Richie’s Picks: WHITE LIES: HOW THE SOUTH LOST THE CIVIL WAR, THEN REWROTE THE HISTORY
Richie Partington
Richie’s Picks: WHITE LIES: HOW THE SOUTH LOST THE CIVIL WAR, THEN REWROTE THE HISTORY by Ann Bausum, Macmillan/Roaring Brook, August 2025, 368p., ISBN: 978-1-250-81657-3
“White ones and red ones
And some you can't disguise
Twisted truth and half the news
Can't hide it in your eyes
Lies lies lies yeah”
– Thompson Twins (1983)
“LIE #3: The Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery; it was all about states’ rights.”
“Lies have multiple purposes, and one of them is to create power. The people who have benefited from past lies will be the first to criticize efforts that undercut them. Not surprisingly, they will lie to do it. That’s the problem with lies. Once you start telling them, it’s hard to stop. Threaten liars with the facts, and they’ll reflexively double down with more falsehoods. It’s not surprising today during an era where issues of race, class, and privilege are such a focus of national debate that the matter of truth is too. Lies swirl around us, corrupting our understanding of current events in the same ways that they have distorted our appreciation of the past.
Until we break this cycle, until accuracy replaces misinformation, we will struggle.”
– from the Introduction: The Lost History
Employing dozens of these lies as propaganda, and armed with four potent weapons: voter suppression, Jim Crow segregation, lynchings, and the erection of Confederate-related statues in public places, yesteryear’s enslavers and subsequent generations of their White supremist supporters–both in the South and North–have been responsible for 160 years of countless Black Americans being cheated, mistereated, maimed, killed, and/or otherwise discriminated against because of their skin color. The biggest pile of propaganda bs, known as the Lost Cause, developed as a fantasy alternative to the real history of what slavery actually involved, and the real truth about the Southern states rebelling from the United States.
“[T]he Lost Cause was so captivating, so enticing, so flattering, so face-saving, in short, so convenient. The lies were easier to swallow than the facts.
For example, it was far easier to whitewash the nature of slavery than it was to admit that southern Whites had benefited for generations by exploiting Blacks in an immoral and violent act of enslavement. It was far easier for southern Whites to suggest that Confederate soldiers had been heroes defending the U.S. Constitution instead of rebels supporting the financial interests of enslavers. And it was far easier for southern Whites to blame the federal government for the defeat of the Confederacy than it was to hold the South’s generals accountable.”
“LIE #8: White people are naturally superior to Black people.”
Unbelievably, the legions of lies exposed in this incredible expose were still being formally fed to impressionable young students when we Boomers were kids–and even beyond then!
“What had started as misleading statements intended to spare the South’s ruling class from blame for the region’s demise had accomplished far more than originally expected. The lies of the Lost Cause had been absorbed so thoroughly that they had not only taken hold with White southerners but were influencing Americans as a whole. These falsehoods had helped fuel vigilante violence, derail Reconstruction, and strengthen White supremacy to the South. The Lost Cause had infused public art, inspired works of literature, and perpetuated the celebration of the Confederacy. Furthermore, historians were accepting its lies at face value and beginning to present falsehoods as historical facts.”
As we see from the extensive backmatter, nonfiction author Ann Bausum did a wealth of research in order to expose the lies and (still) ongoing campaign of White supremacy in America. The story details so many vivid examples of the related statues, literature, the demonization of Reconstruction, and all of the lies-lies-lies, yeah! The informational literacy lessons inherent in this nonfiction tale make it a volume that should unquestionably find its way into middle- and high school collections.
“[The] word–truth–would become inseparably linked to the Lost Cause effort. It appears over and over in the historical record, and for a good reason. As historian David W. Blight observed in his study of the postwar period, Race and Reunion, ‘in the sheer repetition of the word “truth” they claimed credibility and sought justification.’ Lies could replace the facts, these southern Whites reasoned, if they insisted loudly enough and long enough that they were the truth.
And, over time, that’s exactly what happened.”
And because that’s exactly what happened, countless millions of Black Americans have been screwed out of their rightful enjoyment of the American Dream…and far worse.
After WWII, Germany quickly ridded itself of tributes to Hitler and Nazi-ism. But 160+ years after the traitorous Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Court House; there are still lots of statues and plaques in public places that celebrate the joys of slavery and the Confederacy. This makes this extraordinary expose of the White Supremacists’ perverted rewriting of U.S. history the most consequential piece of nonfiction for young people I’ve read so far this year.
And God bless the teacher-librarian who scores a class set of this one, and helps incorporate it into the curriculum.
Richie Partington, MLIS
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