My Encounter with Dr. Thomas Sowell

By Dallas Realtor Bill Cherry

PREFACE

In 1975 I read in "The New Yorker" about and bought a new book with an intriguing title:  Ethnic America by Thomas Sowell.  Dr. Sowell is a black man who, at forty-five, decided he was going to get to the bottom of why black Americans had, in general, not progressed as much as many of the other ethnic American immigrants.

He meticulously took every major group that had immigrated to America, and traced them from Day 1 to see what they had accomplished and how they had gone about doing it.  Each group was a separate chapter in the book.  It was fascinating.

One of the things he said he learned through his research was this: "Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks."

Dr. Sowell became one of my heroes.  He has been a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University for years.  I have followed him as an author of more than twenty-five books, most on economics and culture, as well as regular columns he, in the past, contributed to Forbes Magazine.  He has made me do a great deal of thinking and, consequently, he has taught me more about the subjects I formally studied than I ever learned in the classroom.

Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that Dr. Sowell was one of his early heroes, too, and helped him mold his opinion that the Bill of Rights and Constitution sees no race.

Two books of Thomas Sowell, both published last year, are worthy reads for those interested in economics:  Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy and Economic Facts and Fallacies.

MY THOMAS SOWELL STORY

About ten years ago, I decided I wanted to tell Dr. Sowell how much he had meant to me, and further, I childishly wanted his autograph.  I concocted the idea of tracking down his personal address and then writing him a nice note.  "Surely he'll be flattered and respond," I thought.  Then I'd not only have his autograph but a letter from him to me.

Patty told me it would never work.  She further admonished me for even considering the idea.

I wrote and sent the letter, anyway, and weeks and then a couple of months passed.  All was quiet on Dr. Sowell's end.  What was I going to do to get this off of dead center?  Patty was laughing.  "Heard from your new pal, Dr. Sowell lately?" she would chide.

I wrote him a follow-up, told him I had sent him this very complimentary letter and that since he hadn't responded, I knew it was an oversight, not because he was intentionally rude.

Within a few days, Dr. Sowell sent me back my original letter.  With a red pencil, he had corrected two punctuation marks, one typographical error, and at the top of the page he had given me a grade of B-Plus.

At the bottom, he had written, "I get so much mail from readers that I can't take the time to respond to them.  (Signed) Thomas Sowell."

If you don't know my friend, Tom Sowell, you should.  (I still don't think I'd better try calling him Tommy.)

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

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