There are plenty of sources from the past that convey the cruelty of the time in plain language, without using the slur at all. When we say N-word today, everyone knows what we mean. There's no need to spell it out.

That said, where I do hesitate is when Black men and women of the time engaged with the use of the N word and spelled it out. In other words, they were fighting that slur before it was an unspeakable slur. So someone like Frederick Douglass or Ida B. Wells spoke the word to rebuke it. In those settings, I am more hesitant to partially blot it out. But again, I am mindful of my present readers or my present students.

It's a dilemma, for sure, and there's no solving it. But the best way to approach it from a publishing standpoint is to just have a policy and stick to it.