150 years old in 2002. From coast to coast, sesquicentennial publishing anniversary of Tom's Cabin became an occasion to reassess what impact Harriet Beecher Stowe's popular has had on American arts and attitudes. In California, Huntington Library site of a two-day conference, with noted speakers exploring the broad social of 1852 book. An exhibition at New York Historical Society, Reading Tom's Image: The 150-Year Legacy of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Character Reconsidered, featured book engravings along with work by contemporary visual artists. Writing for Black Issues in Higher Education, Kendra Hamilton applauded scholars for reflecting on of groundbreaking novel (22), its author, and especially on central character, Tom. Without a doubt, and his story are worthy of study, but perhaps legacy may not be right framework within which to analyze these phenomena. Historians frequently speak in terms of what Webster's II defines as something handed down from an ancestor or from past. The phrase of slavery is invoked to explain social situations, such as persistence of African American poverty or a disparity in achievement test scores between South and rest of nation. These result, explain sociologists, from slavery's legacy. The notion is alarming, as if poverty and low scholastic marks are inevitable. As legacy, story of Tom's Cabin becomes a cyclical narrative frozen in time, with reliving a relationship from generation to generation wherein African is slave and European his master. Spawned as sentimental fiction, Tom's story never solely a literary legacy. From outset, there were pictures. One of most beloved and one of most maligned characters in all of America's democratic arts, is an enduring icon because his image has been drawn, painted, inscribed, acted out, photographed, and continually refitted to social, political, economic strategies of (powerful? white? male?) people, for (seeking to affect thinking of) (less powerful, white) people. This article is not about a fictional character from a written text, but of visual culture. Who Few today have actually read Stowe's sentimental bestseller to encounter its eponymous hero firsthand. Yet his name has long been evoked with tacit expectations. During civil rights movement, to be called Uncle Tom perhaps most severe insult one could receive from a fellow African American, derogatory shorthand for a fawning sycophant, yassuh-ing (white) at expense of his own dignity. Looking askance back to Tuskegee Institute educator Booker T. Washington and his seeming readiness to accommodate turn-of-the-century white southerners, students of 1960s era of Black Power/Black Pride asked, Was he a Tom? In 1980s when African American mayor of Los Angeles viewed by some as too chummy with the man and his corporate interests, he called Uncle Tom Bradley. Amidst allegations of police sexual misconduct in Tawanna Brawley incident some years back, a New York minister came to prominence as spokesperson for young woman. He dubbed Uncle Sharp-Tom. Supreme Court Justice Clarence becomes Uncle Thomas if his opinion echoes fellow justice Antonin Scalia. The sobriquet reverberates. Obsequious servant, accommodating politician, opportunist-these were not Stowe's character. For antebellum readers, was a noble character, a self-sacrificing father. Sold down river, he willingly joined slave coffle to save his family and community from a similar fate. Captive a heroic figure, a devout Christian who would not be swayed from his faith even at peril of bodily harm and eventual death. He a of pious beliefs, which he ultimately died upholding. …