SOURCE: Kinney, James. “The Rhetoric of Racism: Thomas Dixon and the ‘Damned Black Beast.’” American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 15, no. 2 (1982): 145-54.

In the following essay, Kinney addresses themes of race and racial conflict and explains why Dixon became a spokesman for white racism.

Despite the great popularity of Thomas Dixon's work, he was in a basic way moving counter to the main current of his time. The period from 1880 to 1910 was essentially one of reform and social progress. The Pendleton Act (1883), the Interstate Commerce Act (1887), the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), and reform measures urged by the Populists in the 1892 election were early signs. Reform governments soon appeared in cities such as Toledo, Ohio, and spread to state levels; by 1900 Robert LaFollette had been elected governor of Wisconsin and had instituted a wide program of reform. In the following year, Theodore Roosevelt became president of the United States and reform programs...