>> Frederick Wherry:
So it is my pleasure to
introduce Clint Smith.
He is a staff writer at The
Atlantic, and the author of the
poetry collection Counting
Dissent.
The book won the 2017 Literary
Award for best poetry book from
the Black Caucus of the
American Library Association and
was a finalist for the NAACP
Award.
But we are here today to talk
about your number one New York
Times best seller. I like
saying that. How the Word is
Passed. And here, this is a
reckoning with the history of
slavery in America.
And one of the things I want to
say first and foremost, is that
in the book, you literally
reckon with the history of
slavery, but not just from a
distance.
You literally go there.
You go to eight different
places in the United States.
Then you make your way out to
Senegal.
And to be honest, there were
moments when I was concerned for
your physical and emotional
well-being, and I think there
were others who were also
concerned, and we'll talk about
that. But one of the questions
that I think we need to get out
of the way first and foremost,
is why did you feel the need to
write this book at this time?
>> Clint Smith:
Yeah. Well, thank you all so
much for, for coming.
This is a very surreal
experience for me.
I lived for for many years on
the corner of ninth and zero,
and this area looked very
different. But I came to this
event as a--as a--as an audience
member for so many years, just
kind of stumbling out of my
apartment and like what's going
on down the street. And so to
be here on the other side is is
a real treat. And I appreciate
you all coming to spend your
Saturday thinking about books
and literature.
And it's--it's really, really
wonderful.
And I appreciate you so much.
This book began in some ways,
it began in 2017 when I was
watching several Confederate
statues come down in my hometown
in New Orleans, statues of
Beauregard, Jefferson Davis,
Robert E Lee. And as I was
watching these statues come
down, I was thinking about what
it meant that I grew up in a
majority black city in which
there were more homages to
enslavers than there were to
enslaved people.
And what are the implications
of that?
What does it mean that to get
to school, I had to go down
Robert Lee Boulevard?
To get to the grocery store
I had to go down Jefferson
Davis Parkway. That my middle
school was named after a leader
of the Confederacy, that my
parents still live on a street
today named after someone who
owned over 150 enslaved people.
Because the thing is, symbols
and names and iconography aren't
just symbols. They're
reflective of the stories that
people tell. And those stories
shape the narratives that
communities carry. And those
narratives shape public policy,
and public policy shapes the
material conditions of people's
lives. Which isn't to say that
if you just take a 60 foot tall
statue of Robert E Lee down,
you suddenly erase the racial
wealth gap. But it does help us
recognize the sort of ecosystem
of ideas and stories and
narratives that help shape
American history and better
provide us with the context to
understand the way that certain
communities have been
intentionally and
disproportionately harmed
throughout American history.
And so I was looking around New
Orleans and I was trying to get
a sense of what are the places
that tell the story?
Well, what are the places
and people who are--
who maybe should tell the
story better than they do?
And I-- part of it is that I
realized that at a moment where
I realized that New Orleans was
at one point the largest and
busiest slave market in the
United States.
And I hadn't realized I didn't
know anything about the history
of slavery in New Orleans in
any way that was commensurate
with the impact or legacy that
it had on my city or my state,
on my country. And so I started
looking around New Orleans and
thinking about something, a
book that a professor of mine
wrote. Walter--Walter Johnson
wrote this incredible book
called Soul by Soul about the
history of the slave trade in
New Orleans. And he has this
line at the beginning of the
book where he says the whole
city is a memorial to slavery.
It's on the roads enslaved
people paved, it's in the
buildings enslaved people
constructed, it's in the soil
enslaved people are buried in,
it's in the levees enslaved
people built, and--
And I was thinking about that
and I was thinking about, well,
okay, I wonder what this looks
like in New Orleans, but also
wonder what this looks like
across the country.
So I traveled across the
country, went to monuments,
memorials, plantations,
prisons, cemeteries,
neighborhoods, cities, to try to
get a sense of what are the
places that are telling the
story honestly?
What are the places that are
running from this story, and what
are the places that are kind of
doing something in between?
And all of this was really
oriented around the fact that I--
you know Toni Morrison has this old
adage that so many of us are
familiar with, where it's like
if there's a book that wants to
be written-- that if there's a
book you want to read that
hasn't been written yet, then
you need to be the one to write it.
And I wanted to write the
sort of book that I felt like I
needed when I was like a 15 or
16 year old kid who was looking
around New Orleans and being
inundated with these messages
about all the things that were
wrong with black people in New
Orleans, and the reason that we
were in a community saturated
with violence and poverty.
And I remember feeling of not
having the language.
I remember the feeling of not
having the intellectual or
historical framework with which
to push back against so much of
the pathology that we were
being inundated with.
And it wasn't until so much
later in my life that I started
getting that information right
when I went to grad school and
started reading some of these
seminal sociological and
historical texts that provided
me with language that was really
emancipating, and really freeing,
and gave me an understanding of
you know, the reason one part
of New Orleans looks one way and
another part of New Orleans
looks another way is not simply
because of the people in those
communities, but because of
what's been done to those
communities over the course of
generations and generations and
generations.
And so I--I wanted to write the
sort of book that I thought
would have been helpful for me.
You know, I have been a high
school teacher.
I wanted to write the sort of
book that would've been helpful
for my students. And, uh,
and that was the sort
of North Star of the
project in many ways.
>> Frederick Wherry: And one of the things that you
also do in this book is you turn
to the dead. You go to the
Blanford cemetery where the
Confederate soldiers are
buried.
And I want you to talk to us a
little bit about that decision.
So why did you feel the need to
go there?
And what was that like for you?
>> Clint Smith:
Yeah, it's--it's interesting.
I mean, one of the reasons I
liked writing this book so much
is that it surprised me often.
So I didn't write in my book
proposal, like I'm going to go
spend the day with sons, the
members of the Sons of Confederate
veterans. My--my wife wouldn't
have liked that.[Laughing]
I was actually you know, you
set out and you're like, you
have an idea of all the
different places you're going to
go for your for your project.
And I actually went that day to
I went to Petersburg, Virginia,
because I thought I was going
to do a chapter on Civil War
battlefields. And this was the
site of the siege of Petersburg
at the end of the Civil War,
the thing that really sort of
hammered down the sort of the
end and the fall of the
Confederacy in so many ways.
And I went to this battlefield
and it was fascinating.
It was interesting, but it
didn't have the the sort of
thing that I was looking for.
But I was in conversation with
one of the national park rangers
there, and I was telling him
about my project and he was
like, Oh, you should go to that
Confederate cemetery down the
street. And I was like,
No, sir, I'm not going to
go to that Confederate
cemetery down the street.
And so that's the interesting
thing about being a writer, is
that like there's like regular
Clint, and then there's writer
Clint. So regular Clint is
like, no, I'm getting back in my
car, I'm going back home.
And then the writer Clint, it's
like the two little things on
your shoulder. It's like
regular Clint and writer Clint.
writer Clint's like, go, go to
the Confederacy.
And regular Clinton is like,
That's terrible advice.
Don't ever do that. But--but as
a writer, it was clear that this
is where the story was taking
me.
And so I went to the--to the--to
the cemetery.
And as I writing about the
book, it was this sort of
bizarre experience where I was
walking around and getting a
tour through this chapel in the
middle of one of the largest
Confederate cemeteries in the
country. And the word
Confederacy wasn't said once or
it's slavery wasn't said once.
They were talking about the
beauty of the windows and how
the windows were made and the
construction of the church and
the specific bricks they used.
And it was such a conspicuous
absence.
And I remember going into the
visitor center after, and talking
to the director of the center,
and on the--on the desk in the
visitor center was were these
sets of fliers, like a pile of
flyers--flyers that said Sons
of Confederate Veterans holding
their Memorial Day, their
annual Memorial Day celebration.
And I was like, what is that
over there?
And she, like, put her hand on
it immediately and like flipped
it over. And she was like, I
don't know what that is.
I've never--I've never seen that
before.
Like, that's-- and I was like,
Ma'am, you are the director of
this site. Like, what do you mean
you have never seen it before?
She was like, I don't even know
what they're talking about.
Like-- and I was like, okay,
well, this is where the story is
taking me too. So then a couple
of weeks later, I came back and
I had-- had to ask permission
from my wife to go to spend the
day with the members of the
Sons of Confederate Veterans.
And she was like,
As long as you bring
Billy, and Billy is a
friend and he is white.
And so I was like, Billy,
you got to come. [Laughing]
And he--and he--and he's like,
very generous.
I'm the best man in his wedding
in two weeks.
And he, uh, but he's also been on
his own journey of sort of like
thinking about his, his own
relationship, his own family's
relationship to this history,
because he has family members
who were in the Confederacy.
So-- but to get to the event, you
know, I remember going there.
And it was so, such an
unsettling event.
And, but it was also so
clarifying, because you realize
that for so many people,
history is not about primary
source documents or empirical
evidence.
It's a story that they're told
and it's a story that they tell.
It's an heirloom that's passed
down across generations.
It's something where loyalty
takes precedence over truth.
I always remember a
conversation that I had with a
guy named Jeff, and Jeff had
this long salt and pepper
ponytail, handlebar mustache,
round belly, this biker vest
with Confederate paraphernalia
all over it.
And he was telling me the story
about how they like, when he was
a kid, his grandfather used to
bring him to the cemetery and
they would sit in this
beautiful gazebo at the center
of the cemetery, and his
grandfather would play his banjo
and sing the old Dixie anthem.
And they would watch the sun
set behind the trees and watch
as the fireflies came out of
the woods at night and watched
the deer graze around the
tombstones.
And his grandfather would tell
him the story.
The men who were buried in this
land, he would say, These men
didn't fight a war over
slavery. These men were racists.
These men were fighting a war
to protect their family, to
protect their country, to
protect their--their land, their
their home, their way of life.
And now he, Jeff, told me that he
now brings his granddaughters to
the same cemetery and sings the
same songs with them, that his
grandfather sang with him, and
tells the same stories to his
grandchildren that his
grandfather told to him.
And so the thing is, if I went
to Jeff and I was like, well,
Jeff, I know that your
grandfather told you that the
people buried here and what
they fought for had nothing to
do with slavery or that
secession had nothing to do with
slavery. But if you look at all
the primary source evidence that
we have, it's very clear what
this is about.
If you look at the declarations
of Confederate secession, for
example, in 1861, a state like
Mississippi says, our position
is thoroughly identified with
the institution of slavery, the
greatest material interest in
the world.
So they're not vague about why
they're seceding from the union.
They're quite clear about it.
But to ask Jeff to accept that
would mean that he would have to
accept that his grandfather was
lying to him.
And if he has to accept that
his grandfather was lying to
him, it threatens.
He has to accept.
Think about all the other
stories that he has been told by
this man or by people he loves
that may not be true, and that
threatens to sort of crumble the
foundation upon which his
relationship with these people
is built. So not only is-- are
you asking somebody like Jeff to
do a sort of reassessment of
American history that might be
inconvenient. It represents
like an existential crisis, a
sense of their identity being
stripped away from them.
And I think that that's an
important part of this
conversation, you know, as we have
this talk about like critical race
theory, and the history wars, and
people struggling to accept the
sort of more holistic story of
America that we are beginning to
tell. Part of it is because
it's there's a lot of fear, right?
And there's a lot of interior fear
where people's sense of self is
so deeply tied to a story that
they have been told by people
they love. And when they are
told that--that story is
incorrect, so much of their
sense of self begins to crumble.
>> Frederick Wherry:
Yeah. I'm reminded of a dear
aunt that I, you know, she
recently passed, but she would
go to funerals.
And one of the things that she
did that she should not have
done, is she would loudly
comment on both the obituary,
items that she thought weren't
true, because she knew about the
moral failings of
all these people,
and she would also comment on
the quality of the casket.
Okay. And so part of what I
hear from you is it feels as if
you're that--you're that auntie
who is saying, I know you lost
your grandfather and your great
great grandfather and you love
all these people. And-- but there
are things in this obituary and
there are things that are
happening right now in the
eulogy that simply aren't true.
And so how do you go and tell
someone who is in mourning,
and I think there's a
collective mourning, historical
collective mourning, about
things that are lost and people
lost. And how do you tell them,
sorry, that eulogy that you just
heard that gave you so much
comfort, it should have included
information about how sometimes
some of these folks were--were
monstrous, or they were at least
supporting a monstrous institution.
How do you do that?
Yeah. That-- what your aunt did
sounds strangely inappropriate,
but she also sounds
like a lot of fun. [Laughing]
So, I-- I, uh,
But, you know, for me, in the
context of this book, I was not
interested in challenging the
folks in that moment in time.
I didn't want to approach this
moment or like I didn't want to
go to members of the Sons of
Confederate Veterans and United
Daughters of the Confederacy
and do a sort of like Daily Show
thing where I like,
try to make them look
ridiculous or sort of
create caricatures of them.
I think there's a role for that
sort of thing is not to--not to
speak ill of that. But part of
what I was interested in was
like understanding what they
believed was the truth.
And that could only happen if I
approached them with a certain
level of generosity that was
difficult to maintain sometimes.
Right? But if I knew that if I
were at all antagonistic, I knew
that if I tried to challenge
them in the moment, I knew that
if I tried to say what they-- ask
them, what they believe,
And then when they told me, say
that what they believe was
wrong, they would either shut
down or--or you know, and I was
thinking about my safety. I was
thinking about all sorts of
things. What I was more
interested in was trying to
understand the essence of what
they believed.
Because I also
think that it's so easy
to turn folks like
that into caricatures.
It's so easy to turn
them into sort of
two-dimensional
renderings of themselves.
And the thing that we have to
grapple with collectively, is
that these are not caricatures
of people.
These are people who go to the
grocery store
we go to, they go to the same
post office we go to.
They take their kids to the
same soccer games.
Right? And so these are not people who
exist in like a far-off distant land.
So many of them are part of our
worlds and communities in ways
that we may or may not be
cognizant of.
And I think it felt
really important to--to
convey that three
dimensionality, right?
That for Jeff, this is not just
about like the sort of
undergirding beliefs might
support racism and white
supremacy and that certainly is
a part of it.
But it also is about the way
that he feels about his
grandfather. It's also about
the sort of tradition that he
wants to pass on to his
grandchildren. And I think we
have to hold the totality of
that not to--not as an excuse for
it, but as a recognition that
the way that people come to
these beliefs is far more
complicated than we can
often-- than we are
often led to believe.
And so, I, uh, yeah, part of what I'm
trying to do in the book is that
I have these conversations with
these folks and then I let the
primary source documents, I let
the history itself sort of be
the rebuttal. And so in that
moment, I had, you know, I was
just thinking about, well, who
is my audience?
My audience is not-- I'm not
trying to convince these people
to believe in something that is
so deeply entrenched within
them. I'm interested in both
for myself and for the reader,
sort of laying out the--the
dissonance that exists between
what these people believe and
then what the empirical evidence
before us shows and
demonstrates and how like time
and time again, you know, the
talking point from a member of
the Confederate veterans is
revealed to be false by the
evidence that we have from--from
the range of of historical
documents we have at hand.
>> Frederick Wherry:
And I'm going to stay on this
theme, right, because there's
Richard Poplar, who becomes
known as the black Confederate
soldier. And as you're thinking
about-- and you do this very well
in the book, how we have these
public characters, they narrow--
that they populate our
histories and they-- and they do
work. They--they
tell us who we are.
They somehow justify things
we've done.
And they also tell us things
that we ought to do.
Right. And so talk to us a
little bit about Richard Poplar.
>> Clint Smith:
Yeah. So Richard Poplar, at the
Blanford cemetery, there was a
grave, a gravestone for Richard
Poplar, and he was, the mythology
around him is that they believe
that he was a member, he was a
Confederate soldier.
Right. And so he is
sort of lifted up as
this great example.
He's sort of wielded as--as a--as
a tool to demonstrate to people
who they believe are of bad
faith, that the war was very
clearly not about racism.
The war was clearly not about
racism.
Because, look, here is this
black person, this black soldier
who fought for the Confederacy.
In reality, Richard Poplar was
not a soldier.
Richard Poplar was a cook, and
he was a sort of servant.
And he was among many enslaved
people who were forced to be
servants and cooks and work on
behalf of the Confederate Army
because they were enslaved.
Right. And so
it's--it's--it's so bizarre.
But it's also even-- makes the
whole thing even more insidious
that you would use a person who
was forced to work on behalf.
Of a cause that was fighting to
keep them enslaved and then
suggest that this person was,
is an example of how this war could
not have been over such a
thing, even though it very
clearly, the very reason that
they were participating in it
was because they had no other
choice.
And so, there's a great
book by Kevin Levin
about the--the myth of
the Black Confederates.
I encourage everybody to--to
read it and spend some time with
it. But it's something that
exists in Confederate sort of
neo-Confederate circles.
You know, you'll often see it
like on social media, on Facebook.
There will be like, oh, this
day, you know, whether it's
Richard Poplar or someone else
in a different state, they will
sort of lift it up as--
especially over the last few
years in the midst of the Black
Lives Matter movement as a sort
of like, hey, look like this.
This isn't about what you all
say
it's about, this is actually
like, how could this black
person fight for the
Confederacy if this was really
about slavery?
And like I said, it just--it--it
leaves a really nasty taste in
your mouth because it makes the
whole thing even more egregious.
>> Frederick Wherry:
And speaking of egregious, let's
talk about the children.
So you do it so beautifully in
the book that I'm going to ask
that you turn to page 61 at the
bottom and continue on into the
paragraph at the top of 62.
So, it's reading time.
>> Clint Smith:
This is--this is, uh,
This is from the chapter on the
Whitney Plantation.
Inside the church were two rows
of wooden pews separated by
hexagonal white columns.
Scattered throughout the
church's interior.
Standing next to the pews,
sitting on the floor, hiding in
the corners, were several
hand-carved statuettes.
There were more than two dozen
life sized clay sculptures of
small children, each one so
alive, despite its inanimate-ness,
intrinsically detailed
from the contours of their lips
to the bridges of their nose.
My heart jumped out when I
heard the--when I turned the
corner and saw them.
Because just for a moment, I
thought they were real, real
children. The clothing was
simple and sparse.
The boys were wearing pairs of
oversized overalls, though some
were only shorts leaving their
chest exposed.
Some wore wearing bucket hats
that sat just above their eyes.
Girls were wearing simple
dresses, some of them with their
hair wrapped underneath cloths
tied around their heads, and
others with small locks falling
down their forehead.
Their eyes were hollow and
tender. Rays of light shot
through the gothic windows of
the church and fell directly on
to the figurines as if they were
wearing the sunlight as a shell.
>> Frederick Wherry:
So. You're a father, and you walk
in and you see this reminder of
the totality of what slavery
was for families.
How did-- what did you do and
feel in that moment?
>> Clint Smith:
Yeah, I started this book.
I have a--I have a five year old
boy and a three year old girl.
And when I was writing this, my,
when I began the book, we had
just started in 2017, the same
year my son was born.
And it's interesting because I
think the way that I previously
understood slavery and the
thing that would come to mind
when I thought about it for so
many years was--was sort of
singularly in the context of
its physical brutality, this
sort of spectacle of physical
cruelty.
And I think that's in part
because that is the image or the
idea that we have been kind of
inundated with.
When we think of when we are
meant to understand the violence
of the institution, you know, we think
about the famous scene in Roots
where Toby is being beaten
until he, or Kunta Kinte, rather,
is being beaten until he says
that his name is Toby.
And there are all sorts of
different examples like that.
And for some reason, for so
long, I didn't think of it in
terms of family separation, or
the impact that families would
have it. But that changed a lot
when I had my own children and
as I, you know, as our family
was growing while I was working
on this project, I always
remember being at the Whitney,
and this moment of standing
inside one of the original slave
cabins on the plantation.
And I you know, these spaces
for me, part of the power of
this project and part of the
reason I was drawn to it was
because I believe so deeply in
the power of putting your body
in the physical spaces where
history happened.
And so I was standing in the
slave cabin and I sort of closed
my eyes, and I just imagined
what it would be like if I--if I
went to--I went to bed.
With my kids, my wife, and that
I woke up, and my children were
gone and I had no idea where
they went.
I had no idea who had taken
them.
I had no idea if I would ever
see them again.
And then you have this moment
where you realize that this was
the omnipresent threat
that hung over millions and
millions of enslaved people
every single moment of their
lives.
Right. The idea that at any
moment,
you could be separated and
stripped away from the people
you love most. From your
spouse, from your children, from
your parents, from your
neighbors, from your community,
from your brother, from your
sister. And--and I hadn't thought
about the sort of psychological
terror that imposes because I
write about this in the
chapter, like, for so many
years, you know, I was like, I
remember, I remember being a kid
in class. And when whenever
they taught us about slavery,
me, along with so many kids in
my class, would be like, I would
never let that happen to me.
Like, I would run away. Like I
would, you know?
And that happens in part
because so many of the stories
we're told about slavery are
from the perspective of people
who did run away. Right. The
stories and the two most famous
enslaved people in American
history are Frederick Douglass
and Harriet Tubman, in part
because we're so inspired by
their journey. But also what
can happen is that that can
inadvertently give us a
distorted sense of what life was
like for the vast majority of
enslaved people.
The vast majority of enslaved
people did not escape.
The vast majority of enslaved
people did not learn to read and
write. The vast majority of
enslaved people did not become
ardent famous abolitionists.
The vast majority of enslaved
people were in places where they
were subjected to a consistent
terror of psychological and
physical terror that is
difficult for any of us to
fathom. And we're just people.
We're just ordinary human
beings, as we all are, just
trying to make a meaningful
life amid unfathomable
circumstances. And part of what
prevented so many people from
even entertaining the idea of
running away, even if they had
the physical ability to do it
themselves, was the fact that
even if they got away, they
know, they knew that the
consequences, if they couldn't
be enacted on them and their
body themselves, that they
would be enacted on the people
they left behind. And so it's
not just a question of like, why
didn't this person run away?
Or like, if I could have run
away, I would have.
Because the the insidiousness
of the institution is that
there's a sort of collective
punishment that can be enacted
on any person at any given
time.
So I just--I, you know, I try to
imagine what it would be like to
be separated from my children
in such a fashion, or to even
fear that that could happen,
like every day that I woke up.
And it, I couldn't even finish
the thought exercise fully
because it was so viscerally
upsetting, but that, that was
such a huge and enormous part of
what slavery was. That was such
a huge and enormous part of
what--what it did.
I mean, 25% of enslaved people
in interstate sales were--were
separated from--from their
families.
Right? And the numbers and
that's--that's just the numbers.
We know some historians
estimate that it was upwards of
50% of people who were enslaved
were separated from their
families. And it's just and you
see this you see the--the ads
that they put in papers after
the end of the Civil War, where,
like across the south, people
are putting these ads.
Black people who were formerly
enslaved are putting these ads
in the paper where they're
saying, like, I haven't seen my
husband in 25 years, but he was
sold to this plantation in
Mississippi. He has a scar
under his right eye.
He has a birthmark on his left
cheek.
And if you, if you know him, you
know, we called him Will.
And, you know, it's just people
who are looking for their loved
ones after not seeing them for,
for decades.
And it really demonstrates how
central that was to--to the
institution being able to
operate in the way that it did.
>> Frederick Wherry:
And now my last question, so
that we can open it up to the
room. You learn things from
school children in Senegal about
why it's important to pass the
word and to pass it along.
Right. So could you share some
of their lessons and reasonings
for the importance of telling
the full history of slavery?
>> Clint Smith:
Yeah, one of the--one of the ways
that I sort of moved through the
book is I'm traveling across
the country in the original
impetus of the book was to
travel across America to all of
these different places that had
a relationships to the history
of slavery. And I--as I kind of
did that, I realized that I was
becoming increasingly
interested in trying to get a
sense of how the story of
slavery was told, not only here
in the United States, but also
where it originated.
Right. Like, how is the story
of slavery told from the place
where captured Africans were
brought across the ocean into
the new world? So I spent some
time in college studying abroad
in Senegal, and so I was
familiar with the country and
had spent some time there and
had a really powerful experience
that changed my life when I was
there for several months.
And I went back to Senegal.
I went back to Dakar, this time
with the specific intention to
go to some of these sites, for
example, like Goree Island, that
have a specific relationship to
the history of slavery, to try
to get a sense of, well, how
are schoolchildren in, in Senegal
taught about the history of the
slave trade?
How are they taught about the--
you know, their ancestors?
Or it wouldn't be their
ancestors, because if they had
been their ancestors, they
would be in the United States.
But how are they taught about
the members of their ancestral
community who were--who were
taken away and shipped to these
places that no one could have,
could have imagined?
And I encountered in my journey
these these this brilliant group
of young women who were at an
all girls boarding school on
Goree Island, where tens of
thousands of enslaved people had
been sent in--in the midst of
the, of the slave trade.
And they just had such a
sophisticated understanding of
the relationship between
colonialism and slavery.
And--and, you know, we're--we're
speaking to the ways that some
of the same ideas that
undergirded and justified a
history of colonialism, sort of
further taken to their logical
conclusion, justified the slave
trade.
And they were
sort of using all of
this, you know,
their intellect, to--to
push back against so much of
the--that insidious philosophy
and so many of these ideas.
And part of it was a-- I was so
moved by the fact that they had
such a clear sense of their own
identity and a clear sense of
the--the work that, how difficult
it is for a country that had
been colonized until the 1960s,
to sort of begin to strip it--
and take it-- the strip itself away
from the story that Europeans
had told them about themselves,
to begin to tell a story that
is grounded in their own
history, separate from the
history that was imposed on
them. And it just, you know,
these are like 16 year old young
girls. And it just, you know,
when I was 16, all I thought
about was like soccer and
quesadillas.
And so, you know, these girls
out here, you know, challenging
the ideas of Voltaire were were,
were really powerful and I think
were represented--
It was an important part of the
book to include for me because I
really wanted to--to make sure
we were telling the story in its
totality, which is not to say
that, like what these girls
believe is representative of
all West African children, but I
think it was an important
insight into a part of the story
that we don't always consider.
Right? Like we think about
like, well, how are black
children in the United States
or children in the United States
writ large? How are they taught
about the history of slavery and
how it shaped the United
States? And it's-- I don't know
that we often consider how
children in West Africa are
taught about a phenomenon that
stripped away tens of millions
of people from--from that
country and the impact of the
sort of social, economic and
cultural implications
that--that has.
>> Frederick Wherry:
So now, we have microphones here
at the front of the room.
Come up with your,
your questions or comments.
And I see someone here.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
Hello. Thank you.
Great talk. Your conversation.
Wonderful book. First of all, I
just want to point out that I
think the National Book
Festival took a little page from
your book, rather your cover
with regards to the design.
>> Clint Smith:
I noticed that, too.
I was like, you know, it's, uh, I
was just going to let it slide
for now.
[Laughing]
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
So my--my question is, so you
mentioned that you wanted to
write this book--type of book
that you wanted to read as a
teenager. And I like, that's
such a-- I also wish I had read
this when I was a younger
person. And I'm wondering, I
know that, like right after you
finish this book, pandemic shut
down everything. But I wonder
if you've had the opportunity to
be able to speak to sort of
young people who've read your
book and sort of what they've
thought about the book.
And then I've always wondered
this about authors who interview
random people. If any of them
have come to you after the book,
like has has Jeff or Jim
approached you and just sort of
had stuff, stuff to say?
>> Clint Smith: Yeah. Jeff
is not-- I'm sure I'm on like
some Confederate message boards
somewhere and they're like
talking trash, but, um.
So to answer the first part.
I--I've done a lot of virtual,
know book came out in June 2021
and so I was doing, I did
probably a virtual event like
every-- five days a week for like
a year and was in the--it was as
difficult as it was not to be
in rooms like this.
Right, to be in rooms with
readers. I think in some ways I
got to reach more people or be
in conversation with more people
because I was just in my
office.
I like came upstairs, I like
finished my ham and cheese
sandwich. And then I talked to
a class or I talked to a
university I talked to, um, and
there was a really cool moment,
a kind of full circle moment
where I--I've had a couple of
them were my students at my old
high school were assigned the
book and I sort of zoomed in
and talked to them.
And so I could see I could
literally see these like 16 year
old versions of myself in the
same desk that I once sat in
reading, having my book
assigned in their American
history class. And that was an
incredible moment.
And I just got back from, I'm an
alum of Davidson College, and my
book was selected as the Common
Read for the Freshman this year.
And so I just got back from
Davidson last week talking to an
auditorium full of freshmen and
sitting in the same seats that I
once sat in. And--and so I've
had many moments like that that
have felt very full circle for
me.
Like I was thinking
about the freshman
Clint, who was
sitting in, at Davidson.
I was thinking about 15 year
old Clint, who was sitting at
Ben Franklin High School in New
Orleans.
And that's been, that's
been really special.
And in terms of people who were
in the book, I mean, it's
interesting because like when
you tell people in 2017, 18, 19,
when I was telling people, I'm
working on this book and they,
you know, I think most people
are like, Oh, that's so cute.
You know, they're like, that's
that's very sweet.
You're working on a book. And
then it came out and I think
they were like, Oh, that I
didn't know.
I think it's different for them
to see their names in it and to
like hear people discuss them
like on, you know, like when I'm
on MSNBC and somebody like so
David and your Monticello chat,
you know. So like I've been in
touch with David from
Monticello, I've been in touch
with--I'm always in touch with
the folks at Whitney Plantation
and try to support a lot of
their work, to
mayors in New York.
I've not heard from the people
who--whose works, whose like
renderings of their, their
history, uh,
I was challenging.
I've not heard from the
members of the Sons
of Confederate veterans.
I have heard from Angola, who
is--who are telling me that they
are sort of in the process of
reimagining how they tell the
story of themselves.
It remains to be seen, because
if you go on Angola's--the Angola
Museum website, they still
have.
We didn't get a chance to talk
about Angola, but like Angola is
a bizarre place in so many
ways, in part because it is the
largest maximum security prison
in the country built on top of a
former plantation where the
vast majority of people are
black men serving life
sentences. But it also has a
gift shop at the entrance of
it.
And in the gift shop you can
buy coffee mugs and shot glasses
and stuffed bears dressed in
prison garb.
And on one of the coffee mugs
there is the silhouette of a
watchtower. And above and below
the watchtower it says Angola, a
gated community, as if to make
a mockery of the thousands of
people who are incarcerated
there.
And so, they, they have told me
that, like, I know they've read
the book and they're telling me
all the things that they're
doing to change. But I like I
think if you still as of last
time I checked, if you still if
you Google Angola Prison Museum
or like the gift shop offerings
will come up.
And I think they still have so
many of those things.
So, you know, it's a journey
for everyone.
But, but I hope that this book, I
am heartened that it is
something that is pushing
people to think, you know,
reconsider the way that
they do their work at all.
>> Frederick Wherry:
And now we're going to take
three questions at once.
>> Clint Smith:
I'm going to do-- I'm so long
winded.
I need to do better. I know
I'm going to--I'm
going to--let's try
to get as many as
we can. I'm going to try to
like speed.
>> Frederick Wherry:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because they're telling me we
have 5 minutes.
All right, let's. Okay, this
we're going to do four quick
questions. Left-- right, left,
right, left.
And then you're going to pick
from those. And you can just
answer however you can, and
then we'll see how we do.
All right. I've done this
before at work, sort of. Okay.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
So I teach fourth and fifth
grade advanced academics in
Virginia. And Virginia happens
to be the year where they learn
extensively about Virginia
history.
And so, you know,
in teaching Virginia
history, I use our textbook. and
Ibram X Kendi's Stamped for
Kids alongside.
So my question is, what I really
loved about how the word is
passed. It's like you said, you
physically standing in the
spaces where history happened.
And I think that uniquely lends
itself to that introduction in
upper elementary school to
American history.
So my question is, is there a
young adult version in the
works? Could there be?
What are your thoughts on that?
>> Frederick Wherry:
Left.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
I feel like this question
is so different from that.
So about the writing process.
I know that there are so many
parts of this book that are
moving and beautifully told.
And before this, you wrote a
book of poetry.
What was that shift like to go
from poetry to a work of
nonfiction in terms of style,
tone, and finding like the voice
of this book in comparison to
your poetic voice?
>> Frederick Wherry:
Right.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
That was exactly my
question. [Laughter]
>> Frederick Wherry:
Oh. Perfect. Left. Yes.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
You have partially answered
my question already responding
to others. But I was profoundly
shocked reading your book,
how much as a, what I consider
educated person,
I did not know, particularly
the Angola chapter and the basic
replacement of slavery with
prison labor.
And I would like to know how we
as a society can get beyond just
not knowing basic
things of our history.
>> Frederick Wherry:
Right. Right. And then the last
word. Yes.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Thank you
for your work. It's so powerful.
As a policy researcher, we
don't write like that.
And I know you mentioned
narrative and ideas.
Being in an ecosystem with
public policy, how can we
strengthen our work and learn
from the--the way that you write
to be more effective in policy
making?
>> Frederick Wherry:
And our last question.
>> MEMBER OF AUDIENCE:
Hi. I'm an English teacher in
Northern Virginia, and I
actually teach Counting
Dissent.
And in Virginia recently,
there's been a very, um.
[Laughing]
Governor Glenn Youngkin has set
up a tip line where parents and
students can report teachers
for teaching divisive content.
And of course, it's up to the
students and the parents to
decide what that is.
So I was wondering if you had
any advice for educators who,
like me, want to teach your
work.
>> Frederick Wherry: All right.
The last word in a minute or so.
>> Clint Smith:
Is there a Y.A.
version? We'll see.
We'll see. We are in
conversations about it now.
I wasn't thinking about doing a
YA version or middle grade
version, but I've had so many
teachers come up to me and ask
me about it. I--we'll see.
We'll see. I was--I think a year
ago, I would have been like, no,
definitely not. And I think I'm
being softened by all of the all
of the requests. But we'll see.
We'll see. [Applause]
What I do is
I have this course
I do online on
YouTube called Crash Course
Black American History, some of
you might be familiar with.
And it is the sort of 12 to 15
minute videos that are like
partially animated, that are
talking about different parts of
black American history. And
that is what I feel like is my
very direct contribution to
classrooms and teachers and
trying to find new ways to to
bring those histories in
different forms to--to young
people.
What in terms of the style of
the book?
I mean, poetry is my North Star.
It's in everything I do.
I came up as a writer, as a
poet.
I don't know how to write
without thinking of it as poetry
in so many ways. And for me,
this book, I wanted to write a
sort of book that allowed me to
write, write in ways that felt
like it was doing justice to my
different sort of literary
sensibilities, both as a--as a
poet, as a journalist, as a
scholar, as somebody who loves
fiction and novels, I wanted to
create a history book that felt
novelistic.
And so, you know, poetry is what
taught me how to write.
And I don't know how to write
without that being a part of
that conversation. Um, policy.
I mean, I think that--I don't
think that policy writers should
necessarily write like me.
I think that I rely on so many
white papers that I read from
different policy places.
I think the most important
thing is just always grounding
it in the human story and
making sure that we are like
grounding it in humanity and
empathy, regardless of the form
it takes on. And then there was
one-- advice, there's was the last
one because they're saying,
wrap it up.
The-- part of it's hard to
operate well with bad faith
actors, but I think one of the
most important things to do is
make sure that your students
and their parents understand the
difference between trying to
indoctrinate them and just
trying to teach them like a
full, honest version of this
history. And that's hard
because, you know, people's
sense of what that is and what
that looks like has been so
distorted and weaponized.
But I think, you know, when we
talk about our founding fathers,
when we talk about this
country, it's not that we're
trying to indoctrinate people
with a particular set of
ideological messages or ideas.
It's just that we're trying to
tell a story that reflects the
totality of this country in all
of its complexity.
>> Frederick Wherry:
So for the revival and the
passing of the word we, thank
you. Thank you so much.
[Applause]
>> Clint Smith:
Thank you all for coming.