Longform

Episode 515: Clint Smith

Listen Later

Clint Smith is a poet and a staff writer for The Atlantic. His most recent book is How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America and his latest feature is “Monuments to the Unthinkable.”

“I've been to a lot of places that carry a history of death and slaughter and murder. I've been on plantations. I've been in execution chambers. I've sat on electric chairs. I've been on death row. But I have never experienced anything like what I experienced walking through the gas chamber in Dachau. I mean, there's reading books about the Holocaust, and then there's that. And that is something that I hope to continue doing for the rest of my life: putting my body where these things happen. Because it completely transforms your understanding of what it was like.”

Show notes:

  • @ClintSmithIII
  • clintsmithiii.com
  • Smith on Longform
  • Smith's Atlantic archive
  • 00:00 How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (Little Brown • 2021)
  • 01:00 "Monuments to the Unthinkable" (Atlantic • Nov 2022)
  • 17:00 Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Matthew Desmond • Crown • 2017)
  • 33:00 The Hemingses of Monticello (Annette Gordon-Reed • W.W. Norton • 2009)
  • 34:00 Counting Descent (Write Bloody Publishing • 2016)
  • 57:00 The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank • 1947)
  • 57:00 Number the Stars (Lois Lowry • Houghton Mifflin • 1989)
  • 1:07:00 "The Stories Tamir Rice Makes Us Remember" (New Yorker • Dec 2015)
  • 1:08:00 Smith's New Yorker archive
  • 1:08:00 "Freddy Adu and the Children of the Beautiful Game" (New Yorker • Mar 2017)
  • 1:09:00 Above Ground (Little Brown • 2023)
  • 1:09:00 Crash Course Black American History

    • Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    LongformBy Longform
    • 4.6
    • 4.6
    • 4.6
    • 4.6
    • 4.6

    4.6

    1,742 ratings

    More shows like Longform

    View all
    On the Media by WNYC Studios

    On the Media

    9,131 Listeners

    The Book Review by The New York Times

    The Book Review

    3,855 Listeners

    Fresh Air by NPR

    Fresh Air

    38,189 Listeners

    The New Yorker: Fiction by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The New Yorker: Fiction

    3,322 Listeners

    The Political Scene | The New Yorker by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The Political Scene | The New Yorker

    3,951 Listeners

    Otherppl with Brad Listi by Brad Listi

    Otherppl with Brad Listi

    502 Listeners

    Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry by David Naimon, Tin House Books

    Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

    445 Listeners

    The New Yorker Radio Hour by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The New Yorker Radio Hour

    6,670 Listeners

    The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

    The Gray Area with Sean Illing

    10,700 Listeners

    The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker

    2,107 Listeners

    Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso by Lemonada Media

    Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

    1,235 Listeners

    The Paris Review by The Paris Review

    The Paris Review

    785 Listeners

    City Arts & Lectures by City Arts & Lectures

    City Arts & Lectures

    386 Listeners

    The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

    The Ezra Klein Show

    15,237 Listeners

    Critics at Large | The New Yorker by The New Yorker

    Critics at Large | The New Yorker

    589 Listeners