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

by Clint Smith

Despite New York having fully and formally abolished slavery in 1827,ii slave catchers still roamed the streets looking for fugitive slaves—and even free Black people—to capture and bring back to the South. Slave catchers made little distinction between Black people born free and those who had run away. Parents worried desperately about their children, and for good reason. In the 1830s, a seven-year-old Black boy was “dragged from school on suspicion of being a runaway.” In the nineteenth century, Black people lived in fear that at any moment a slave catcher could snatch them or their children up, regardless of status or social position. In the twenty-first century, Black people live in fear that at any moment police will throw them against a wall, or worse, regardless of whether there is any pretense of suspicion other than the color of their skin.

Does this narrative sound insanely similar to recent events?