Oliver Otis Howard was a Civil War general from Leeds, Maine. Prior to serving as top commander under W.T. Sherman, he attended Bowdoin College, class of 1850, his tenure at the prestigious school overlapping that of Joshua Chamberlain, class of 1851. Growing up in a state that was (and still is) the whitest state in the nation, Howard’s views on race put him in the vanguard for his time and place.

I’ve been going to the same dentist, Dr. Gary Howard, for more than a decade. Every six months, I go in for my twice yearly cleaning and check-up. I’m fortunate to have dental insurance, which provides for regular maintenance of my teeth. Howard’s hygienists and office staff are personable and most have been with him for as long as I’ve been seeing Dr. Howard.

Over the years, Dr. Howard has always asked me about what new book I might be working on. He was a big fan of my first one, When Towns Had Teams, as he grew up during the era when local baseball was king and being from Winthrop, he knew many of the players I wrote about.

Monday morning, after he checked my teeth after the hygienist’s cleaning, we got talking about books and he mentioned a new book that he’s excited about, written by Gordon L. Weil (Bowdoin class of 1958). He ran out to his car and grabbed the book and said, “let me know what you think and drop it off sometime when you’re done.” The book is, The Good Man: The Civil War’s ‘Christian General’ and His Fight for Racial Equality. The topic of the book happens to be about Oliver Otis Howard, my dentist’s great-great grandfather.

Howard told me that his great-great grandfather had been head of the Freedman’s Bureau (which directed Reconstruction after the Civil War), and an early believer in full racial equality. Interestingly, that fact bears a strong link to my post on Friday about John Hope Bryant’s book, in which he referenced the Freedman’s Bureau. I mentioned this to Dr. Howard.

Bryant wrote about how when President Lincoln emancipated the slaves, he also created the Freedman’s Bureau, which was responsible for the launch of the Freedman’s Saving and Trust Company, commonly known as the Freedman’s Savings Bank. Their mission was a radical one at the time—to teach newly freed blacks about entrepreneurship, business, and managing their money.

When Lincoln was assassinated, many of his ideas for Reconstruction fell to his vice-president, Andrew Johnson. Johnson was a hard-core Southern segregationist and a slave owner. He was quoted as saying “As long as I’m President, this nation will be white run.”

I’ve begun reading Weil’s book and it’s intriguing. Oliver Otis Howard was deeply committed to racial equality and equal opportunities for all Americans. It was revolutionary in the 19^th century, and it’s still pretty damn revolutionary today.

What’s interesting to me, with all my bad experiences with Xiantiy, is that it was Howard’s faith that drove him to adopt his positions on blacks and freedom. Certainly different than much of the evangelical Xian church in America. In fact, I came face-to-face with racism on numerous occasions during my time involved with Baptists, Presbyterians, and the Vineyard denomination. While that’s my own experience, the recent case of Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson and subsequent polling revealed an American church that still has a long way to go on race and equality.

I’m looking forward to completing my reading of Weil’s book. It’s very well-written and Howard’s beliefs regarding blacks and how they should have been better prepared economically after being freed, fits perfectly with Bryant’s ideas about capitalism and the poor.

Imagine that!