Poet and educator Clint Smith explores the places where the history of slavery has been preserved, if not fully reckoned with. Included are New Orleans, Monticello Plantation, Angola Prison, Blandford Cemetery, and others hidden in plain view. This book offers a new understanding of the role that memory and history can play in understanding our country.

'How the Word is Passed' is Clint Smith's revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a slave owning nation. Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, 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 nations collective history, and ourselves.

Examines the legacy of slavery by highlighting the continued preservation of monuments and landmarks that hold violent and racist symbolism.