Author of Lies My Teacher Told Me and Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of Segregation in America
I worked at Tougaloo College the summer of '65 and taught sociology there, 1968-75. In '65 I was SLIGHTLY active in the Movement, and in 1971 and 1972 I was head poll worker in Madison County, doing 2 hrs. in jail for it in '72. But I largely MISSED the Civil Rights Movement, for which my life ever since has been an atonement.
I was senior author of the first revisionist state history, Mississippi: Conflict and Change. When the state rejected it for school use, we sued in the case Loewen v Turnipseed, and won it, so the state had to adopt the book, 1980-86. It tells the story of the CR Movement accurately, I think.
My recent book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, betrays my coming-of-age in Mississippi, and so does Lies Across America, my criticism of historic sites.
In 2005, The New Press brought out Sundown Towns, which shows that in some Northern states, a majority of all incorporated communities kept out African Americans, and many kept out Jews, Chinese Americans, etc., throughout most of the twentieth century.
I'd love some help on my new project, researching historic sites that tell difficult aspects of our national story and do so well — to be called Surprises on the Landscape: Unexpected Places That Get History Right.
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Last Modified: March 5, 2006.
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