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

by Clint Smith

be okay, he said, “as long as you stayed in your boundaries.” He said he always thought they would be safe because his family “stayed in our place.” I was surprised to hear my grandfather say this; history is laden with examples of Black families who did exactly as they were supposed to and still found family members hanging from a tree or at the bottom of a river. I can understand, however, why the twelve-year-old version of my grandfather would believe this. It makes sense to cling to a rationale that will make you feel as if you still have some semblance of control. It is something we all do and often the only thing we can do to continue to move through the world without being paralyzed by fear. Still, I was surprised that he had held on to such a notion for so long—long after he had left Mississippi and the lynching ropes of the early twentieth century had disintegrated into the soil. But time does not always create the emotional distance we might hope. Such recollections remain in the marrow of our bones.