Instant #1 New York Times bestsellerLonglisted for the 2021National Book Award for NonfictionBeginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarksthose that are honest about the past and those that are notthat offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves.It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantationturnedmaximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final res
