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James Loewen, writer of Lies My Trainer Instructed Me, died final Thursday, August 19 in Bethesda, MD. Loewen was a extremely revered sociologist and racial justice activist, in addition to the writer of a number of textbooks that problem the white, Eurocentric historical past taught in most colleges. He attended Carleton School in Northfield, Minnesota, the place he studied sociology. These research led him to spend time auditing programs at Mississippi State College, the Tuskeegee Institute, and Tougaloo School in early 1963.
Loewen and Dr. Charles Sallis co-wrote Mississippi: Battle and Change in 1974 as a corrective response to the content material assigned to his fellow college students at Tougaloo throughout their ninth grade historical past course. The e-book earned the Lillian Smith Guide Award for Greatest Southern Nonfiction in 1976, however concurrently the Mississippi State Textbook Buying Board refused to buy it and faculty districts threatened to fireplace academics who used it of their school rooms. Loewen finally gained a court docket case in 1980 that compelled the state to undertake the e-book.
From there, Loewen went on to publish a number of texts geared toward giving the general public a extra holistic and correct illustration of American historical past. Lies My Trainer Instructed Me was printed in 1995 and has been by way of a number of editions since, the newest version having been revised in 2018 in the course of the Trump administration. In 2023, the New Press will publish a graphic version of Lies My Trainer Instructed Me, created in collaboration with artist Nate Powell, who labored with Rep. John Lewis on the 3-part graphic novel for March.
One other of his works, Sunset Cities, impressed a database that’s maintained by his colleagues and can be utilized to find if a selected city has a sunset previous.
James Loewen’s work has been vital within the problem to conventional white Eurocentric historic instructing. He’s survived by his second spouse, his two kids, 4 grandchildren, and his sister.