Wintry treadmill

New books challenge views of the past, assumptions about the future | Marvin Olasky

White Brits and Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries repeatedly struggled with issues explored in schools during February, Black History Month:

Irv Brendlinger's scholarly Social History Through the Eyes of Wesley (Audubon Press, 2006) shows how the great creator of Methodism issued a theological challenge to slavery.

Richard G. Williams Jr.'s easy-to-read Stonewall Jackson: The Black Man's Friend (Cumberland House, 2006) shows how Jackson broke Virginia law during the six years before the Civil War by teaching slaves to read during a "Sabbath-school" school class. He also invited neighborhood blacks into his home for evening worship, even though the law banned all after-dark assemblies.