“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?”
Set in post-Civil War North Carolina, this well-written novel by famed author Thomas Dixon, Jr., tells of the pain of surrender and the struggle to rebuild and recreate a new identity for the South. It exposes the reality of social and race relations during the time of Reconstruction.
The leading characters of the story are an eclectic mix of people representative of the time. Among them are Sallie Worth, a daughter of the old-fashioned South who embodies human idealism, and Maj. Stuart Dameron, chief of the Ku Klux Klan.
In The Leopard’s Spots, Dixon presents racial conflict as an epic struggle, with the future of civilization at stake. The book is part of the trilogy made into the movie The Birth of a Nation. Although Dixon personally condemned slavery and the Ku Klux Klan after the end of Reconstruction, he also argued that black people should be denied political equality because that would eventually lead to the destruction of the family and civilized society. This novel reflects his conservative views.
About the Author
Thomas Dixon, Jr., was born in rural North Carolina during the Civil War. Educated at Wake Forest and Johns Hopkins universities, Dixon was, among other things, a novelist, preacher, lecturer, lawyer, and state legislator. During his lifetime he published twenty-two novels and several essays, plays, and sermons. He has been named among both the most dated and most contemporary of Southern writers.
LEOPARD’S SPOTS
A Romance of the White Man’s Burden - 1865-1900
By Thomas Dixon, Jr.
Illustrated by C. D. Williams
FICTION / Historical
481 pp. 5 x 8
8 illustrations
ISBN: 9781565549814 pb