It turns out that the man Life magazine once described as
"America's number one intellectual fascist" was, in fact, a
light-skinned African American, born in the segregated South -
although he "passed" for white among the greatest race
hatemongers known to mankind. In a new book, The Colour of
Fascism, Gerald Horne reveals how Dennis managed to live a lie
for his entire adult life. "It's not clear that his wife knew
that he was black," says Horne, a history professor at the
University of Houston. "He certainly never told his daughter.
When she asked him, he would just smile enigmatically." Dennis
was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1893 just as racial segregation
had fully reasserted its authority on the South in the wake of
the civil war. His mother was African American, as is clear from
pictures; his father's race is not known. As a boy he was a
famous child preacher, spreading the gospel first among black
American congregations and then later abroad, even in Britain.
But at some point in his adolescence, he di