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Join the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library in collaboration with The Robbins house for the CFA 2021 Keynote Presentation, an online event on October 15 at 7pm. Journalist, scholar and poet Clint Smith discusses his celebrated new book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, which topped the New York Times bestseller list soon after publication.

In How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves. As a part of the Concord Festival of Authors, Clint will reflect and share insights that offer a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be.

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent as well as the New York Times bestselling work of nonfiction How the Word Is Passed. The poetry collection won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. Dr. Smith has received fellowships from New America, the Emerson Collective, the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. His writing has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Born and raised in New Orleans, he received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University.

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library.