Book in Common

Community Read Challenge 3

Join the Book in Common Community Read Challenge and read Clint Smith’s How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America in preparation for the author’s visit to campus on April 11.

By April 8
  1. Get your copy of How the Word is Passed and read the “Angola Prison” and “Blandford Cemetery” chapters (pages 85–172).
  2. Register for the Book Discussion Group and attend the second discussion on April 2 from noon–1 p.m. in the Arts and Humanities Building, Room 227.
  3. Look at discussion questions and additional resources for the “Angola Prison” and “Blandford Cemetery” chapters:
    • For “Galveston Island,” reflect on Smith’s conclusion that Juneteenth “is both a day to solemnly remember what this country has done to Black Americans and a day to celebrate all that Black Americans have overcome. It is a reminder that each day this country must consciously make a decision to move toward freedom for all of its citizens, and that this is something that must be done proactively; it will not happen on its own” (pages 205-6). See additional discussion questions about “Galveston Island” chapter.
    • For “New York City,” consider the impact of what has been erased or concealed, including the removal of Seneca Village for Central Park and the barely visible shackles at the feet of the Statue of Liberty. Smith asks us to imagine with him: “I looked at the tablet in Lady Liberty’s left hand and considered, for a moment, how different the statue would have been, in both design and symbolism, if there were broken shackles in that hand instead.” See additional discussion questions about “New York City” chapter.
  4. Get your ticketfor the Book in Common conversation between Clint Smith, Dean Tracy Butts, and Professor Nathaniel Heggins Bryant on April 11, 7:30 p.m. at Laxson Auditorium (tickets $25, free for Butte College and Chico State students).
  5. Submit a question(opens in new window) that you would like Dean Butts or Professor Heggins Bryant to ask Clint Smith.
  6. Experience a student-inspired and student-curated pop-up exhibition at the Valene L. Smith Museum of Anthropology. This exhibit includes chapter-specific posters that reflect student reactions to reading How the Word is Passed. 
In Smith’s chapter on “The Whitney Plantation,” he writes that “the Whitney exists as a laboratory for historical ambition, an experiment in rewriting what long ago was rewritten. It is a hammer attempting to unbend four centuries of crooked nails. It is a place asking the question ‘How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?’” In 2021, when How the Word is Passed was published, the Whitney stood as one of the few places to ask this question, and as one of even fewer places to attempt an answer. However, since 2021, an increasing number of museums, monuments and memorials have provided fresh answers. In Golden Gate Park, for instance, from 2021 to 2023, Bay Area artist Dana King’s Monumental Reckoning(opens in new window) represented “the first Africans stolen from their homeland and sold into chattel slavery in 1619; the 350 ‘Ancestors’ encircle the vacant plinth of the slaveholder Francis Scott Key, which was partially toppled by protesters on Juneteenth 2020.” In 2023 the de Young Museum hosted an exhibition by Kehinde Wiley whose signature equestrian sculpture now resides in Montgomery, Alabama, as part of the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park(opens in new window), led by former Book in Common author Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy, 2015–16 Book in Common).

Clint Smith is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellerHow the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2021. Clint Smith has also written two books of poetry, both nominated as finalists for an NAACP Image Award—the New York Times bestselling collection Above Ground and Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic.