If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to read Andy Hall’s analysis of the DeWitt-Weeks saga. I tend to agree with Hall that there is no reason to believe that Ms. DeWitt’s goal is to intentionally mislead her young readers or distort the history covered in her book. However, as we now know [...]
Ann DeWitt/Kevin Meeks
Update: Check out Andy Hall’s thoughtful analysis of the DeWitt-Weeks book over at Dead Confederates. I am a high school history teacher, who spends a great deal of time reviewing classroom materials for their historical merit. For what it’s worth my judgments are based on a solid education and years of reading the best in [...]
Here is another selection from Ann DeWitt’s and Kevin Week’s Entangled in Freedom, which tells the story of a black Confederate soldier by the name of Isaac. In this scene Isaac and his master, Abraham Green, have just arrived at the camp of the 42nd Regiment Georgia Volunteers. The soldiers in camp are surprised to [...]
One of the nice things about Mr. Weeks’s decision to lodge a complaint about me with my school is that I ended up with an advanced copy of Entangled in Freedom. I am trying to make my way through it, but it has been incredibly difficult. It is much worse than I originally thought. In [...]
Imagine my surprise yesterday when the headmaster of my school handed me an advanced copy of Kevin Weeks’s and Ann Dewitt’s new book, Entangled in Freedom. Apparently, Mr. Weeks decided to send a copy to my school along with a letter claiming that I had “slandered my literary work without conducting a formal book review.” [...]
It just continues to get more and more bizarre with each passing week. Ann DeWitt promised to continue to develop her Black Confederate Soldiers website and she does not disappoint. She recently added a section on the pension records of Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Nowhere does she inform her reader that these pensions [...]
I was surprised to find a brief reference to this site over at Ann DeWitt’s black Confederate website (scroll down to bottom of page). I’ve written quite a bit about the interpretive problems on her site as well as the complete lack of any reference to her qualifications to discuss this subject given her requests [...]
I have referenced Ann DeWitt’s new black Confederate website on a few occasions, but at this point we know very little about her. The website is filled with misinformation and vague references that can be found on the many websites that purport to educate. In the case of Ms. DeWitt, she hopes to eventually turn [...]
I don’t have much sympathy for adults who buy into the black Confederate meme. In the end, it is simply a reflection of their gullibility, lack of basic historical knowledge relating to the Civil War and an inability to properly interpret primary sources. On the other hand and as a teacher, I am disgusted when [...]