The Real Clayton Bigsby

You all remember the Dave Chappelle sketch where Dave played “a blind white supremacist who is not aware that he is actually a black man.” Well sometimes life is a lot stranger than fiction. I was reading the Guardian when I came upon this story. In the 1930’s there was a growing pro-fascist movement in the United States. Lawrence Dennis was described as “America’s number one intellectual fascist”. What wasn’t a well known fact was that this fascist who had met with Mussolini and other fascist bigwigs was in fact a black man from Atlanta Georgia. His mother was clearly black, while it’s not known what color his father was. Dennis was light skinned enough to pass for white. Of course he wasn’t that light skinned and people often remarked about his nice tan. It just never occurred to them why he had such a nice tan. He never told his wife or children that he was black. What’s funny though that about the time he died in 1977, he let his hair grow out into an afro. Think about if Lawrence Dennis had been born in our era. He wouldn’t have had to pass as white. He could have been a commentator on Fox News, a favorite of the right wing speaking circuit and a member of the Bush White House. Are we sure he isn’t a member of it now. Someone needs to check that death certificate again.