Was Whitman A Racist? The Evidence Revealed

Writer harmony holiday says there's a new level of honesty in how readers are ready to challenge whitman's work. It is evident that whitman's personal experience of the institution of slavery, as it revealed itself in practice, was painful. His humanity felt so outraged that he spoke out with heartfelt anguish. Readers of whitman’s poetry have long celebrated his radical portrayal of crossing racial boundaries. Yet, as recent scholars have documented, whitman “erased” almost all of his.

The evidence indicates that, after the civil war, whitman judged black americans to be precisely such a politically immature group—one requiring further education before suffrage could be. Whitman did not have a high opinion of the ten percent of brooklyn residents who were of african descent, yet he thought slavery abhorrent.