Black Judas

November 1, 1999
Smith (history, North Carolina State Univ.; An Old Creed for the New South) seeks to explain why an African American would write one of the most racist books ever published. Previous historians have avoided a study of William Hannibal Thomas (1843-1935) owing to insufficient biographical documentation, the unscientific underpinnings of his research, and his checkered career. As preacher, teacher, lawyer, trial justice, state legislator, and journalist, this native Ohioan had championed the freedman's cause in the post-Civil War years. By the mid-1890s, however, he was attacking members of his race, propounding racial inferiority, and demanding a complete and radical redemption of black America guided by his racist tome, The American Negro: What He Was, What He Is, and What He May Become (1901). Shunned by the black community after its publication and in constant pain from an old Civil War wound, he led a solitary life until his death at age 92. The author successfully portrays Thomas as a "reformer-gone-wrong," a self-hater whose book was more autobiographical than anything else. Smith's occasionally excessive detail and use of statistics can be distracting. Recommended for African American collections and academic libraries.--John Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Athens

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 1999
William Hannibal Thomas is one of the most scandalous figures in African American history--the author of "The American Negro," a book that virulently denigrated blacks and fed racist stereotypes in the early 1900s. Smith, in this well-researched book, chronicles the life of an ambitious black man of mixed racial heritage. Smith reveals Thomas' life as more than that of a tragic mulatto by detailing his dramatic evolution from intolerant critic of black freedmen to "patient constructive supporter" to "intensely negative and morose" Judas. Smith also highlights the more progressive phases of Thomas' life: service in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War and authorship of proposals for the betterment of the freed slaves. Smith details the physical and emotional deterioration that led Thomas, an occasional lawyer, preacher, and opportunist, to scathingly denounce blacks and provoke rebuke by some of the most prominent black leaders of the time. Although Smith cautions against the temptation to psychoanalyze historic figures, he shows Thomas as a man deeply troubled by racism who ended up essentially writing his autobiography in one of the most hated books of the century. ((Reviewed December 1, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)