“Sundown Towns: What They Are, How to Recognize Them & How to Help Them Move Forward”

James Loewen is a sociologist, historian and author of "Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism"

James Loewen is a sociologist, historian and author. His workshop will include:

  • How to confirm sundown town
  • How to assess historical sources (the census and oral history)
  • An invitation to upload your information onto an interactive website

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

James Loewen is a sociologist, historian and author of Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, named "Distinguished Book of 2005" by the Gustavus Myers Foundation. Loewen is best known for his 1995 book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, which was republished in 2008. Jim Loewen taught for 20 years at the University of Vermont. Previously he taught at the Historically Black College, Tougaloo College in Mississippi. He now lives in Washington, D.C., continuing his research on how Americans remember their past. In 2010, Teachers College Press brought out Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History, intended to give K-12 teachers (and prospective teachers) solutions to the problems pointed out in Loewen’s earlier works.

As the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War approached, Loewen co-edited and published The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader (University Press of Mississippi, 2010). His other books include Mississippi: Conflict and Change (co authored), which won the Lillian Smith Award for Best Southern Nonfiction but was rejected for public school text use by the State of Mississippi, leading to the path breaking First Amendment lawsuit, Loewen et al. v. Turnipseed, et al. His other books include The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White, Social Science in the Courtroom and The Truth about Columbus.

He has been an expert witness in more than 50 civil rights, voting rights, and employment cases. His awards include the First Annual Spivack Award of the American Sociological Association for "sociological research applied to the field of intergroup relations," the American Book Award (for Lies My Teacher Told Me), and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship. In 2012 the American Sociological Association gave Loewen its Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award, for "scholarship in service to social justice." Also in 2012, the National Council for the Social Studies gave Loewen its "Spirit of America" Award, previously won by, inter alia, Jimmy Carter, Rosa Parks and Mr. Rogers.