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How The Word Is Passed, by Clint Smith.
My company had a book club where we were asked to read this book. I have to say that it's really opened my eyes, and I'm only two chapters in!
I grew up in the Northeast US, and what we were taught in school about slavery was pretty much "Southerners bought Black people to work on their plantations, Northerners said owning people is wrong (which it is), there was a war, the North won, and the slaves were freed."
After I moved to New Orleans, pre-COVID, I visited two plantations. One of them was a B&B, and the message they sent was, "Look at this beautiful house and these beautiful grounds! It wasn't so bad to be a slave - you got every Sunday off and you got a feast every Christmas etc." At the other, they pulled no punches. One particular thing that stuck in my mind was a listing of enslaved people and what they would sell for in today's dollars. Top of the list was a blacksmith IIRC: $100,000. OMFG. People... as property?! I just ... can't.
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AEΦ ... Multa Corda, Una Causa ... Celebrating Over 100 Years of Sisterhood
Have no place I can be since I found Serenity, but you can't take the sky from me...
Only those who risk going too far, find out how far they can go.
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