Uncle

How, why, and with what consequences did Uncle Tom become a slur for African American men deemed to have betrayed their race? The Uncle Tom in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, died a martyr’s death. And yet, theatre performed the story with white men in blackface. Cheryl Thompson traces Uncle Tom’s transition from literary character to trope—and how he became a nostalgic, racial epithet for black men. Original.