Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed, discusses the entanglement between language, history, and place. He explores the physicality of memory, emphasizes the importance of reckoning with American history, and reflects on the power of education and literature in shaping identity. Smith also embarks on a personal journey to historical sites, discusses Germany's reckoning with its history, and reflects on the struggle for freedom.
Personal stories and the living history that surrounds us are essential for understanding the impact of history on individuals and communities.
Education serves as a powerful tool to challenge oppressive systems, cultivate self-awareness, and bring about social change.
Visiting historical sites and engaging in conversations with family members can provide a deeper understanding of personal identity and heritage, reaffirming the urgency of reckoning with societal legacies.
Deep dives
The Power of Personal Stories
During a pilgrimage to monuments, memorials, and museums, the author reflects on the importance of personal stories and the impact of history on individuals and communities. Visiting Monticello, the author realized the significance of learning from our own family members and hearing their stories. The author's grandparents, who grew up during Jim Crow in the United States, provide firsthand accounts of the challenges they faced. This experience underscores the importance of recognizing and understanding the living history that surrounds us.
Education as a Catalyst for Change
The author explores the transformative power of education and its role in bringing about social change. Drawing upon their experience as a high school teacher and their work teaching incarcerated individuals, the author examines the motivations behind learning and the impact education can have on individuals' sense of self and agency. Education serves as a tool to challenge oppressive systems and cultivate a deeper understanding of one's place in the world.
Reckoning with History
The author embarks on a pilgrimage to various locations that embody historical significance, examining how communities grapple with their past. By visiting sites such as Monticello and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the author confronts the narratives and symbols that shape our understanding of history. These experiences prompt reflection on the interconnectedness of past and present, as well as the responsibility to acknowledge and challenge narratives that perpetuate inequality and injustice.
An Intimate Exploration of Family History
The author delves into their personal family history, engaging in conversations with their living grandparents and discovering untold stories. This intimate exploration provides a deeper understanding of their own identity and heritage. Through these conversations, the author recognizes the resilience, strength, and lived experiences of their ancestors. The recognition that history is not a distant past but a lived reality reaffirms the urgency of reckoning with the legacy of slavery and racial inequality.
The Complexity of Remembering History
The speaker reflects on their trip to Germany and the complexities of how Germany has dealt with its history, particularly regarding the Holocaust and World War II. They emphasize that Germany is not a singular success story in memory and reckoning, but rather a place with differing perspectives and disagreements about the past.
The Intimacy of Historical Proximity
The speaker describes their experience visiting historical sites related to slavery and the Holocaust. They express a profound sense of connection and understanding that comes from physically standing in the places where these events occurred. It deepens their empathy and expands their comprehension of the interrelatedness of different forms of violence.
This phrase recurs throughout Clint Smith's writing: "in the marrow of our bones." It is an example of how words can hold encrypted wisdom — in this case, the reality that memory and emotion lodge in us physically. Words and phrases have carried this truth forward in time long before we had the science to understand it.
Clint Smith is best known for his 2021 book, How the Word Is Passed, but he is first and foremost a poet. He and Krista discuss how his various life chapters have been real-world laboratories for him to investigate the entanglement between language and the intelligence of the body — and the related entanglement between history and place. His poetic sensibility has singularly opened readers to approach a generative reckoning with American history — on whatever side of that history our ancestors stood.
Clint Smith has a way of making reckoning possible at a humanizing, softening, bodily level — in the marrow, you might say, of our bones.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Clint Smith — What We Know in the ‘Marrow of Our Bones.’" Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
