
Today we are joined by Clint Smith author of How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. Clint is also a staff writer at The Atlantic and the poet behind Counting Descent. We talk about how Clint’s poetry informs his nonfiction writing, the capacity to be surprised, and the recency of slavery.
The Stacks Book Club selection for June is The Undying by Anne Boyer. We will discuss the book with Mychal Denzel Smith on Wednesday June 30th.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find everything we talked about on Amazon.
- How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith
- The Atlantic
- Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello (Charlottesville, VA)
- Angola Penitentiary (West Feliciana Parish, LA)
- Blandford Cemetery (Petersburg, VA)
- The Whitney Plantation (Wallace, LA)
- Robert E. Lee
- P. G. T. Beauregard
- Jefferson Davis

- The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
- Harriet Tubman
- Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight
- The Complete Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass
- The Federal Writer’s Project — Slave Narratives
- “Stories of slavery, from those who survived it” (Clint Smith, The Atlantic)
- Olaudah Equiano
- National Museum of African American History and Culture (Washington DC)
- The 1619 Project (The New York Times)
- The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
- Halley’s Comet
- Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
- The Second by Carol Anderson
- Hamilton (Lin Manuel Miranda)
- Ancestry.com
- 23 and Me
- Finding Your Roots (PBS)
- Henry “Skip” Louis Gates Jr.
- Alexander H. Stephens
- Alexander H. Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech (March 21, 1861)
- John C. Calhoun
- Ulrich B. Philips
- Dennis Green “They are who we thought they were…” (Youtube.com)
- Counting Descent by Clint Smith
- Snoo
- Baby Bjorn
- Solly Baby Wrap
- Imani Perry
- Sesame Street (PBS)
- Stephen Curry
- Davidson College
- Riley Curry Press Conference
- Sonya Curry
- Callie Rivers Curry
- Damion Lee
- Sydel Curry-Lee
- Austin Rivers
- Seth Curry
- Doc Rivers
- Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
- Ayesha Curry
- Arsenal FC
- Thierry Henry
- Arsène Wenger
- Manchester City FC
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
- AFC Bournemouth
- Crystal Palace FC
- Watford FC
- All or Nothing: Manchester City (Amazon)
- Pep Guardiola
- Phil Foden
- Raheem Sterling
- Kevin De Bruyne
- Vincent Kompany
- Oleksandr Zinchenko
- The Price for their Pound of Flesh by Daina Ramey Berry
- Searching for Black Confederates by Kevin M. Levin
- Slavery in New York by Ira Berlin
- Many Thousands Gone by Ira Berlin
- Race and Reunion by David W. Blight
- Crash Course Black American History (Clint Smith, Youtube)
Connect with Clint: Twitter | Instagram | Website
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