dillday, also a producer on civil war. ladies, welcome to you both. rachel, you first, because i know you said you decided to make this film when you got the sense people didn t even seem to know what the civil war was about in terms of preserving slavery. dozens of interviews later, do you still people don t know or do they choose their own narrative? well, that s a really hard question. you know, i think these are stories in our country, especially in the south, that have been passed down over generations. the cause of the war immediately after the war started getting rewritten by the people who had lost. and the lost cause narrative was ultimately the south s victory over reconstruction. they took over the textbooks. they took over the statues. and those stories of victory even in defeat for the confederacy were passed down from generation to generation. it wasn t really about slavery. slaves were well treated. the old south was a beautiful
and confront them as a nation and as a society. so much of the issues that we have today around race, around place, around the north and the south, come from the fact that there was this major war in our country and the narratives we tell about are not always true. yeah. last question to you, rachel. because you asked a black student if she ever had a white friend, and i m curious whether you asked the sail question of white students and whether you heard differences or similarities in their answers. why was it important to include this and ask this? well, i did ask lots of students that question. and the racial segregation in our classrooms affects kids north and south, urban, rural. our classrooms are still deeply segregated. i live in new york city. and new york city classrooms are deeply segregated. this is the product of our unexamined history, the product
boynton, and the film s producer. rachel, erica, thank you both for being here tonight. i want to play another clip from the film quickly so our audience can benefit from some context coming out of it. please roll the clip. and in order to make peace, we told ourselves a certain story about it. and for a long time, we had trouble telling the difference between that story and the truth. rachel, what is the story of the civil war and why does it endure and then of course, what is the truth? and why is it still debated? well, what is being referred to in that particular clip is the story of the lost cause. very quickly, after the war ended, the people who lost the war started taking over the narrative and the confederates lost the war. no question about that.
we got it take back the narrative and say this is what you are saying and call it out. it is not accurate. at some point, as history teachers and historians, we must correct that part of the history that tries to devalue the primary reason of the civil rights excuse me. civil war. thank you to both of you for taking the time to talk to us. antwayn patrick. principal of holmes county high school in lexington, mississippi. rachel boynton is the filmmaker of civil war. it airs tomorrow night here on msnbc. the subject is something that gets my gears going. i decided to dive in deeper for velshi across america. my conversation about this with six locals in jackson,
battleground states the real power that can turn is poor and low-wealth people. reverend, a pleasure to speak you to. thank you for joining us tonight. before we go, an important programming note. a very big night sunday on msnbc. when you are going to get a chance to see the new peacock original documentary civil war, look at the roots of division in this country. it will air sunday at 10:00 p.m. eastern and tomorrow morning on my show. i will have a first look at the film, talk with the director, rachel boynton and one of the history teachers in the film. i had a chance to travel to jack, mississippi, where i talk about race and education in the country. it was a fascinating and important discussion. that and much more tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. eastern right here on msnbc. and that is tonight s last