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How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Book by Clint Smith · 3 quotes · Blacks, Slavery, African Americans

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How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America Quotes

“The Lost Cause was not an accident. It was not a mistake that history stumbled into. It was a deliberate, multi-faceted, multi-field effort predicated on both misremembering and obfuscating what the confederacy stood for. And the role slavery played in shaping this county.”

“White Southerners' commitment to the Confederate cause was not predicated on whether or not they owned slaves. The commitment was based on a desire to maintain a society in which Black people remained at the bottom of the social hierarchy.”

“Nya nodded. "So many people come here without an understanding of the primary cause of the Civil War. Some people think Jefferson wrote the Constitution. I mean there are just so many ways that our public education is failing people by just not giving them the context to understand that Monticello is a plantation, and that slavery was a system that created the economic prosperity that enabled our country to exist. That is not something most people understand. I don't really blame them, because they're not taught to engage that history, and most people are not out here reading all these books that are piled on my desk.”