and mental toll of slavery. The policy requiring some enslaved women to act as "breeders" highlights the dehumanization slaves endured, even at the hands of their own biological fathers.

Beyond the exhibits, Whitney exposes a continuity of despair in Louisiana. Descendants of the enslaved live near chemical plants that pollute their homes and bodies, a stark parallel to past exploitation. This continuity forces visitors to consider how systems of suffering evolve but persist.

Examples

• Ceramic statues represent the 1811 rebellion, in which enslaved people sought freedom but were violently punished.
• Exhibits show how enslaved children were key to sustaining plantation economies.
• Today, poverty and environmental harm plague descendants of enslaved workers living around Louisiana plantations.

4. Angola Prison: The Past Isn’t Past

Angola Prison exemplifies how the vestiges of slavery live on in modern institutions. Built on a former plantation, it continues to profit off exploited Black labor, paying prisoners as little as seven cents an hour for manual work like cotton picking.

This prison's history aligns with the convict leasing system, which replaced slavery after Reconstruction by incarcerating Black men and essentially forcing them back into servitude. Inside Angola, tourists can inexplicably purchase mugs and shirts in a gift shop that sanitizes the harsh realities of the prison’s practices.

Clint cannot ignore the eerie continuation of a plantation-like environment. Anyone who drives by Angola today may catch sight of primarily Black prisoners working the fields under white guards—a haunting echo of slavery.

Examples

• Angola prisoners earn meager wages, much like labor conditions under slavery.
• Convict leasing adapted forced labor into a legal framework after abolition.
• Disturbingly, Angola offers tours of death row and memorabilia for sale.

5. Blandford Cemetery: Telling One Side of the Story

At Blandford Cemetery in Virginia, nearly 30,000 Confederate soldiers lie buried, marked by flags and a tribute-filled church. These memorials reflect a culture invested in glorifying the Confederacy while erasing its racist objectives.

Surrounding this cemetery are narratives from the Lost Cause movement, which falsely claims the Civil War was about Southern pride rather than slavery. Clint observes how tour guides and visitors alike downplay discussions about the brutality tied to Confederate forces.

Moreover, Confederate monuments across the country, funded by taxpayer money, refuse to acknowledge slavery as the lynchpin for the war. At Blandford and beyond, half-told truths continue to mislead the public.

Examples

• The Ladies’ Memorial Association built the Blandford Church windows honoring Confederate states.
• The Lost Cause myth falsely portrays the Confederacy’s cause as noble.
• $40 million taxpayer dollars funded Confederate memorials between 2008 and 2018.

6. Juneteenth’s Complex Legacy in Galveston

Galveston, Texas, where Juneteenth began, represents a bittersweet moment in history. Freedom arrived here two months after the Civil War’s end and two years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation because enslavers deliberately withheld the news.

Juneteenth celebrations center this complex truth: justice for enslaved people was painstakingly slow, uneven, and fraught with violence. Clint observes a reenactment of General Order Number 3 at Ashton Villa, where attendees blend emotions of joy and sorrow as they reflect on what freedom means.

These celebrations highlight not just emancipation but also persistent racial inequality. With Black Americans holding only a fraction of the nation’s wealth today, Juneteenth remains a day of reflection, not just celebration.

Examples

• Juneteenth began with General Gordon Granger’s declaration of emancipation in Texas.
• Celebrations stress community reckoning, with events like the Nia Cultural Center educating youth on their history.
• Black Americans today own less than 4% of US wealth, a testament to unfulfilled promises of emancipation.

7. New York City’s Hidden Slave Past

New York City has long been considered an emblem of Northern progressivism, but Clint uncovers its deep entanglement with slavery. The city thrived off slave-generated wealth, and its financial systems actively supported the trade.

While walking through sites like Wall Street and the African Burial Ground, Smith learns that slavery was embedded in the city’s economy and labor. Even celebrated landmarks like the Stock Exchange tie back to financiers who exploited enslaved workers.

The discovery of a burial ground for enslaved Black people in 1990 reinforced the need to reevaluate New York’s past. The city’s bustling modern image, Clint notes, rests on generations of stolen labor.

Examples

• Wall Street once held markets that auctioned enslaved people.
• African Burial Ground unearthed remains of thousands of enslaved individuals.
• New York City’s merchants profited directly from the slave trade industries.

8. Gorée Island: A Global Epicenter of Pain

Gorée Island in Senegal offers an international perspective on the horrors of the slave trade. Once a hub for enslaved Africans, the island now stands as a symbol of reckoning and remembrance.

The Maison des Esclaves, with its iconic “Door of No Return,” reminds visitors of the human beings stolen from their homes. Though its historical details may be contested, Gorée’s significance lies in its emotional truth: the unspeakable tragedy of human commodification.

Curator Eloi Coly emphasizes that enslaved Africans’ stories should begin in their homeland, portraying them as people with rich cultures before their forced journey to America. Gorée challenges visitors to reflect on what was lost.

Examples

• The Door of No Return symbolizes those taken into bondage, though it may not be literal.
• African values, music, and culture persisted despite the dehumanization of slavery.
• Gorée amplifies memory even beyond exact historical figures or counts.

9. An Intimate Reckoning with Family History

In tracing national narratives, Clint was led to explore his own family’s ties to slavery. He discovered that his grandfather’s grandfather had been enslaved—a fact that brought history closer to home.

Walking through the National Museum of African American History and Culture with his grandparents, Clint saw their pain as they revisited memories of segregation, lynchings, and racial terror. Their personal stories connected the dots, demonstrating how the past bleeds into the present.

Hearing this made Clint rethink the ways generational trauma lingers. His grandparents' lives reflected the resilience of Black communities and the warnings that history should never be forgotten.

Examples

• Clint’s grandmother experienced segregation throughout her youth in Florida.
• The National Museum’s Emmett Till exhibit ties family loss to national injustice.
• Clint’s grandfather recounted growing up amid fear of “night riders” in Mississippi.

Takeaways

1. Visit memorials, museums, and historical sites with an open mind to learn history’s untold truths.
2. Push for accurate education about slavery and its influence on modern institutions.
3. Reflect on your own history and its ties to systemic struggles to foster empathy and understanding.