Slate: "Why Has ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ Survived–and Thrived?"

“We have here an interesting puzzle. How has Uncle Tom’s Cabin survived, and thrived, if it proved so offensive to the 20^th-century aspirations of the African-Americans it helped liberate in the 19^th? Why isn’t Uncle Tom’s Cabin like Wittgenstein’s ladder: Once climbed, it is obsolete, and we ought to throw it away?“

TheStateOf…Educating Kids About Slavery. American children, particularly black children, remain woefully uneducated or miseducated about slavery. I recall my high school history teacher telling our class that “slavery wasn’t that bad.” The real evil was that I wasn’t about to argue with him because I lacked the knowledge. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for better of worse, should remain part of the standard school curriculum because of its momentous effect on the United States, but it should be supplemented greatly with books such as The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. In fact, I’d be supportive of separate classes solely dedicated to slavery.