Eugene Genovese: An Idaho pastor accused of racism claims Genovese backs his view of slavery
Fundamentalist Pastor Douglas Wilson of Moscow, Idaho, may have fallen short in his first attempt to overturn the last fifty years of academic scholarship on slavery, which he has described variously as “abolitionist propaganda” and “civil rights propaganda,” but he intends to win the war. A supportive comment from Eugene Genovese on the back cover of Wilson’s new self-published book on slavery, Black and Tan, appears to be the center- piece of the new battle plan.
The “blurb” has been doing yeomen’s duty in fundamentalist and neo-Confederate circles for the past year, but it saw its first service in mainstream public dialogue recently when Pastor Wilson published a guest editorial in the November 5 issue of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. Angered that historians from the University of Idaho, myself included, remained critical of his happy portrait of southern slavery, Wilson pointed out that his work has now received a positive “academic response.” Eugene Genovese, he claimed, “one of America’s first-rate historians,” had concluded that Wilson “has a strong grasp of the essentials of slavery.”
Concerned that the nationwide curriculum might now be obsolete, I visited the Daily News offices and requested a follow-up investigation. Does Genovese also endorse, for instance, the original pro-slavery pamphlet, Southern Slavery, As It Was, which I myself dismembered in a review that can be found here? Or has Genovese merely endorsed the watered down version that he edited in order to get the Confederate partisans up to speed, which I dismembered here? The confusion is genuine, since Wilson’s pledge that he has discontinued publication of Southern Slavery, As It Was, is only correct with respect to his own garage. The pamphlet continues to be published verbatim in its entirety by Bluebonnet Press in the textbook, The War Between the States, which is currently being marketed on the front page of Wilson’s website to unsuspecting home-schooled children.
Will the Daily News follow up the story? Will their tell-all interview with Eugene Genovese sink our national historiography? Will he refuse to answer his phone?
The “blurb” has been doing yeomen’s duty in fundamentalist and neo-Confederate circles for the past year, but it saw its first service in mainstream public dialogue recently when Pastor Wilson published a guest editorial in the November 5 issue of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. Angered that historians from the University of Idaho, myself included, remained critical of his happy portrait of southern slavery, Wilson pointed out that his work has now received a positive “academic response.” Eugene Genovese, he claimed, “one of America’s first-rate historians,” had concluded that Wilson “has a strong grasp of the essentials of slavery.”
Concerned that the nationwide curriculum might now be obsolete, I visited the Daily News offices and requested a follow-up investigation. Does Genovese also endorse, for instance, the original pro-slavery pamphlet, Southern Slavery, As It Was, which I myself dismembered in a review that can be found here? Or has Genovese merely endorsed the watered down version that he edited in order to get the Confederate partisans up to speed, which I dismembered here? The confusion is genuine, since Wilson’s pledge that he has discontinued publication of Southern Slavery, As It Was, is only correct with respect to his own garage. The pamphlet continues to be published verbatim in its entirety by Bluebonnet Press in the textbook, The War Between the States, which is currently being marketed on the front page of Wilson’s website to unsuspecting home-schooled children.
Will the Daily News follow up the story? Will their tell-all interview with Eugene Genovese sink our national historiography? Will he refuse to answer his phone?