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"The Making Of A Racist"

Book cover of "The Making of a Racist," by Charles Dew
Charles Dew

Like any good historian, Charles Dew was trained to conduct his research in a scientific fashion, setting aside any personal perspectives in his scholarship.

But after more than 50 years of teaching Southern history, he finally turned inward. His new book describes his experiences growing up on the white side of the color line in the Jim Crow South.

Host Frank Stasio talks with Dew, American History professor at Williams College, about his new memoir, "The Making of a Racist: A Southerner Reflects on Family, History and the Slave Trade" (University of Virginia Press, 2016).

Dew recommends two books to his students before class begins: 

"Coming of Age in Mississippi" by Anne Moody and "Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South" by Melton A. McLaurin. 

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.