With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Ervin Jordan: Virginia textbook claims "false"

As Kevin Sieff reported in The Washington Post on Wednesday, historians are wondering how a fourth-grade textbook in Virginia was approved despite including the spurious claim that “Thousands of Southern blacks fought in the Confederate ranks, including two black battalions under the command of Stonewall Jackson.”

Asked about her sources, the textbook’s author, Joy Masoff — whose other books include “Fire!” and “Oh Yikes! History’s Grossest, Wackiest Moments” — cited Ervin Jordan, a University of Virginia historian who is the author of “Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia.”

Like other noted historians, Mr. Jordan told The Post that while there is documentary evidence that some African-Americans fought for the Confederacy, “There’s no way of knowing that there were thousands…. And the claim about Jackson is totally false.”...
Read entire article at NYT