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

by Clint Smith

Donna seemed particularly appalled by how the institution of slavery had affected the children. “I mean, splitting families,” she said. “Oh my God, how can you split a family?” “It’s happening now,” said Grace. As the three of us held our conversation in July 2018, the Trump administration had already separated roughly three thousand children from their parents at the southern border of the United States, invoking the outrage of millions in the US and abroad. We had heard about mothers and fathers being told that their children were simply going to be given showers, only to have them learn, after hours had passed, that their children had been taken somewhere else—someplace they did not know. These two women, self-proclaimed Southern Republicans, found themselves identifying the parallels between families separated during slavery and those separated while seeking asylum in the United States from violence in Central America.