16 Best history books like How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

Cover of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint   Smith

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

By: Clint Smith

4.71

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a…

"How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Just as he did during the Slavery at Monticello tour, David did not mince words. "There’s a chapter in Notes on the State of Virginia ,"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Jefferson believed himself to be a benevolent slave owner, but his moral ideals came second to, and were always entangled with, his own economic interests and the interests of his family."

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"But not enough people spoke about the reasons so many black children grow up communities saturated with poverty and violence. Not enough people spoke about how these realities were the result of decisions made by people in power that had existed generations before us."

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

If you liked the history plot in How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith , here is a list of 16 books like this:

Cover of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

1. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America

By: Richard Rothstein

2.89

Format: None pages, Hardcover

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading auth… read more

Similar categories in Richard Rothstein's The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • anti racist
Cover of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry

2. South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

By: Imani Perry

3.97

Format: 410 pages, Hardcover

An essential, surprising journey through the history, rituals, and landscapes of the American South… read more

Similar categories in Imani Perry's South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
"So I went deeper into an archive of historical memory, hoping to sort it out"

-Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

"Acting like you know everything and acting like you don't know how to be respectful will keep you ignorant. Be humble."

-Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

"And yes, slavery was abolished, Jim Crow is over, but the prisons, the persistence of poverty, are constant reminders of how the past made the present."

-Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

"What, by analogy, happens to the family of the university, or the town, or the state, or the Old Dominion, or the nation itself, given what has been built into its creation?"

-Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

Cover of A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan

3. A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

By: Timothy Egan

4.38

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the rivetin… read more

Similar categories in Timothy Egan's A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
"When hate was on the ballot, especially in the guise of virtue, a majority of voters knew exactly what to do."

-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

"Stephenson had succeeded with an unusual formula for a mass movement: men were the muscle, women spread the poison, and ministers sanctified it all."

-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

"The governor of Georgia, Clifford Walker, told a Klan rally in 1924 that the United States should 'build a wall of steel, a wall as high as heaven' against immigrants."

-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

"There are millions who have never joined, but who think and feel and, when called on, will fight with us," Evans wrote. "This is our real strength, and no one who ignores it can hope to understand Am…"

-Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

Cover of Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

4. Let Us Descend

By: Jesmyn Ward

3.70

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congres… read more

Similar categories in Jesmyn Ward's Let Us Descend book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • historical
  • race
  • african american
  • audiobook
"You must leap. You must do as your people did. You must sink in order to rise."

-Jesmyn Ward, Let Us Descend

Cover of James by Percival Everett

5. James

By: Percival Everett

4.54

Format: 303 pages, Hardcover

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and f… read more

Similar categories in Percival Everett's James book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • historical
  • race
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

6. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

By: Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Format: 544 pages, Hardcover

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken ca… read more

Similar categories in Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups."

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"[Scapegoating] blames societal ills on the groups with the least power and the least say in how the country operates while allowing the larger framework and those who control and reap the dividends o…"

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"To dehumanize another human being is not merely to declare that someone is not human, and it does not happen by accident. It is a process, a programming. It takes energy and reinforcement to deny wha…"

-Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Cover of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

7. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

By: Ibram X. Kendi

4.57

Format: 504 pages, Hardcover

An epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, Four Hundred Sou… read more

Similar categories in Ibram X. Kendi's Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"Black people will always find each other in the passage between death and America"

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"And again we confront the problem of history: it's usually the powerful who get to write it."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"Z is for zealotry: national pride like an infinite zipline, hyperdrive, the fastest way down."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

"There's dust, a scratch in a groove, and here we are repeating the same two seconds of "Strange Fruit."

-Ibram X. Kendi, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Cover of The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration by Jake Bittle

8. The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration

By: Jake Bittle

4.28

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

“The Great Displacement is closely observed, compassionate, and far-sighted.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, P… read more

Similar categories in Jake Bittle's The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • politics
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

9. King: A Life

By: Jonathan Eig

4.67

Format: 688 pages, Hardcover

The first full biography in decades, King mixes revelatory and exhaustive new research with brisk a… read more

Similar categories in Jonathan Eig's King: A Life book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
Cover of Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot

10. Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

By: Michael Harriot

4.59

Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly… read more

Similar categories in Michael Harriot's Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James   McBride

11. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

By: James McBride

4.00

Format: 385 pages, Hardcover

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing de… read more

Similar categories in James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • historical
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

12. Wandering Stars

By: Tommy Orange

3.89

Format: 315 pages, Hardcover

The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange’s breakout best seller There … read more

Similar categories in Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • historical
  • audiobook
"And in the year 1924 Indian citizenship will have been granted, even though they will mean to dissolve tribes by giving citizenship, dissolve being another word for disappearance, a kind of chemical …"

-Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars

Cover of Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

13. Chain-Gang All-Stars

By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

4.14

Format: 367 pages, Hardcover

Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far… read more

Similar categories in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • audiobook
"They were all humans, and yet they had completely different ideas about what humanity meant."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"My brother-in-law is an alien. I have a bunch of alien friends. I can't be racist," Randy Mac continued."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"An absurd thing for the murderous state to plead for, but, as always, the massive violence of the state was “justice,"

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

"...despite how hard it was, she wasn't afraid with love. She knew how to wield it, how to grow it, and how to receive it."

-Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

Cover of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones

14. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

By: Nikole Hannah-Jones

4.62

Format: 590 pages, Hardcover

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a revealing vision of the American past and present. … read more

Similar categories in Nikole Hannah-Jones's The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

15. Poverty, by America

By: Matthew Desmond

4.27

Format: 284 pages, Hardcover

Reimagining the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in Ameri… read more

Similar categories in Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
"To live and strive in modern America is to participate in a series of morally fraught systems. If a family’s entire financial livelihood depends on the value of its home, it’s not hard to understand …"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"The rest of us, on the ·other hand-we members of the protected classes-have grown increasingly· dependent on our welfare programs. In 2020 the federal government spent more than $193 billion on homeo…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"In her book The Government-Citizen Disconnect, the political scientist Suzanne Mettler reports that 96 percent of American adults have relied on a major government program at some point in their live…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

Cover of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather  McGhee

16. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

By: Heather McGhee

4.63

Format: 415 pages, Hardcover

Heather McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the Am… read more

Similar categories in Heather McGhee's The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"They have to make Americans afraid of one another. They're exploiting fear in America to sell guns."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"Ultimately, an economy, the rules we abide by and set for what's fair and who merits what, is an expression of our moral understanding."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"Instead of being blind to race, color blindness makes people blind to racism, unwilling to acknowledge where its effects have shaped opportunity or to use race-conscious solutions to address it."

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

"It's often unconscious, but their perception of The Other as undeserving is so important to their perception of themselves as deserving that they'll tear apart the web that supports everyone, includi…"

-Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

Cover of A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib

17. A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

By: Hanif Abdurraqib

4.60

Format: 301 pages, Hardcover

A stirring meditation on Black performance in America from the New York Times bestselling author of… read more

Similar categories in Hanif Abdurraqib's A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • race
  • history
  • nonfiction
  • african american
  • audiobook
"When someone loves loudly, with everything they have in them, the withholding of that loud love, even briefly, feels impossible to endure."

-Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

"If I am going to be afraid, I might as well do it honest. Arm in arm with everyone I love, adorned in blood and bruises, singing jokes on our way to the grave."

-Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

"I have wanted to die enough times in my life to understand the idea that wanting to die is not a foolish thing... I don't mean to prop up the idea of wanting an exit, but for me, not to imagine it as…"

-Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

"Of the many things America loves to pat itself on the back about, one of the things is an obsession with exploration, or the desire to seek places beyond the places you are from or the places you hav…"

-Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

Cover of Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott

18. Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City

By: Andrea Elliott

4.72

Format: 602 pages, Hardcover

The riveting, unforgettable story of a girl whose indomitable spirit is tested by homelessness, pov… read more

Similar categories in Andrea Elliott's Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • audiobook
".. they assume that intelligence is a pre-ordained trait, [...], their perceived destiny, which flows from another belief, that the poor are to blame for their condition. Poverty is the proof of defi…"

-Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City

Cover of How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint   Smith

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

By: Clint Smith

4.71

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Poet and contributor to The Atlantic Clint Smith’s revealing, contemporary portrait of America as a… read more

Similar categories in Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • anti racist
  • audiobook
"How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Just as he did during the Slavery at Monticello tour, David did not mince words. "There’s a chapter in Notes on the State of Virginia ,"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"Jefferson believed himself to be a benevolent slave owner, but his moral ideals came second to, and were always entangled with, his own economic interests and the interests of his family."

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

"But not enough people spoke about the reasons so many black children grow up communities saturated with poverty and violence. Not enough people spoke about how these realities were the result of deci…"

-Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Cover of Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo

20. Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

By: Ilyon Woo

3.99

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

New York Times Bestseller | New York Times 10 Best Books of 2023 The remarkable true story of El… read more

Similar categories in Ilyon Woo's Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • historical
  • nonfiction
  • african american
  • audiobook
Cover of On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

21. On Juneteenth

By: Annette Gordon-Reed

4.18

Format: 148 pages, Hardcover

Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annet… read more

Similar categories in Annette Gordon-Reed's On Juneteenth book and Clint Smith's How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • american history
  • race
  • history
  • politics
  • nonfiction
  • social justice
  • african american
  • audiobook
"History is always being revised, as new information, comes to light and when different people see known documents and have their own responses to them, shaped by their individual experiences."

-Annette Gordon-Reed, On Juneteenth

"Origin stories matter, for individuals, groups of people, and for nations. They inform our sense of self; telling us what kind of people we believe we are, what kind of nation we believe in. They usu…"

-Annette Gordon-Reed, On Juneteenth

"Why would White Texans be more obstreperous than other White southerners? It has been suggested that this was because, unlike other Southern states, Texas had not been defeated militarily. They had w…"

-Annette Gordon-Reed, On Juneteenth

20 must-read audiobook books like How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

Transform Your Habits

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

Imani Perry

3.97

Transform Your Habits

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them

Timothy Egan

4.38

Transform Your Habits

Let Us Descend

Jesmyn Ward

3.70

Transform Your Habits

James

Percival Everett

4.54

View all the books

17 Top audiobook books like Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi

Transform Your Habits

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson

4.53

Transform Your Habits

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Ibram X. Kendi

4.57

Transform Your Habits

King: A Life

Jonathan Eig

4.67

Transform Your Habits

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

Michael Harriot

4.59

View all the books

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