After the April break, I along with my comrades Pep, Antoine and Oliver presented at a books and cookies about the book How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith.

We each selected a chapter and talked about it as well as give reasons to why it stuck with us so much. I selected the chapter about the Monticello plantation. The Monticello plantation is most famous as the home of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and, throughout the course of his life, the owner of over 600 slaves.

I planned a lot for my session, reading and rereading my chapter and picking at every little thing. This chapter is probably the most well known as it is such a heavy debate to how we should remember Jefferson. The reason being that from his personal writings and public actions, we know Jefferson understood the moral complication inherit with one person owning another yet he chose his life of comfort and traded with slaves to settle his personal debts often ripping apart families.

I commented on how this chapter focused on how the way that the different people coming to the tour had different views of Jefferson with many of them hailing him as a hero. The chapter also highlighted how it was a more of a systematic issue as people had been taught these facts in school. I find this such an interesting fact because when you research different perspectives of people and events there is no right or wrong, only what others have been told or taught. Morally we can catch these facts and turn them to having a stance but out of themselves they’re just facts people have been fed and these people often can’t control that.