To Free the CaptivesTo Free the Captives

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: a stunning meditation on ritual and collectiveness that explores how older forms of inquiry-from song to prayer to ways of public gathering-might help us all survive violent times and address America's shared history"--
Smith begins in Sunflower, Alabama, where her grandfather returned after World War I with a hero's record but difficult prospects as a Black man. She consider the life of her father through the lens of history, then bears witness to the terms of freedom afforded her as Black woman, mother, and educator in the twenty-first century. Her book provides a sounding board for our most pressing collective questions: Where are we going as a nation? Where have we been? -- adapted from jacket