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

by Clint Smith

Jeff smiled as he watched them and dabbed his brow with a cloth before placing it back in his pocket. He told me that he does not call the country’s deadliest war the “Civil War” because it distorts the truth. “We call it the ‘War Between the States’ or ‘of Northern Aggression, against us,’ ” he said. “Because what they call the Civil War is not really the Civil War. Southern people don’t call it the Civil War because they know it was an invasion …If you stayed up North ain’t nothing would’ve happened.” When Jeff said “nothing would’ve happened,” I wondered if he had forgotten the lives of millions of Black people who would have remained enslaved. For these people, the status quo that Jeff seemed beholden to would have meant remaining in bondage. Or did he remember but not care?