We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

The note and essay for this section mark a shift toward more rigorous and documented discussion of historiography, the study of how historians construct historical narratives. Coates is specifically interested in the impact of yet another myth—“the noble Lost Cause” (74)—on how the story of the Civil War is told and the resulting impact on Black Americans’ relationship with their own history.

On display in the essay in particular is the more intellectually mature Coates who grounds his arguments in his growing understanding of American history. Coates uses the note to explore this epoch in his intellectual history in a more personal way—he describes becoming a Civil War buff and voraciously reading as he sought to come to terms with the story America tells itself about the Civil War. He also uses an anecdote about going to Gettysburg National Park as a child as a hook for the essay. These more personal reflections allow the reader to see the direct impact relatively abstract discussions about the construction of historical narratives can have on ordinary people.

Beyond the personal anecdotes, Coates includes standard scholarly works in history, primary documents, pop culture references, and autobiographies by political figures. His use of these sources both establishes his credibility as a writer and provides a model of self-education for the lay (Black) reader not accustomed to diving deeply into this period of history. By providing this model of self-education, Coates is showing the reader how to accomplish what he pleads for in the close of his essay: Black Americans who study and create historical narratives because they have a stake in the history.

Coates argues that such engagement is only possible once one understands the impact of and damage caused by unexamined myths. Coates examines in detail two central myths of America: that Black Americans were mere objects and bystanders to the Civil War and that the War itself was a noble but ultimately doomed effort of the South to preserve a way of life. Coates uses his own engagement with the historical record of the Civil War and direct quotes from important figures like Frederick Douglass to show that the war is anything other than noble and that Black Americans, long engaged in a struggle to be free, were no mere bystanders.

Coates does the work of constructing this alternative historical narrative in the essay itself. Examined closely, the historical record shows a contested story of the war, thus undercutting the idea that history can be confined to a settled, unitary narrative told by one side. Coates presents the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the resulting backlash as a part of a larger story about America, namely its deep White supremacy.

This increasing focus on the centrality of White supremacy anticipates a sharp turn in the second half of the collection to showing the White supremacist reality behind the myth of America as the land of the free. This critical examination of myths about American history is also a reflection of Coates’s belief that it is his job as a creator of narratives to tell the truth, no matter how ugly.