Who is Thomas Dixon from The Strange Career of Jim Crow and what is their importance?

Thomas Dixon was a Famous author during Redemption and after, writing romance novels which typified the Negro in a newly-degrading manner. His most famous work was a trilogy titled, The Leopard's Spots: A Romance of the White Man's Burden, 1865-1900; The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan; and The Traitor: A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire. In these works, the black was represented as a clearly inferior being, lacking intellectual capacity to be a responsible citizen, lazy and shiftless, and certainly in need of complete white domination and supervision.