Note 3 — II THE COMING OF BLACK MEN
Reading edition
Ham is probably the Egyptian word "Khem" (black), the native name of Egypt. In the original myth Canaan and not Ham was Noah's third son.
The biblical story of the "curse of Canaan" (Genesis IX, 24-25) has been the basis of an astonishing literature which has to-day only a psychological interest. It is sufficient to remember that for several centuries leaders of the Christian Church gravely defended Negro slavery and oppression as the rightful curse of God upon the descendants of a son who had been disrespectful to his drunken father! Cf. Bishop Hopkins: Bible Views of Slavery, p. 7.