Class: 1964
Major: Sociology
Residence: Washington, DC
Deceased: August 19, 2021
Alumni survivors: Ms. Laura A. Sheridan ’59 (Cousin)
Jim came to Carleton from Decatur, Illinois where he graduated from MacArthur High School. He graduated from Carleton cum laude with a major in religion. At Harvard he received a master’s degree in 1967 and a doctorate in sociology in 1968.
What changed his life, perhaps? He studied part of his Carleton junior year at Mississippi State University. He was a visiting student at Tuskegee Institute and Tougaloo College in Mississippi.
Harvard published Jim’s dissertation, The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White in 1971. From 1968-1975, he taught at Tougaloo. In Mississippi, Jim became a keen observer of voting rights, civil rights and racial discrimination.
In 1975, Jim moved to teach at the University of Vermont. While there, he spent two years at the Smithsonian where he studied twelve American history textbooks then widely used in American classrooms. These studies eventually led to Lies My Teacher Told Me (1995). Jim’s following acclaimed works sustained this theme.
It is hard to write about all of Jim’s work in a few bio pages for our 60th reunion. However, because so much of his work has dealt with race relations, revealingly, accurately and realistically, Jim deserves our praise and admiration.
The American Sociological Association awarded Jim its Cox/Johnson/Frazier award in 2012. At that time, he was the only white person to have received that award. Tougaloo also awarded Jim an honorary doctorate.
Jim was a persistent observer. He knew how to write what he saw. He was very influential.
He called his personal life more checkered. And there were some bumps in his road. However, his life ended on many positive notes—recognition, respect, family, training Labrador retrievers to be guide dogs, enjoying classical music, playing board games, viewing good movies and reading fine books.
As he said, he was “still seeking the meaning of life.” What a marvelous journey.
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