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

by Clint Smith

“It’s surprising, even the younger generation today, they can’t believe [it],” she said. “They can’t see how we went through it. How did we allow somebody to treat us that way? And if I show movies in school, the kids would say, ‘Nobody would do that to me. Nobody would do that to me.’ ‘No, I wouldn’t have done that.’ ‘Why didn’t y’all fight back?’ I’m like, ‘Hey, you hear about so many people who fought back. A lot of it is not in the textbooks, but a lot of people fought back, and they were killed. You never hear about them anymore.’” Then, again, she said, “I lived it.” A silence settled between us, and I kept thinking about her refrain. I lived it. I lived it. I lived it. It echoed throughout the room and became the gravity around us. It crept into my ears and made a home in there. I watched the realization wash over her like a tide had risen around her body. There was so much I had not known about my grandmother’s life until this moment. So many painful experiences that she still carried deep in the marrow of her bones. I thought of how easily these memories might have slipped away with her, had we not sat down—these stories might have remained grains of sand at the bottom of an hourglass. I thought about all of the ways the world today is at once so different, and not so different at all.