Foote believed that his experience and knowledge of the South meant he understood African-American historical figures such as Nat Turner better than Northern African-American intellectuals, stating in the 1970s that "I think that I am closer to Nat Turner than James Baldwin is. I'm talking about, I am personally more like Nat Turner than James Baldwin is, even though they are both Negroes. I consider somebody out of Harlem to be very different from someone out of Tidewater Virginia". By the 1970s, Foote believed that a "Jewish intellectual movement" had come to dominate American literature.