Lies of History

Rarely do I write a book review mid-book. But W. E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880, has so fascinated me, I need to share. Of course, lies of history are gonna rivet me. Besides, the book is over 700 pages, so I might actually need three posts to cover it.

Here’s a primary premise of the book: Americans of African descent were instrumental in winning the Civil War for the United States.

Lies of History Commission

Du Bois published his book in 1935. The book was, in part, an answer to the racist-ass historians who had dominated national discourse since the end of the War. History calls them “The Dunning School”, after a Columbia professor who promoted and taught his racist-ass views. (I’m no longer using the word “conservative” when what people are is racist-ass.) These racist-ass white men were responsible for sanctioning the Lost Cause Myth. Specifically, that “Reconstruction was a colossal failure because Black folks were so ignorant and corrupt,” one of the greatest lies of history.

Du Bois will refute that hateful theory. Right now, he’s telling us how Black Americans won the Civil War. His argument includes not just how the enslaved walked away from the work that sustained the Confederacy—keeping the plantations running, supplying the food—but how both armies eventually admitted they could not win the war without Black soldiers.

Lies of Omission

Not just the North. The Confederacy eventually voted to arm as soldiers the men they intended through their war to keep as chattel property. Over 180,000 African Americans served in the war. Yet, our country did not erect a national park memorial honoring Black Civil War soldiers until 2004. Apparently, white descendants on both sides of the war want to retain the fiction that freedom was something done for Black Americans not by them. No one is teaching us that we owe the United States of America to Black soldiers.

In other words, the entire nation cooperated in creating a history of our most rending historical moment that is 100% fiction.

Lies Told Me

What gets me heated about this is the lying of it. The historians and film makers and book writers planted these lies of history into MY brain. Not just as a child. It continued long into my adulthood. Even today, we’re still making films and TV series perpetrating the lie of a “white” Civil War. All I can say is I guess I’m grateful to know the truth later if not sooner.