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X-WR-CALNAME:The Propaganda of History: W. E. B. Du Bois vs the 'Lost Cause
 '
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Eastern Time (US & Canada)
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260712T152937Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_52877363640263
DTSTART:20260722T160000Z
DTEND:20260722T170000Z
DESCRIPTION:RSVP here.\n\n \n\nThe Lost Cause myth emerged in the South fol
 lowing the Civil War as a romanticized framework for processing and memori
 alizing the catastrophic defeat of the Confederacy. By the early twentieth
  century it had become a well-established\, powerful ideology that was nat
 ional\, even international in scope. Through public monuments\, gaudy ritu
 als\, popular novels and film\, and even academic publications\, the Lost 
 Cause was able to exert a disproportionate influence on how white American
 s remembered the Civil War\, Emancipation\, and Reconstruction and\, cruci
 ally\, how they thought about race in their own time.\n\n \n\nW. E. B. Du 
 Bois watched this myth take hold of the American imagination through his y
 outh and in his early years as a scholar. Some of his earliest student wri
 tings\, not least his doctoral thesis\, presented a challenge to the myth 
 as it was emerging. By the time the Lost Cause had achieved national promi
 nence\, so had Du Bois as editor of The Crisis\, and he thundered against 
 it in editorials and articles for a quarter of a century. His efforts to r
 esist this white supremacist framing of American History reached a pinnacl
 e of sorts with his magnum opus\, Black Reconstruction in America\, publis
 hed in 1935\, but he would continue his efforts to challenge and discredit
  the Lost Cause until his death in 1963.\n\nThis lecture will describe how
  the myth of the Lost Cause became such a powerful force in the American s
 ocio-cultural landscape before detailing some of the many ways Du Bois cha
 llenged it in word and deed. It will argue that this clash of ideas gives 
 us much to think about in the present and that Du Bois’s quest for truth
  and historical justice is as relevant in 2026 as it was at any point duri
 ng his long life.\n\n \n\nSpeaker Bio\n\nAdam Holmes is the Assistant Dire
 ctor of the W. E. B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts Amh
 erst. He is responsible for the Center’s events and outreach as well as 
 its fellowship program which supports new research into the life and work 
 of Du Bois.\n\nAdam holds degrees in History and American Studies from Man
 chester University and Kings College London respectively. Prior to joining
  the Du Bois Center in 2018\, Adam worked for three years for the National
  Literacy Trust\, a UK-based charity aiming to improve the education and l
 ives of children and adults in some of the country’s most underserved co
 mmunities.
GEO:42.389508;-72.529933
LOCATION:Library\, W. E. B. Du Bois\, W. E. B. Du Bois Center\, Floor 22\, 
 Room 2220
SUMMARY:The Propaganda of History: W. E. B. Du Bois vs the 'Lost Cause'
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.umass.edu/event/the-propaganda-of-history-w-e-
 b-du-bois-vs-the-lost-cause
CATEGORIES:Lecture/Talk/Reading
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