History tv was at the annual meeting in denver colorado. Professors,h authors, and graduate students about their research. This interview is about 20 minutes. He is best known for his liesatively titled book, my teacher told me. Lies across america. War knowof the civil him for his collection of primary source documents. In 1971s first book is derived from his harvard dissertation. Mississippi, conflict and change was the subject of a Court Decision articulating the right to read. He taught Race Relations at the university of vermont and previously in mississippi. He has recently been a professor of sociology at Catholic University in washington. Today, every monument tells a tale of three eras, implications. James and gentlemen, dr. W. Loewen. I am delighted to be here. Involved i have been with three of these controversies. I wrote a piece in the called fiveost myths about why the south seceded. That came out after secession. Marylandpeople in questioning the Confederate Monument next to the courthouse. I got involved in the commission that they wound up. We did not deserve that, either. Then i got involved in discussionsongoing about their Confederate Monuments. I have been involved with the issue of Calhoun College at yale university. Baltimore has kind of been resolved. Start with the caucasian. Speaker ended with a quote from abraham lincoln. My quotation is from the historian named Stuart Townes named enduring legacy. 20th century white southerners learned how to think about race, the north, the civil war, and reconstruction, and about themselves from the rhetoric of a lost cause. He is right. In fact, i think he understates it. Monuments became the continuation of war by other means. Nevermind. That is my name and if you want to email me because you are upset, that is my email address. Is most i wrote relevant here. To to aing to subject quiz i have given to probably 10,000 people across the United States since 2010. That is, the question, why did the south secede . The waters got muddied this morning we have let the cat out of the bag already. Im not going to have you vote. It would break my heart if you voted wrong. There is actually a wrong on this. Not everything is a matter of competing perspectives. This is evidence. I have asked this and College Cleveland and south florida. I haveerent places where spoken and you always get the following alternatives. The south seceded for slavery, andes rights, lincoln, taxes. Nd then we vote christine mentioned the survey on this. My resources go back little further and are worse in fact. Thats the results we get nationwide. Many of those people. Are teachers k12 teachers. What is so bad about it is the south flatly did not secede for states rights. This is just not a matter open for debate. Most of you know that some i will not be that dead horse. I will quote two short things from the confederate and neoconfederate reader, but every document and here about secession. There are six chapters. Every document about secession says the same thing, for almost the same thing. This is from the first state to secede, South Carolina, which a Christmas Eve of december 24, 1860, is seceded by convention. It said that he gives a bizarre two or three page history of the United States of these of the constitution. This is not easy. You can see how it is done by referring to it. Then they get to why we are seceding. We assert that 14 of the states have deliberately refused for years past to fulfill their constitutional obligations. We refer to their own statutes for the truth proof. This is vague but they go on to tell us what they mean. The constitution of the United States and its fourth article provides as follows, no person shall labor in one state, escaping into another shell in consequence of any law or regulation be discharged from such service or labor. They shall be delivered up to the party for the labor may be due. You all know this, the fugitive slave clause. Then they go on to denounce the states rights being asserted by northern states. They list 17 of them. The states they end with wisconsin and iowa have a negative laws which will nullify the acts of congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many states the fugitive is discharged it is back to the s word, slavery. They definitely have a position about states rights. They are against them. They are against other states rights. They are of seven new york because new york has come out against the we might call temporary slavery. Lets say you were a rich plantation couple from charleston. You do want to spent august the charleston. I did that once and i understand that you give it that view. [laughter] you dont want to cook your own meals in manhattan so you want to bring their cook along. New york is now saying we are trying to run a free state. If you bring your enslaved cook into new york, she goes free. They are outraged about this. They are outraged in hampshire, along with four other states, let africanamericans vote. Who votes in america is a states right. Until the passage of the 15th amendment during reconstruction, that is too whole eras after what we are talking about. Were talking about 1860. Who votes in North Carolina . For a while there that blacks vote, but who votes in North Carolina is none of south your latest business. But they make it their business. The infamous dread scott, which decision do they cite . That was an incredible slip of my tongue. Some of the decisions from 1857. I dont hear you all saying it. Yeah, dredd scott. I was just teasing. They say you are letting the vote . These people have no rights. It has nothing to do with who votes in new hampshire. They are seceding. They are 65 average, dead wrong. Slavery is the right answer. Nothing wrong with saying the election of lincoln. They certainly mention lakin. They call him they certainly mention lincoln. They call in the black republican. He was actually a white republican. They say they are against him because he is the spearhead of this new party against the s word. It all comes back. Nothing about tariffs and taxes. We were operating under an extremely low tariff. It had been an issue in 1830. This was 1860. It is something to think about. How come those people, including most teachers of k12, are teaching it wrong as we speak . Not quite as we speak. The numbers have slightly gotten somewhat better in the last year and a half. Just in the last year and a half or two years. Now its about 8045 saying slavery, and maybe 40 saying states rights. That is considerable improvement. It is still terrible 40 say states rights and 10 , sometimes 20 say tariffs and taxes. Its still an improvement. One of the reasons they are saying this is because our public history says it. And by public history i mean our monuments and Historical Markers and museums and things like that. I think that is part of the reason why we are here. So, the statement by historian towns is too weak. He said 20 century white southerners learned much that we should say miss learned much mislearned, but he couldve said 20 century americans. North dakota, for example. The overwhelmingly black Teaching Staff of memphis. You dont have to be white to be stupid about the past. It helps. In fact, i have to give you two examples above the public i should not take for granted and i kind of didnt, that you knew better than the states right thing but i hope you knew better thats what i did really rebut it. Let me review just a sentence or two from a virginia source. After the first seven states seceded there was a gap. During that time they, the first seven, sent ambassadors to all the rest of the slave states. Im not sure they went to delaware. The ambassador to virginia, none other than whats his name . Banning. Henry benning. He appeared before the legislature in virginia and painted a lurid, amazing picture of what will happen if you dont secede and what will happen is eventually black folks will take over the deep south and i will give you one or two sentences. The white race having been exterminated that is if you do not secede the land mobility exclusive possession of the black and will in consequence rapidly pass into the condition of santo domingo, haiti, and will become a howling wilderness. I will read it all i will not read it all. He is making this pitch to get you to secede. Eventually they did. The rest is history. Well, a couple of jokes shall we say. These are unfortunately real comments. I collect them from the National Park service whenever i go to a National Park service site. I ask what is the stupidest question to get asked over and over . They love me to ask that question. They always have stuff. All from gettysburg down to louisiana has civil war sites, the one they tell me is, isnt it amazing how they fought all these civil war battles in parks . Calm down. You can all use that for free. You cant make this stuff up. I told it to my tour guide when i toured before him in rome. She said we get the same questions from americans. Isnt it amazing how they all these ruins next in metro stations . [laughter] but the followup comes from gettysburg. I will have to im sorry for half of you. A woman tourist says, how can they fight a battle here with all the statues . All right. It is impossible to underestimate the stupidity of the american people, especially when it comes to history. Well, how could this happen . This being 65 saying that. We have to look at when it started to happen. This is called the historiography. Decided between 1890 and 1940. The name for that period is the nadir. The nadir of Race Relations. Its a word meaning, low point. She mentioned jim crow. That is part of it but its much more than that. It is the period when native americans in every americans to their lowest point in some ways. Im not saying it was better to the africanamerican in 1855. Either survey not saying that. I and saying things got worse and worse after 1890. They did not really begin to not get worse until about 1940. Im also here to say the United States, meeting the rest of us other than black folks and native americans, got more and more racist, more racist than at any other time in our past. We see this in various ways. I will let you read the rest of it, except to say during this period around 1890 the south won by softening the confederate white south, nonblack folks. I dont mean anticonfederates, from richmond had quite a few and many other Southern States did too. I shouldnt only say confederate because most are dying off. I will say the neoconfederates won the civil war. Im aware in ended in 1865, but they won it in 1890. In several ways. One was they get to rename it. Between 1890 in 1940 mccain the war between the states. Not one person told them that while it was going on. It was either the civil war, duh, or the war of the rebellion, for the great rebellion. Against the rebels hence the rebels. Another with a one it was they got to won it was makeup what it was about. This is when they said, the new confederates, it was about states rights. Which you already saw in document after document. It was not about states rights. It was against states rights, certainly not for states rights. In 1890 they got to assert or Research White supremacy. Three things happened at the end of 1890 that caused us to name it the nadir. First of all, what used to be called the battle of wounded knee, but now is the massacre of wounded knee in south dakota were native people go to their nadir first sure. They lose the last shards of independence. Second, the state of mississippi passes its new constitution. There was nothing wrong with the 1868 constitution, except that let blacks be citizens. They were explicit. They were going to remove that error in 1890 and they did. You probably know and you can ask me that i have to rush along. The third thing that happened before 1890 let me say this about the second thing. The 1890 constitution was in complete defiance of the 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution. United states did nothing about it. Seeing this, every other state as far as oklahoma followed suit by 1907. Third, 20 in the 1890, the senate refused to pass more or less by one vote the Voting Rights act of 1890 that had been passed by the house. It would have been signed into law by republican president benjamin, but it failed. After it failed im going to have to use the nword, hopefully just once, but i shall in a minute. After it failed, democrats do what they usually did. Democrats remained Perfect Party unity. Every democrat in congress voted against every civil rights measure. You cannot imagine the kind of unanimity among democrats today, can you . After they succeeded in defeating it, they did what they usually do they try to tar the republican party. They said you people are nothing but a bunch of nigger lovers. Republicans in the past have said, you are darn right. Somebody has to stand up for black folks in the south, but they rated new reply, which was, no, we arent. At that point, African Americans become without a little go allies and within a few years get dispossessed of citizenship in virginia and every other state that seceded and some that did not. During this era after 1890, northerners just did not have the guts, shall we say, or the energy to dispute the southern claim that they had seceded for states rights. Lets just let it go but then tell the story. They would not say to themselves that, but thats how it went. My title, as you mentioned i dont know if its my title, every Historic Site is a tale of at least two areas, maybe three. A tale of what it is about, when it went up, and today. I teach this by using i think you to read every single state Historical Marker in the United States. I was defeated by the state of texas. Texas, it turns out, has more than 3000 i mean, excuse me, more than 13,000 state Historical Markers. Almost as many as the rest of the country put together. I pointed this out to the woman in charge of markers in austin, and her reply was, well, yes. [laughter] weve had more history. What do you expect . By the way, virginia comes in second, and i think you have had more history than texas. This is a piece of slate carved into the state of idaho, which is no easy task. If you read it, here is what it says dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in a most horrible indian massacre 1861. Why do i use this slide to illustrate my point . Because it turns out in 1861, 300 immigrants in their little wagon train were not killed in Southern Idaho. 30 were not. Three were not. It never happened at all. And its not easy to prove a negative. I only can say that with such confidence. A fine historian who died recently spent 10 years of his life proving that this could not possibly have happened, and he nailed it. I submit that this has nothing to teach us whatsoever about 1861 because not that much happened in Southern Idaho in 1861. What does it teach us about 1938 . It teaches us that a bunch of white folks in idaho will believe any damn thing about savage indians with no justification whatsoever. It needs to be in an Idaho State Historical Museum of the signs saying artifact of 1938 and tell us some things about what it teaches us about 1938. Almost no museum anywhere in the United States features anything about it or a little thing called jim crow. The Idaho State Historical Society does not want to take it. They do wanted to be taken down, but they will not take it down because its the biggest thing that ever happened there even though it never happened. You can see they got it decorated for christmas. Read this slide. I dont know if you can read the bottom. By the way, i taught with these pictures to kids as young as fifth grade, and they can handle them fine. They have to be taught that this man is not the boys uncle. Uncle was a term of quasirespect we used ruminator during the nader nadir of more senior, older black people. We still use them today on aunt jemima, uncle bens rice. The cream of wheat people believed this would make most americans feel warm and friendly inside and make them want to go buy their product. Another thing that happened during the nadir was lynchings went to their alltime high. Usually, a subject you to a picture of that now. One of my books which is not for sale here, but thankfully, the others are and by the way, they are at a slight discount. Im really happy to see that because i dont want you to pay full price, and i will sign any book i wrote. Thats my policy. Sundown towns are towns that are all white on purpose. They are massively common across the north. Even today many are still sundown. They are very uncommon in the south. You did have colonial whites excuse me, colonial heights. That is the nickname. You did have 2. 5, maybe three whole counties way west in virginia that were sundown counties. They are common in appalachia and go into the northern part of alabama. This was a recent issue in alexandria just like so many counties in the United States, not just the south having issues these days about confederate names and monuments and buildings and so on. This is a monument before the nadir. I would say that is pensive, wouldnt you . Like most of the early monuments, it is colored on three sides with the names of the dead. It is a very different frame of mind and a very different spirit. That is a nadir monument. Theres a word for that called hieratic scale. That in our history word. Of course, the nadir did not set in crisply on january 1, 1890. Most Confederate Monuments go up during the nadir, and the twin 1890 and 1940. When you eliminate those monuments at cemeteries, almost all Confederate Monuments go up the twin