La Crosse’s mayor has acknowledged his city’s history as a “sundown town” that all but eliminated its black population and promised to make amends.

“We’ve got issues and are not shirking away from those issues,” Mayor Tim Kabat said. “We recognize this is a problem and need to do something about it.”

Sociologist James Loewen, author of “Lies My Teacher Told Me” and most recently “Sundown Towns,” spoke Thursday evening at a City Hall forum about La Crosse’s history of freezing out blacks.