Good News | Books, History & Culture
Some books make you reconsider history. Others make you reconsider the words you use every day. My friend Dallas C. Terrell has written one that does both.
Dallas and I have breakfast at Dimitri’s all the time. We share conversation and ideas over breakfast, and I’m glad to introduce WeRockTV readers to his book, Who Kidnapped Uncle Tom and Why It Matters.
The question in that title is provocative for a reason. Nobody literally kidnapped Uncle Tom. Dallas is examining what happened to the reputation of one of American literature’s most recognizable characters.
In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom is portrayed as a man of deep Christian faith, compassion, and conviction. Enslaved and subjected to terrible cruelty, he refuses to betray others, even at the cost of his own life.
Yet his name eventually became an insult, often directed at Black Americans accused of excessive deference to white people. That modern meaning sits uneasily beside the courage and sacrifice Stowe gave her character.
How did the change happen? Popular stage adaptations, racial caricatures, and later cultural debates all influenced the way Uncle Tom was remembered. The novel itself has not come without criticism based upon its use of ethnic stereotypes and Western cultural paternalism. The great James Weldon Johnson, who was a fan, described Uncle Tom’s Cabin as the “Most cussed and discussed book of its time.” Author Dallas Terrell reminds his readers that historical literature must be understood within the cultural period and time stamp that it was written. Similar to Stowe’s purpose, Terrell writes in order to bring not just heat, but light to an uncomfortable subject. Who Kidnapped Uncle Tom and Why It Matters and Meditations From the Cabin aim to stimulate “conversations that matter.”
Dallas’s book invites readers to investigate that history rather than accept a familiar label without questioning it. For me, the question reaches beyond literature: How often do we inherit an opinion and forget to examine where it came from?
At the heart of Stowe’s portrayal is a distinctly Christian understanding of strength. Tom’s mercy is not the absence of conviction. His refusal to answer cruelty with cruelty is not the same as surrendering to injustice.
Forgiveness is not cowardice. Humility is not weakness. And love does not require us to pretend that evil is good.
That is why this story belongs under Good News. A name can be distorted over generations, but a closer reading can open a fresh conversation about courage, conscience, and grace.
I’m grateful to call Dallas my friend, grateful for our breakfasts at Dimitri’s, and glad to share his work. Sometimes the best conversations begin with a question we thought had already been answered.
“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Romans 12:21 (KJV)
