What I'm reading this weekend

Reckoning with the memory of slavery

Last month, I asked for suggestions for some good books on the South for my class next semester, and fellow historian Steve Estes recommended How the Word is Passed, Clint Smith’s 2021 reflection on how we reckon with the memory of slavery. Prof. Estes always has great advice, so I picked up the book and finished it quickly — it’s less of a history tome than a set of self-contained essays, each of which examines a particular site where Americans encounter (or deliberately avoid) the reality of slavery. Smith, who penned a thought-provoking piece in The Atlantic about how Germany remembers the Holocaust, writes beautifully and the narrative moves so briskly that I was done before I knew it.

Smith wants to understand how Americans remember slavery, so at each site he talks with people — not just the historians, exhibit curators, and tour guides who think about history for a living, but also random visitors, historical re-enactors, and others who happen to be at the sites he visits. He shares the conversations and his own ruminations, and we see how people from many walks of life grapple with the uncomfortable history. Smith approaches the subject with a refreshing sense of humility and open-mindedness — he comes across as genuinely curious rather than predictably judgmental.

I particularly appreciate that he acknowledges and builds upon the extraordinary research that scholars have produced about slavery in the past half century. Smith cites Barbara Fields, David Blight, Ira Berlin, and a host of other historians who dedicated their careers to discovering and sharing new insights about slavery and the central role it played in America’s founding and development. It’s easy to pronounce that “history is written by the winners” or is “whitewashed” (as a tour guide proclaims in the book), as if American historical writing hasn’t changed since the “rah-rah” narratives of the 1950s that ignored and belittled the role that African Americans (and other minorities) played in American life. That’s simply not true. Take a look in any library or bookstore or syllabus, and you will find a remarkable array of scholarship that has upended traditional narratives. Even our much-maligned textbooks offer a much more nuanced portrayal of the past than most American adults probably realize. There’s still a long way to go, but we should at least honor and respect the work that countless historians have done to help us understand the full story of America’s past.