Black Scholar Of The Civil War Asks: Who's With Me? : NPR

Black Scholar Of The Civil War Asks: Who's With Me? : NPR: The Civil War ended slavery in America. So why, asks author Ta-Nehisi Coates, do African-Americans, who benefited most from the conflict, take so little interest in it? Coates, a confessed Civil War obsessive, wrote about that question in his recent article, "Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?"

The story appears in a special issue of The Atlantic commemorating the Civil War.

Of course, 150 years after the war began, many Americans study the conflict in many different ways. Some get caught up in the leaders' personalities, or in specific battles that served as turning points in the war.

"There's a group of people for whom that means obsessing over military tactics," Coates tells NPR's Steve Inskeep.