United States | Lexington

A racial-history lesson from the son of a slave

Daniel Smith may be the last direct link to slavery

MOST AMERICANS don’t know much about slavery. In a recent survey, only half could name it as the main cause of the civil war. Yet for Daniel Smith, the “whipping and crying post”, the hanging tree and other horrors of the antebellum South are not ill-taught, dusty history, but vivid family stories.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Son of a slave”

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