Black scholars challenged the lies of American historiography before the monuments were built

Evidence

That such public education is even necessary is evidence of the power of the lie to protect America’s innocence. Why? Because we have had this conversation before: Black people challenged these monuments on ideological and historical grounds even as they were being built. That challenge, for example, sits at the heart of W.E.B. Du Bois’s classic 1935 book Black Reconstruction, the final chapter of which, “The Propaganda of History,” is devoted to exposing the lies at the heart of the historiography around Reconstruction. Du Bois unmasked the racist assumptions shaping the influential works of political scientist John W. Burgess and historian William A. Dunning, both of Columbia University. The Dunning School, the first generation of trained historians to write about Reconstruction, told the story of the period as one of extensive overreach of federal power and the corruption of northern carpetbaggers, and viewed the granting of political rights to former slaves as “a monstrous mistake.” In rejecting the historical scholarship of Dunning and his students, Du Bois put it this way: “We have too often a deliberate attempt so to change the facts of history that the story will make pleasant reading for Americans.” Du Bois’s devastating criticism notwithstanding, their lies held firm. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 255

Categorization

• XREF: The Dunning School as historiography-as-lie connects to the ‘failed reckoning’ thesis — the lie persists because the reckoning was refused, not never attempted.