DeKALB – To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Lincoln Lecture series, Clint Smith, award-winning poet and writer, visited NIU for a conversation about the history of slavery in America.

NIU partnered with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Communication, Department of History and the Center for Black Studies to host the annual Lincoln Lecture event.

At 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Altgeld Hall Auditorium, Smith and Christina Abreu, director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, hosted a moderated conversation regarding Smith’s recent book titled “How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.”

The event was free to attend and open to the public.

Smith began the conversation by talking about the places he visited for research for his book and the reasoning behind his selections.

Smith then discussed how he was inspired to write his book by the removal of Confederate statues in New Orleans, Louisiana,  in 2017, and his experiences growing up as a Black man in Louisiana, along with how names and symbols are reflective of the stories people tell.

“Symbols and names and iconography aren’t just symbols. They are reflective of the stories that people tell, and those stories shape the narratives that communities carry, and those narratives shape public policy, and public policy shapes the material conditions in people’s lives,” Smith said.

Throughout the conversation, Smith talked about his travels when writing his book and about the Confederacy and slavery in America.

At the end of the conversation, there was a Q&A session where members of the audience could ask Smith questions.

After the Q&A, Smith was available to sign copies of his book for people who brought their own copies.