James w loewen biography

American sociologist, historian, and author (–)

James William Loewen (February 6, &#;&#; August 19, ) was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. A 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, His father, David, was a medical director and physician from an immigrant Mennonite community; his mother, Winifred (Gore), was a librarian and teacher. Loewen was raised in Decatur, where he attended MacArthur High School and was a National Merit Scholar as a graduate in

Loewen attended Carleton College. In , 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.

Career

Loewen first taught in Mississipp

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Study Guides on Works by James W. Loewen

UVM Professor Emeritus James Loewen, an educator and author who made a broad impact on our understanding of race relations in the United States, died late August at the age of

Loewen was professor of sociology at UVM from , a period in which he published his landmark book “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.” The book is often cited as a companion piece to Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.”

He grew up in Decatur, Ill., and was educated at Carleton College and Harvard. He became fascinated with the Black experience in the deep South while taking up his first academic position in as a professor of sociology at the historically Black Tougaloo College in Mississippi.

He was shocked to discover that his students largely accepted the narrative that local Black governance during the post-Civil War Reconstruction failed because of the ineptitude of Black leaders, not because of institutional racism.

Loewen and historian Charles Sallis co-wrote “Mississippi: Conflict and Change,” a history textbook which named the Ku Klux Klan a terrorist organization and argued that the “separate but equal” doctrine only served to widen the opportunity gap between white and Black students.

The book won the Lillian Smith Award for best Southern nonfiction, but Mississippi school board officials refused to allow it to be used in public schools. The authors sued, and a U.S. district judge ruled the rejection of the textbook was legally unjustified. The American Library Association called it a victory for the “right to read freely.”

Beth Minz, professor emeritus of UVM’s Department of Sociology, credits Loewen with elevating the study of race into the sociology curriculum in the s. “What also stands out to me is how dedicated a teacher he was. He took the profession very seriously.”

“Jim never had an ‘off’ button,” said UVM colleague Nick Danigelis, also a professor

(James Lyons)

PERSONAL: Born February 6, , in Decatur, IL; son of David Frank (a physician) and Winifred (a librarian) Loewen; divorced; children: Bruce Nicholas, Lucy Catherine. Education: Carleton College, B.A. (cum laude), ; Harvard University, M.A., , Ph.D., Politics: Independent. Religion: Unitarian Universalist.

ADDRESSES: Home—Washington, DC. Office—c/o Department of Sociology, University of Vermont, 31 Prospect St., Burlington, VT E-mail—[email&#;protected].

CAREER: Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, MS, assistant professor, –70, associate professor of sociology, –75, chairperson of Sociology and Anthropology Department, –73, chairperson of Division of Social Science, –74; University of Vermont, Burlington, associate professor, –83, professor of sociology, –96, professor emeritus; Smithsonian Institution, senior research fellow, –; Catholic University, adjunct professor, –. Center for National Policy Review, Washington, DC, director of research, –80; served as an expert witness in civil rights cases for U.S. Department of Justice, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and others; lectured and presented papers to various professional organizations.

MEMBER: American Sociological Association, American Studies Association, American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians (distinguished lecturer).

AWARDS, HONORS: Distinguished Teacher Award, Tougaloo College, –71 and –73; National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, ; Lillian Smith Award for Southern nonfiction, , for Mississippi: Conflict and Change; First Annual Sidney Spiv-ack Award, American Sociological Association, ; Fulbright scholarship for Australia, ; Smithsonian Institution fellow, –91 and ; American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation, , Critics Choice Award, American Educational Studies Association, and Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship, all for Lies My Teacher Told Me; Sundown Towns: A Hidde