This past week, I had the opportunity to read through a book recommended to me, but was skeptical of the premise. The book? Stonewall Jackson: The Black Man’s Friend by Richard G. Williams Jr. When looking at the cover, I noticed the foreword was by Dr. James I. Robertson Jr., who is the preeminent Civil War historian of our day, handing all things Union and Confederate in a very objective, even-handed way. With this, I knew that Robertson would not put his name to a book that skirted over obvious issues that are tied to the Confederate cause.
Can one who fought for the Confederate States of America as General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson did be in any way capable of being the “black man’s friend"? Didn’t all Southerners see blacks as inferior? Most everyone in 19th century America, North or South (see a previous post on this matter). This book presents how a man named John Lyle, who loved Jesus, his church, and books, poured into the life of Thomas Jackson a love for these things as well as the souls of all men, regardless of color. So, in 1856, Jackson began a “colored Sunday School class,” in direct violation of Virginia law which said that blacks could not assemble, nor could they be taught to read or write. Jackson, however, wanted them better themselves by teaching them to read the Scriptures and to pray. Through this class, many came to know Christ.
This book shows how various African-Americans were affected for the better. In fact, I’ve posted in the past how an African-American Presbyterian church in Roanoke, VA, put up a stained glass in homage to Jackson. Why? One of the former pastors (Dr. Dunning, who pastored there for 42 years) was a part of that Sunday School that Jackson taught and was grateful for teaching Him the Bible and wanted them to do better for themselves than the surrounding culture said they could be.
It is easy for us to simply label people and put them all in one category. Yes, slavery existed in the South, but so did racism and problematic child labor laws in the North. There is injustice everywhere in every period of our history. Yes, under the Confederate flag slavery existed (but it also existed under the American flag for 80+ years prior to that). And under our American flag now, 1.3 million unborn children are slaughtered every year because some believe they have the right to do this—but is this not the same argument that the Southerners used, saying they have the right to enslave others, using their superiority to overrun those who are seen as inferior? Our military men are not all fighting for the right to abortion anymore than all those in the South were fighting for slavery. They were fighting for their homes, with all their warts and wrinkles. Both slavery and abortion are unconscionable and both need to be done away with for the atrocities they were and are.
But we need to peel through the generalities and the broad brush strokes and look at the individual stories of men like Jackson and others and how they operated (even illegally) in order to better the plight of those of whom the greatest of injustices were taking place. Jackson wanted to see both slave and free blacks in heaven and worked in the best way he knew how to not only care about their eternal souls but also about their earthly lives as well. May we work just as diligently as best as we can by the help of God to do the same in our time.
I hope you will give this book a read. Very enlightening.
Richard Williams, Jr. spoke about this book and his talk can be found on C-Span here.
