What to read, watch, and listen to if you lovedHow the Word Is Passed
Clint Smith, III · Book · 2021
If you loved How the Word Is Passed, start with 1619 (The New York Times, 2019) — a podcast on the same thread. Below: 4 films, 4 series and 2 podcasts, each matched to How the Word Is Passed across media.
You appreciated how How the Word Is Passed connects the vast, haunting legacy of American history to our present day.
Films on the same thread
12 Years a Slave
Steve McQueen · Film · 2013
Explores: Injustice, Survival, Loss of Freedom.
Like How the Word Is Passed, this film forces a visceral confrontation with the brutal realities of slavery, grounding the abstract historical record in one man's harrowing fight for dignity.
Get Out
Jordan Peele · Film · 2017
Explores: Racism, Gaslighting, Cultural Appropriation.
If How the Word Is Passed revealed how the past shapes our current social landscape, this film exposes the modern, insidious manifestations of those same historical power structures and prejudices.
Mudbound
Dee Rees · Film · 2017
Explores: Racial Prejudice, Post-War Trauma, Class Conflict.
Just as How the Word Is Passed examines the lingering trauma of slavery, this drama explores how deep-seated racial hierarchies continue to poison families and communities in the post-war South.
Paris Is Burning
Jennie Livingston · Film · 1991
Explores: Found family, Intersectionality, Performative identity.
While How the Word Is Passed uses physical monuments to document history, this film documents a marginalized subculture, highlighting how communities preserve their own stories against systemic efforts to erase them.
Series on the same thread
Reconstruction: America After the Civil War
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. · Series · 2019
Explores: Racial Justice, Democracy and Governance, Systemic Inequality.
This series provides the foundational context for the sites visited in How the Word Is Passed, detailing the critical post-Civil War era where the nation's failed promises were truly forged.
The Civil War
Series · 1990
Explores: Brother vs. Brother, Reconstruction Era, Abraham Lincoln.
If you valued the historical rigor of How the Word Is Passed, this documentary series offers the essential, sweeping narrative of the conflict that defined the slavery debate for America.
The Good Lord Bird
Mark Richard · Series · 2020
Explores: Abolitionism, Racial Identity, Religious Fanaticism.
This series mirrors the narrative ambition of How the Word Is Passed by humanizing the chaotic, violent figures of the abolitionist movement to better understand the true cost of liberation.
The Underground Railroad
Barry Jenkins · Series · 2021
Shares a thread with How the Word Is Passed: Systemic racism.
This story takes the historical burden explored in How the Word Is Passed and crafts a powerful, speculative journey that renders the trauma of the antebellum South into physical reality.
Podcasts on the same thread
1619
The New York Times · Podcast · 2019
Shares 2 threads with How the Word Is Passed: systemic racism, legacy of slavery.
This podcast shares the core mission of How the Word Is Passed by re-centering the American narrative on the arrival of enslaved people as the true beginning of our history.
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe · Podcast · 2026
Explores: untold historical anecdotes, curiosity-driven learning, American cultural history.
If How the Word Is Passed hit, The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe shares the thread.
Keep exploring
Common questions
What is the primary focus of the book How the Word Is Passed?
How the Word Is Passed is a contemporary portrait of America as a slave-owning nation. Clint Smith leads readers through a tour of monuments and landmarks to reveal how slavery has been central in shaping the history and identity of the United States.
Where does the journey in How the Word Is Passed begin?
The journey documented in How the Word Is Passed begins in New Orleans, which is the hometown of the author, Clint Smith. From there, the book expands to cover various monuments and landmarks across the country to explore the intergenerational story of slavery.
Is How the Word Is Passed based on real landmarks?
Yes, How the Word Is Passed is based on a tour of real monuments and landmarks. The book examines sites that are honest about the history of slavery as well as those that are not, providing a revealing look at how these places shape our national narrative.
Who is the author of How the Word Is Passed?
The author of How the Word Is Passed is Clint Smith, III. He is a poet and a contributor to The Atlantic who uses his background to provide a contemporary and revealing portrait of America as a nation shaped by its history of slavery.