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Connections Out
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from this node by:
Artificial Intelligence
Network Node
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Name:
Clint Smith
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City/Place:
Maryland
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
New Orleans, Louisiana
Current News
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What's Up?
HOW THE WORD IS PASSED: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America
Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves.
It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned maximum security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.
In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country’s most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted.
Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark work of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be.
Life & Work
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Bio:
Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, and the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.
Clint has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New America, the Emerson Collective, the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, the Harvard Educational Review, and elsewhere. He is a 2014 National Poetry Slam champion and a 2017 recipient of the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from the American Poetry Review.
Previously, Clint taught high school English in Prince George’s County, Maryland where, in 2013, he was named the Christine D. Sarbanes Teacher of the Year by the Maryland Humanities Council. He currently teaches writing and literature in the D.C. Central Detention Facility. He is also the host of the YouTube series Crash Course Black American History.
Clint received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. Born and raised in New Orleans, he currently lives in Maryland with his wife and their two children.
Contact Information
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Contact by Webpage:
http://www.clintsmithiii.com/contact
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Management/Booking:
To book Clint for a reading, lecture, workshop, panel, or other commissioned work, contact:
Tabia Yapp at Beotis Creative:
www.beotis.com/contact
For book related inquiries, please contact Alia Hanna Habib at The Gernert Company:
[email protected]
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
HOW THE WORD IS PASSED
“Sketches an impressive and deeply affecting human cartography of America’s historical conscience…an extraordinary contribution to the way we understand ourselves.” —New York Times Book Review
“The summer’s most visionary work of nonfiction” —Esquire
“[A] history of slavery in this country unlike anything you’ve read before.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A work of moral force and humility” —Matthew Desmond
“The detail and depth of the storytelling is vivid and visceral, making history present and real…Smith deftly connects the past, hiding in plain sight, with today's lingering effects.” —NPR
“[A] richly provocative read” —Bookpage
“Both an honoring and an exposé of slavery’s legacy in America” —The Root
“[A] brilliant, vital work” — Kirkus
“Bringing the past into light with lyrical mastery.” —Buzzfeed
“An essential consideration of how America’s past informs its present." —Publishers Weekly
“A beautifully written, evocative, and timely meditation” —Annette Gordon-Reed
“[A] powerful and diligent exploration” —Booklist
“An eminently readable, thought-provoking volume” —Washington Post
“Enthralling and engaging” —Boston Globe
“Every high school senior in the country should have a copy of How the Word is Passed,” —Lit Hub
“This is a brave and important book that needed to be written and demands to be read.” —Seattle Times
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