“How the Word is Passed,” by Clint Smith, Published by Back Bay Books. The Paperback is Available for $18.99.

Touring former southern plantations and other spots full of heretofore unknown Black history is the journey of Clint Smith, author of the two year old award winning book – “How The Word is Passed.”  It’s also a journey for readers of this important book that is likely to put many readers on a new path and in a different direction.

The first stop on this whirlwind tour is at Monticello Plantation in northern Virginia – home of Thomas Jefferson. At any given time Jefferson kept 130 slaves there.  The plantation guide tells a group of visitors including author Smith:  “Slavery’s an institution.  In Jefferson’s lifetime it becomes a system……..It is a system of exploitation, a system of inequality and exclusion, a system where people are owned as property and held down by physical and psychological force, a system being  justified even by people who know slavery is morally wrong.”  Without his slaves, Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, could not have lived in the grand style he did.  It raises this unanswerable question:  If Jefferson had lived during the Civil War, would he have sided with the north or the south?

Smith’s next stop on this plantation tour is at the Whtney Plantation, in Wallace Louisiana.  The opening sentences are a startling example of what slavery was too often about – not to be recounted here.  Suffice it to say that in 1844, this plantation  produced 350,000 pounds of sugar that year – one of the most successful producers of sugarcane in Louisiana.  It didn’t become that successful by letting slaves take it easy.

On the lighter side of the journey is the chapter on Galveston Island.  Smith states that the “long-held myth goes that on June 19, 1865, a Union general……………read the order that announced the end of slavery.  Though no contemporaneous evidence exists to support that claim, the story of General Granger reading from the balcony embedded itself in local folklore.”  More recently it has become embedded in the observances of places across the country – including Portland, Maine – in 2020.

Sue Johnson, the organizer of the Juneteenth event for over 30 years in Galveston,  said that she grew up reading a lot about slavery.  “It always touched me.  A lot of people don’t want to look at that at all and I must. I feel like I must because if you don’t remember where you’ve been. you can’t be sure where you are going.  Or if you don’t have direction  or lessons from the past  It’s important to me to celebrate the holiday to help especially young people reflect on what was………”   The aftermath of the General’s initial pronouncement is a fascinating story,

Johnson’s reflection made at least a few years ago seem so relevant today.  That’s obviously because of Governor DeSantis’s efforts to whitewash Black history and ban it from book shelves across the state. And if voters aren’t watchful, DeSantis will try to ban Black history books from book shelves across the US as president.  One way to resist DeSantis’ book ban is to make every month Black history month.

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic.  His writing has been published in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and elsewhere.  He has a book – “Above Ground” coming out later this month.  He lives in Washington, D.C.

For some information on Juneteenth Observances in Portland, please visit posts herein dated June 18, 2020 and June 19, 2020.