James W. Loewen

{{Short description|American sociologist, historian, and author (1942–2021)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = James W. Loewen

| image = Merlin 14334447 4b896409-b4b4-4d4f-b671-88388792fca6-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name = James William Loewen

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1942|02|06}}

| birth_place = Decatur, Illinois, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2021|08|19|1942|02|06}}

| death_place = Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.

| other_names = Jim Loewen, James Loewen

| alma_mater = Harvard University (PhD)
Carleton College
MacArthur High School (1960)

| occupation = Historian, author, sociologist

| known_for = Lies My Teacher Told Me (1995); Lies Across America (1999); Sundown Towns (2005); The Mississippi Chinese (1971)

| relations = Winifred (Gore) Loewen (mother)
David F. Loewen (father)

| organization = University of Vermont
The Catholic University of America

| website = {{URL|https://justice.tougaloo.edu/}}

}}

James William Loewen (February 6, 1942{{spnd}}August 19, 2021) was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his 1995 book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. A 2005 book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, galvanized a national effort to develop a list of sundown towns.

Early life

Loewen was born in Decatur, Illinois, on February 6, 1942.{{cite news|title=James W. Loewen, Who Challenged How History Is Taught, Dies at 79|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/books/james-w-loewen-dead.html|first=Robert D.|last=McFadden|date=August 20, 2021|access-date=August 20, 2021|newspaper=The New York Times}} His father, David, was a medical director and physician from an immigrant Mennonite community; his mother, Winifred (Gore), was a librarian and teacher.{{cite news|title=James W. Loewen, wrote 'Lies My Teacher Told Me,' dead at 79|url=https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-77ad500bdf0cfe0d20b61be8bb58844a|first=Hillel|last=Italie|date=August 20, 2021|access-date=August 20, 2021|work=Associated Press}} Loewen was raised in Decatur, where he attended MacArthur High School and was a National Merit Scholar as a graduate in 1960.

Loewen attended Carleton College. In 1963, as a junior, he spent a semester in Mississippi, an experience in a different culture that led him to question what he had been taught about United States history. He was intrigued by learning about the unique place of nineteenth-century Chinese immigrants and their descendants in Mississippi culture, commonly thought of as biracial. Loewen went on to earn a PhD in sociology from Harvard University based on his research on Chinese Americans in Mississippi.{{cite web |title=History and Social Justice - Inspired by James W. Loewen, sociologist, historian, citizen |publisher=Tougaloo College |url=http://sundown.tougaloo.edu/ |access-date=August 21, 2021}}

Career

Loewen first taught in Mississippi at Tougaloo College, a historically black collegeCheney, Matt. [http://sundown.tougaloo.edu/content.php?file=biography.html "Biography of James W. Loewen"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160813085333/http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/content.php?file=biography.html |date=August 13, 2016 }}. University of Illinois. Retrieved October 16, 2010. founded by the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War. For 20 years, Loewen taught about racism at the University of Vermont, where he was professor emeritus of sociology in 1995.{{cite news |first=James W. |last=Loewen |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/01/why-do-people-believe-myths-about-the-confederacy-because-our-textbooks-and-monuments-are-wrong/ |title=Why do people believe myths about the Confederacy? Because our textbooks and monuments are wrong |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=July 1, 2015}} Starting in 1997, he was a visiting professor of sociology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He was selected for honoris causa membership in Omicron Delta Kappa in 1997 at SUNY Plattsburgh.

= First Amendment battle =

Loewen co-edited a Mississippi history textbook with Charles Sallis,[https://nl.nytimes.com/f/newsletter/-0do7ldbmmslJr0oqimMrg~~/AAAAAQA~/RgRntZ4DP0TTaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyNC8wMi8xNi91cy9jaGFybGVzLXNhbGxpcy1kZWFkLmh0bWw_Y2FtcGFpZ25faWQ9MiZlbWM9ZWRpdF90aF8yMDI0MDIxOSZpbnN0YW5jZV9pZD0xMTU1MTYmbmw9dG9kYXlzaGVhZGxpbmVzJnJlZ2lfaWQ9Njg2MzQxODAmc2VnbWVudF9pZD0xNTg1NjYmdXNlcl9pZD03YmE5ZDRmOTYwYTE1MzY4YTQ3YjljNjk4Njc4ZWQyZVcDbnl0QgplzwMZ02WnOJ5XUhVueXQucmVhZGVya0BnbWFpbC5jb21YBAAAAAM~ Charles Sallis, 89, Dies; Upended the Teaching of Mississippi History], The New York Times, February 19, 2024 Mississippi: Conflict & Change (1974), which won the Lillian Smith Book Award for Best Southern Nonfiction in 1975. The book was rejected for use in Mississippi's public schools by the Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board on the grounds that it was too controversial and placed too much focus on racial matters.{{Cite news |last=Nossiter |first=Adam |date=2024-02-16 |title=Charles Sallis, 89, Dies; Upended the Teaching of Mississippi History |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/us/charles-sallis-dead.html |access-date=2024-02-17 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}

Loewen challenged the board decision in a lawsuit, Loewen v. Turnipseed (1980).{{cite web|url=https://archive.crin.org/en/library/legal-database/loewen-v-turnipseed.html|title=Loewen v. Turnipseed|date=January 2, 2015 |publisher=Child Rights International Network (CRIN)|access-date=October 12, 2017}}{{cite web |author1=Evergreen Communications Office |title=James Loewen to Talk about History's Omissions and Errors at Evergreen Graduation |url=https://www.evergreen.edu/news/archives/2008/05/jamesloewen |website=www.evergreen.edu |publisher=The Evergreen State College |access-date=August 21, 2021 |date=May 16, 2008 |archive-date=August 21, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210821213827/https://www.evergreen.edu/news/archives/2008/05/jamesloewen |url-status=dead }} Judge Orma R. Smith of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi ruled that the rejection of the textbook was not based on "justifiable grounds", and that the authors were denied their right to free speech and press.[http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/firstamendment/courtcases/courtcases.cfm "Notable First Amendment court cases"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111210022833/http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/firstamendment/courtcases/courtcases.cfm |date=December 10, 2011 }}. American Library Association. Retrieved October 16, 2010.

The American Library Association considers Loewen v. Turnipseed, 488 F. Supp. 1138 (N.D. Miss. 1980), a historic First Amendment case and one of the foundations of the "right to read freely."

= ''Lies My Teacher Told Me'' =

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?63448-1/lies-teacher-told-me Booknotes interview with Louwen on Lies My Teacher Told Me, March 26, 1995], C-SPAN}}

Loewen spent two years at the Smithsonian Institution, where he studied and compared 12 American history textbooks then widely used throughout the United States. He published his findings in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (1995), which was republished in 2007 and 2018.{{cite book |last1=Loewen |first1=James W. |title=Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong |date=October 16, 2007|publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0743296281 }} He concluded that textbook authors propagate factually false, Eurocentric, and mythologized views of history. Loewen points out in the book that many of the distortions found in American history texts are "not even by the authors whose names grace the cover."{{cite interview |url=http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/18124-oh-what-a-web-textbooks-weave |title=Oh What a Web Textbooks Weave... |date=August 12, 2013 |interviewer=Dan Falcone |publisher=SpeakOut |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304204938/http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/18124-oh-what-a-web-textbooks-weave |archive-date=March 4, 2016 }} In March 2012, the book's publisher, The New Press, listed Lies My Teacher Told Me as their top all-time bestseller.{{cite web |title=The New Press Index |date=March 2012 |url=http://thenewpress.com/catalog_pdfs/thenewpress_fall2012catalog.pdf |access-date=June 10, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121102034516/http://thenewpress.com/catalog_pdfs/thenewpress_fall2012catalog.pdf |archive-date=November 2, 2012 }} The book reflects Loewen's belief that history should not be taught as straightforward facts and dates to memorize, but rather as analysis of the context and root causes of events.

== ''Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers’ Edition'' ==

Rebecca Stefoff, known for her adaptation of Howard Zinn's bestseller A People's History of the United States for young readers, makes Lies My Teacher Told Me accessible for younger readers in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers Edition (2019).{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ftmDwAAQBAJ|title=Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition|publisher=The New Press|date=April 23, 2019|last=Loewen|first=James W.|isbn=9781620974858}}

= ''Teaching What Really Happened'' =

Loewen built on Lies My Teacher Told Me in Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks & Get Students Excited About Doing History (Teachers College Press, 2009). The first four chapters lay out an argument for how history should be taught at the elementary and secondary levels, while chapters 5–10 address teaching specific issues in history.{{cite book |last=Loewen |first=James W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xMN0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 |title=Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History |date=September 7, 2018 |publisher=Teachers College Press |isbn=9780807759486 |edition=2 |page=19}}

=''Sundown Towns''=

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?189492-2/sundown-towns-hidden-dimension-american-racism Presentation by Loewen on Sundown Towns, October 23, 2005], C-SPAN}}

Continuing his interest in racism in the United States, Loewen wrote Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, which was released in 2005. The book documents the histories of sundown towns, which are towns where African Americans, Jews, and other minority groups were forced (or strongly encouraged) to leave before sundown to avoid racist violence by the towns' white residents.

Loewen wrote about sundown towns throughout his career, including in Lies Across America, in which he called the affluent suburb of Darien, Connecticut, a modern-day de facto sundown town.{{cite news|title=Does My Town Have a Racist Past?|url=https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/spring-2008/does-my-town-have-a-racist-past|first=James W.|last=Loewen|issue=33|year=2008|access-date=August 20, 2021|publisher=Learning for Justice}}

Sundown Towns won the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award. It also gained excellent reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. The book inspired a nationwide online initiative to monitor and list sundown towns across the USA.{{Cite news|url=https://thenewpress.com/books/sundown-towns|title=Sundown Towns |publisher=The New Press |access-date=May 25, 2018|language=en}} A review in The Washington Post argued that even though Loewen dedicated an entire chapter to research methodology, his statements regarding the number of communities that supported racial exclusion policies were widely variable and vague. "This vagueness, along with Loewen's almost evangelical passion for his material, raises questions of credibility – or at least of potential overstatement."{{Cite news |last=Wexler |first=Laura |date=October 23, 2005 |title=Darkness on the Edge of Town |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001715.html}}

= Later writings =

In 2010, Loewen and Edward H. Sebesta co-wrote the book The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The Great Truth about the Lost Cause, an anthology containing a wide array of primary source documents pertaining to the Confederacy from the time of the American Civil War.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QWKzf8j2yPoC|title=The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The Great Truth about the Lost Cause|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|date=January 5, 2011|last1=Loewen|first1=James W.|last2=Sebesta|first2=Edward H.|isbn=9781604737882}}

Loewen's last published book, Up a Creek, With a Paddle: Tales of Canoeing and Life, is a memoir in which he returned to his life's work and addressed the origins of racism and inequality, the theory of history, and the ties between the two.{{cite web |title=Up a Creek, with a Paddle: Tales of Canoeing and Life |publisher=PM Press |url=https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail |access-date=August 21, 2021}}

Before his death, Loewen began researching for a new book, Surprises on the Landscape: Unexpected Places That Get History Right. The book was planned as a follow-up to Lies Across America, which noted historically inaccurate or misleading historical markers and sites across the United States. Surprises was planned to call attention to historical sites that are accurate and provide honest representations of events. His official website invited the public to comment on what towns and historical sites should be included in terms of presenting history right.

Personal life

Loewen married his first wife, Patricia Hanrahan, in 1968. Together, they had two children. They divorced in 1975. In 2006, he married Susan Robertson, and they remained married until his death.

Loewen died on August 19, 2021, at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. He was 79, and had been diagnosed with Stage IV bladder cancer two years prior to his death.

Bibliography

Loewen has published the following works:

{{cite book |last=Loewen|first=James W.|title=The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White |location=Cambridge |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1971 |edition=second |isbn=978-0-674-57660-5 |ref=none }}
{{cite book|editor-last1=Loewen|editor-first1=James W.|title=Mississippi: Conflict & Change |editor-last2=Sallis |editor-first2=Charles|location=New York|publisher=Pantheon Books|year=1974 |isbn=978-0-394-48964-3 |ref=none }}
{{cite book|last=Loewen|first=James W.|title=Social Science in the Courtroom|location=Lexington|publisher=D.C. Heath and Company|year=1982|ref=none }}
{{cite book|last=Loewen|first=James W.|title=The Truth About Columbus |year=1992 |publisher=New Press |isbn=978-1-56584-008-9 |ref=none }}
{{cite book|last=Loewen|first=James W.|title=Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong|location=New York|publisher=The New Press|year=1995|isbn=978-1-56584-100-0 |ref=none }}
{{cite book|last=Loewen|first=James W.|title=Lies Across America: What Our Historic Markers and Monuments Get Wrong|location=New York|publisher=The New Press|year=1999 |isbn=978-0-684-87067-0 |ref=none }}
{{cite book|last=Loewen|first=James W.|title=Sundown Towns|location=New York|publisher=The New Press|year=2005|isbn=156584887X |ref=none }}
{{cite book|last=Loewen|first=James W.|title=Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History|location=New York|publisher=Teachers College Press|year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8077-5948-6 |ref=none }}
{{cite book|last1=Loewen|first1=James W.|title=The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The "Great Truth" about the "Lost Cause" |last2=Sebesta |first2=Edward H.|location=Jackson, Mississippi|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2010 |isbn=978-1-60473-218-4 |ref=none }}
{{cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html|title=Five myths about why the South seceded|last=Loewen|first=James W.|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=February 26, 2011|access-date=December 17, 2013|ref=none }}
{{cite book|last1=Loewen|first1=James W.|last2=Stefoff |first2=Rebecca |year=2019 |title=Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers' Edition |location=New York |publisher=The New Press |isbn=978-1-62097-469-8 |ref=none }}
{{cite book|last=Loewen|first=James W.|year=2020 |title=Up a Creek, With a Paddle: Tales of Canoeing and Life |location=Oakland, California |publisher=PM Press |isbn=978-1-62963-827-0|ref=none }}

References

External links

{{official website|https://justice.tougaloo.edu}}
{{C-SPAN|38900}}
[http://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/author/11 James W. Loewen's page] at History News Network

Category:1942 births

Category:2021 deaths

Category:American education writers

Category:21st-century American historians

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:American sociologists

Category:American textbook writers

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:American anti-racism activists

Category:Historians of race relations

Category:Carleton College alumni

Category:American educational reformers