Yet when he worked to keep white liberals in the civil-rights coalition, Rustin was labelled an Uncle Tom by younger, less patient blacks.

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Since the 1950s, Armstrong had been dealing with accusations of being an "Uncle Tom" - of subserviently providing entertainment for white America.

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Turner also notes that the song makes an appearance in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which came to be embraced by abolitionist forces as an indictment of plantation life and slavery.

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