The Making of a Racist tells the story of historian Charles Dew's experience growing up in the South in the era of Jim Crow. Dew joins us for a conversation today about racism in America and the pivotal moments that helped him outgrow the views instilled in him as a child.
WHRO's "HearSaywithCathyLewis"
Charles Dew’s short book is a memoir with broad cultural reach, an even-handed, cleanly-written overview befitting an historian retiring after a distinguished professional career.... There is nothing theoretical, melodramatic, or confessional about Charles Dews’ remembrances.... Nor does Dew take any personal credit, or express any smug sense of acquired virtue, while recounting his emerging enlightenment about race prejudice. His narrative voice earns trust by its plainspoken honesty.
The Key Reporter (Phi Beta Kappa)
Dew, one of the Old South’s most passionate apologists for slavery, provides a candid, courageous and introspective examination of the attitudes and beliefs that made him "a racist, an accidental racist perhaps... but a racist nonetheless" until his final year at Williams College, 1957-1958....Most importantly, his book provides a bold self-examination of how he inherited his sectional and racial views from his family and how white Southerners defended and perpetuated white supremacy, first under slavery and later under Jim Crow.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: What do you hope this book will accomplish?
Dew: I thought that there were not enough white voices in our racial dialogue. We have had some incredible, powerful black voices like W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates. But not enough from the white side and it is important that we do so in the hope that it would resonate with others. When I would teach, I would tell stories of how I grew up. Everybody was focused on me. I had their undivided attention. Maybe that feeling was worth talking about and believing. I have spoken publicly a lot and something has happened that I didn’t anticipate. A number of African Americans have thanked me and said they never understood where this stuff came from. How did this happen? Where did it come from?
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Each one of Charles Dew’s books has helped shape the conversation on the history of race in this nation. His new book, which combines an honest autobiography of life in the 1950s with a sobering account of archival history and reckoning, is a characteristically eloquent reflection. Dew allows us to understand just how deeply racial thinking saturated white southerners who were otherwise admirable people. Charles Dew is one of our wisest and most humane historians.
In his compelling new memoir, Professor Charles Dew '58, one of America's most respected scholars on the history of slavery, shares the story of his childhood growing up white in the Jim Crow South and how his consciousnessand consciencewere raised at Williams.
It’s up to books like [Dew’s] to help educate people so we begin to understand reports coming from the Department of Justice.
Professor Charles Dew, one of the most renowned historians of the South and slavery, now recounts his childhood in the Jim Crow South in a candid and moving memoir, The Making of a Racist. In this powerful work, Professor Dew brings to life a society committed to white supremacy and the vile consequences of rigidly enforced segregation and brutal intolerance.
When you consider the sheer inhumanity it took for people — good Christians all, in their own estimation — to buy other people, or sell other people, or rape other people, or cheat and restrict other people, or just to kill other people outright with a bestial sadism you wouldn’t inflict on an ailing dog. . . why? What was it in white Southern mores, folkways or history that made this such an indelible — though not unique — characteristic of theirs, that allowed so many of them to do such things or simply to stand in complicit silence, without a peep from conscience, as such things were done all around them?
Why?
It is the triumph of Dew’s book to pose that question at long last.
This book makes for a brief and humane look into racism in the United States. It should prove valuable for students and any citizen who wonders what went wrong.
The Making of a Racist provides a searching and brave account of the honeyed pathway to race hatred, the bracing disorientation of learning better, and the haunting, guilty sense of having been there, and knowing that so many have stayed behind.
The Making of a Racist not only is a good read but carries several important implications for psychology and its study of prejudice and racism.
American Journal of Psychology
The Making of a Racist is an engaging book I read in nearly one sitting. Clearly Dew's experiences were emotionally painful, and his attempts to overcome the heartbreak of his youth are reflected in his reading of the primary sources on Virginia's slave trade. Readers will appreciate Dew's honesty, and his prose reaffirms why I too chose to research African-American history.
Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era
Dew, one of the Old South’s most passionate apologists for slavery, provides a candid, courageous and introspective examination of the attitudes and beliefs that made him "a racist, an accidental racist perhaps... but a racist nonetheless" until his final year at Williams College, 1957-1958....Most importantly, his book provides a bold self-examination of how he inherited his sectional and racial views from his family and how white Southerners defended and perpetuated white supremacy, first under slavery and later under Jim Crow.
" Atlanta Journal-Constitution: What do you hope this book will accomplish?
Dew: I thought that there were not enough white voices in our racial dialogue. We have had some incredible, powerful black voices like W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates. But not enough from the white side and it is important that we do so in the hope that it would resonate with others. When I would teach, I would tell stories of how I grew up. Everybody was focused on me. I had their undivided attention. Maybe that feeling was worth talking about and believing. I have spoken publicly a lot and something has happened that I didn’t anticipate. A number of African Americans have thanked me and said they never understood where this stuff came from. How did this happen? Where did it come from? "author of Atlanta Journal-Constitution
" The Making of a Racist tells the story of historian Charles Dew's experience growing up in the South in the era of Jim Crow. Dew joins us for a conversation today about racism in America and the pivotal moments that helped him outgrow the views instilled in him as a child. "author of WHRO's "HearSaywithCathyLewis"
"Professor Charles Dew, one of the most renowned historians of the South and slavery, now recounts his childhood in the Jim Crow South in a candid and moving memoir, The Making of a Racist. In this powerful work, Professor Dew brings to life a society committed to white supremacy and the vile consequences of rigidly enforced segregation and brutal intolerance. "author of History News Network
" The Making of a Racist not only is a good read but carries several important implications for psychology and its study of prejudice and racism. "author of American Journal of Psychology
" The Making of a Racist is an engaging book I read in nearly one sitting. Clearly Dew's experiences were emotionally painful, and his attempts to overcome the heartbreak of his youth are reflected in his reading of the primary sources on Virginia's slave trade. Readers will appreciate Dew's honesty, and his prose reaffirms why I too chose to research African-American history. "author of Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era,
"Historian Charles B. Dew invites readers to join his personal journey, from his beginning as "A Confederate Youth" in St. Petersburg, Florida, in chapter 1 to breaking free from racism as a distinguished scholar exposing the grim reality of slavery. Combining autobiography and archival research, The Making of a Racist will persuade students in both secondary schools and colleges to think more critically about the myth that the Confederacy fought for honor and states' rights rather than for slavery. "author of The Journal of Southern History
"Dew, one of the Old South’s most passionate apologists for slavery, provides a candid, courageous and introspective examination of the attitudes and beliefs that made him "a racist, an accidental racist perhaps... but a racist nonetheless" until his final year at Williams College, 1957-1958....Most importantly, his book provides a bold self-examination of how he inherited his sectional and racial views from his family and how white Southerners defended and perpetuated white supremacy, first under slavery and later under Jim Crow. "author of News & Observer
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: What do you hope this book will accomplish?
Dew: I thought that there were not enough white voices in our racial dialogue. We have had some incredible, powerful black voices like W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates. But not enough from the white side and it is important that we do so in the hope that it would resonate with others. When I would teach, I would tell stories of how I grew up. Everybody was focused on me. I had their undivided attention. Maybe that feeling was worth talking about and believing. I have spoken publicly a lot and something has happened that I didn’t anticipate. A number of African Americans have thanked me and said they never understood where this stuff came from. How did this happen? Where did it come from?
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When you consider the sheer inhumanity it took for people good Christians all, in their own estimation to buy other people, or sell other people, or rape other people, or cheat and restrict other people, or just to kill other people outright with a bestial sadism you wouldn’t inflict on an ailing dog. . . why? What was it in white Southern mores, folkways or history that made this such an indelible though not unique characteristic of theirs, that allowed so many of them to do such things or simply to stand in complicit silence, without a peep from conscience, as such things were done all around them?
Why?
It is the triumph of Dew’s book to pose that question at long last.