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Black Judas: William Hannibal Thomas and The American Negro. By John David Smith. (Athens, Ga., and London: University of Georgia Press, c. 2000. Pp. xviii, 386. $34.95, ISBN 0-8203-2130-3.)
John David Smith has written a disturbing book about a disturbing historical character, but the author's treatment of this "Black Judas" is excellent. Professor Smith's research, analysis, and writing are solid and thought-provoking.
"Black Judas" was William Hannibal Thomas (1843-1935), and he disagreed with such noted black leaders as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. During what historian Rayford W. Logan called the nadir of black history in the United States, circa 1877 to 1901, Washington had guarded optimism about the contemporary black world, as did Du Bois, believing as he did in the "talented tenth." Thomas would have none of that. He denounced fellow blacks in harsh terms, holding that they were inferior to whites physiologically, intellectually, morally, and culturally. Blacks themselves-not white racists-caused their own problems. They were hopelessly...