Uncle

From martyr to insult, how "Uncle Tom" has influenced two centuries of racial politics.

Jackie Robinson, President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, O.J. Simpson and Christopher Darden have all been accused of being an Uncle Tom during their careers. How, why, and with what consequences for our society did Uncle Tom morph first into a servile old man and then to a racial epithet hurled at African American men deemed, by other Black people, to have betrayed their race?
Uncle Tom, the eponymous figure in Harriet Beecher Stowe's sentimental anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was a loyal Christian who died a martyr's death. But soon after the best-selling novel appeared, theatre troupes across North America and Europe transformed Stowe's story into minstrel shows featuring white men in blackface. In Uncle, Cheryl Thompson traces Tom's journey from literary character to racial trope. She explores how Uncle Tom came to be and...