The 1619 Project

The 1619 Project is a controversial project in the United States created by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from The New York Times, and The New York Times Magazine. It is meant to change the country's history by talking about the effects of slavery. The project said that the United States was actually founded in 1619 when the first slaves arrived to the country. 

The project was first published in August 2019 for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the Virginia colony. 

The project was very controversial and had negative comments from many historians.

 Background 
 The 1619 Project began in August 2019 to mark 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in the British colony of Virginia. In 1619, about 20 Africans were brought to Virginia by an English ship called the White Lion. These people had been captured during attacks on the Kingdom of Ndongo, which is in today’s Angola. The ship landed at a place called Point Comfort in Virginia.

The project focuses on this event as an important part of the history of slavery in what would become the United States. However, some people have criticized this view. They point out that enslaved Africans were brought to parts of North America earlier, in 1526, and that Europeans had also enslaved Native Americans starting in the late 1400s, around the time of Columbus.
 Project 
The 1619 Project published a special issue of a magazine to look closely at how slavery has affected America. This was done to remember the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619. The project challenged the common belief that American history began in 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, or in 1620, when the Pilgrims arrived.

The project quickly became bigger. It included more magazine issues, articles in other New York Times publications, and a school curriculum made with help from the Pulitzer Center. The Smithsonian Institution also supported the project by helping to form a group of historians to research and fact-check the information. Most of the writing in the project was done by African-American authors, because the project felt it was important for Black voices to lead the telling of this history.
August 18, 2019, magazine issue
The first version of the 1619 Project was published in a 100-page issue of The New York Times Magazine on August 18, 2019. It featured ten written essays, a photo story, and a group of poems and short stories. The issue began with an introduction written by the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jake Silverstein. which are:
 "Our Democracy's Founding Ideals Were False When They Were Written. Black Americans Have Fought to Make Them True", essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones
 "American Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation", essay by Matthew Desmond
 "How False Beliefs in Physical Racial Difference Still Live in Medicine Today", essay by Linda Villarosa
 "What the Reactionary Politics of 2019 Owe to the Politics of Slavery", essay by Jamelle Bouie
 "Why Is Everyone Always Stealing Black Music?", essay by Wesley Morris
 "How Segregation Caused Your Traffic Jam", essay by Kevin M. Kruse
 "Why Doesn't America Have Universal Healthcare? One Word: Race", essay by Jeneen Interlandi
 "Why American Prisons Owe Their Cruelty to Slavery", essay by Bryan Stevenson
 "The Barbaric History of Sugar in America", essay by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
 "How America's Vast Racial Wealth Gap Grew: By Plunder", essay by Trymaine Lee
 "Their Ancestors Were Enslaved by Law. Now They're Lawyers", photo essay by Djeneba Aduayom, with text from Nikole Hannah-Jones and Wadzanai Mhute
 "A New Literary Timeline of African-American History", a collection of original poems and stories
 Clint Smith on the Middle Passage
 Yusef Komunyakaa on Crispus Attucks
 Eve L. Ewing on Phillis Wheatley
 Reginald Dwayne Betts on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
 Barry Jenkins on Gabriel's Rebellion
 Jesmyn Ward on the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves
 Tyehimba Jess on Black Seminoles
 Darryl Pinckney on the Emancipation Proclamation
 ZZ Packer on the New Orleans massacre of 1866
 Yaa Gyasi on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment
 Jacqueline Woodson on Sgt. Isaac Woodard
 Joshua Bennett on the Black Panther Party
 Lynn Nottage on the birth of hip-hop
 Kiese Laymon on the Rev. Jesse Jackson's "rainbow coalition" speech
 Clint Smith on the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina
Accompanying material and activities
The magazine issue was released along with a special section in the Sunday newspaper. This section, made with help from the Smithsonian, looked at the start of the transatlantic slave trade and was written by Mary Elliott and Jazmine Hughes. Starting on August 20, a podcast series called 1619 began, produced by The Daily, the New York Times’ morning news podcast.

The Sunday sports section also included an essay discussing how slavery’s legacy affects power and control in professional sports, titled “Is Slavery's Legacy in the Power Dynamics of Sports?”

The New York Times planned to bring the project into schools through a 1619 Project Curriculum, created with the Pulitzer Center. They printed hundreds of thousands of extra copies of the magazine to share with schools, museums, and libraries.

The Pulitzer Center also offers free lesson plans online, collects lesson ideas from teachers, and helps arrange guest speakers for classrooms. Most of these lessons can be used with students from elementary school all the way to college.
Reception
Historical accuracy
Historian Sean Wilentz criticized the 1619 Project in an essay for The New York Review of Books. He said it had a negative and unfair view of the American Revolution, the Civil War, and President Abraham Lincoln, who he felt was wrongly portrayed as a white supremacist.

In December 2019, Wilentz and four other well-known historians—Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes—wrote a letter to The New York Times.They said they had serious concerns about the project and asked for corrections. They believed the authors were replacing historical facts with personal beliefs. One point they strongly disagreed with was the claim in Nikole Hannah-Jones’ essay that protecting slavery was a major reason the American colonists wanted independence from Britain.

The New York Times published their letter, along with a response from Jake Silverstein, the magazine’s editor-in-chief. Silverstein defended the project’s accuracy and refused to make corrections. Gordon Wood replied that he didn’t know of any colonist who said they wanted independence to keep slavery and that no one in 1776 said Britain was trying to end slavery. 

Later, in The Atlantic, Wilentz again criticized Silverstein’s defense of the project, saying that fighting for social justice still requires sticking to the facts.
 Response 
In September 2020, Nikole Hannah-Jones said conservatives were wrong in how they described the 1619 Project, saying it never claimed that the year 1619 was the true founding of the United States. However, writer Conor Friedersdorf from The Atlantic pointed out that she had made past statements saying that 1619 was the nation's true founding.

Some critics, including writers from Quillette magazine (quoted by The Washington Post), said this meant The New York Times was quietly changing its message without admitting it had been wrong at first. A conservative group called the National Association of Scholars even sent a letter asking that the Pulitzer Prize given to the project be taken back.
 Motivations for the American Revolution 
A major controversy around the 1619 Project is its claim that one of the main reasons the American colonists wanted independence from Britain was to protect slavery.

Professor Sean Wilentz from Princeton University said this idea is not supported by history. He explained that in 1776, there was no real threat from Britain to end slavery, because the British abolitionist movement had barely started. He also disagreed with the project's use of the Somerset v Stewart court case to support its argument, pointing out that the ruling only applied to England and had no impact in the American colonies.

Wilentz also argued that the claim about the Revolution stopping the slave trade—and harming the colonies’ economy—ignored the fact that some colonies had already tried to limit or ban the slave trade between 1769 and 1774.

Historians who criticized the project also said that many America's Founding Fathers, like John Adams, James Otis, and Thomas Paine, spoke out against slavery. They added that after the American Revolution, every state north of Maryland began to take action to end slavery.
Journalistic reactions
The 1619 Project got good reviews from writers like Alexandria Neason in the Columbia Journalism Review and Ellen McGirt in Fortune magazine. Fortune called the project “broad and cooperative, honest, and thoughtful,” and said it was an important and powerful way to challenge the false story often told about how America began.

Andrew Sullivan said the 1619 Project shared an important point of view, but he felt it was biased and claimed to be neutral when it wasn’t. George Will, writing in The Washington Post, called the project harmful and said it got history wrong. Damon Linker in The Week said the project’s version of history was dramatic, overly simple, and one-sided. Timothy Sandefur agreed the project’s goal was good but thought it tried too hard to link everything to slavery, which made it inaccurate. Phillip W. Magness, writing in National Review, said the economic history in the project was misleading and based on poor research. Rich Lowry also criticized the project’s main essay, saying it ignored facts, misrepresented the American Revolution and Constitution, and gave a false picture of history. Victor Davis Hanson said the project showed that The New York Times cared more about promoting political views than telling the truth.

In the May 2022 issue of the libertarian magazine Reason, reporter Phillip W. Magness called the 1619 Project "junk history." He compared Nikole Hannah-Jones' work to earlier writings about slavery by well-known African Americans like Zora Neale Hurston. Magness said:
Political reactions
The project got different reactions from political leaders. At the time, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris praised it on Twitter, saying, “The #1619Project is a powerful and necessary reckoning of our history. We can’t fix today’s problems without being honest about our past.”

On the other hand, many well-known conservatives criticized it. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it “brainwashing” and “propaganda,” later writing that it was “left-wing propaganda pretending to be the truth.” Republican Senator Ted Cruz also said it was propaganda. President Donald Trump, during a Fox News interview with Chris Wallace, said:I just look at—I look at school. I watch, I read, look at the stuff. Now they want to change—1492, Columbus discovered America. You know, we grew up, you grew up, we all did, that's what we learned. Now they want to make it the 1619 project. Where did that come from? What does it represent? I don't even know.In July 2020, Republican Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas introduced the "Saving American History Act of 2020." This bill aimed to stop K–12 schools from using federal money to teach lessons based on the 1619 Project. It also said schools that used the project couldn’t get federal training grants for teachers. Cotton said the 1619 Project gives a "racially divisive and incorrect" version of history and that it goes against the true values the U.S. was built on.

On September 6, 2020, President Trump reacted on Twitter to a claim that California was adding the 1619 Project to its school curriculum. He said the Department of Education was looking into it and warned that if the claim was true, federal funding might be cut from California public schools.

Later, on September 17, Trump announced the creation of the 1776 Commission to promote a "patriotic" version of American history in schools.

In October 2020, the National Association of Scholars, a conservative group, released a public letter signed by 21 people asking the Pulitzer Prize Board to take back Nikole Hannah-Jones' award. They said the project falsely claimed that one main reason for the American Revolution was to protect slavery, a claim they argued had no evidence.

In November 2020, President Trump created the 1776 Commission through an executive order. He selected 18 conservative leaders to create a response to the 1619 Project. The commission released its report on January 18, 2021, but it was heavily criticized for being inaccurate, poorly researched, and lacking proper sources. President Joe Biden shut down the commission on January 20, 2021, his first day in office.

On April 30, 2021, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, objecting to a plan to change federal education grants. The change would encourage schools to use materials like the 1619 Project. McConnell said the plan was politically biased and argued that historians from different political backgrounds had already proven the project’s claims wrong.

The World Socialist Web Site also criticized the 1619 Project, saying it gave a misleading version of history by focusing too much on race instead of class struggle.

Awards
Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the 1619 Project, won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her essay. The award praised her powerful and personal writing in the 1619 Project, which aims to show how slavery is a central part of America's history. The project helped spark national conversations about how the country began and developed.

In October 2020, New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute named the 1619 Project one of the top ten pieces of journalism from 2010 to 2019.
 Bans 
Near the end of his first term, President Donald Trump said he wanted to ban the 1619 Project from school curriculums. He claimed it made students "hate their own country." Republican lawmakers agreed with him and also tried to stop the project from being taught in schools.

Several bills were introduced to ban the project, including one by U.S. Senator Tom Cotton at the national level. State lawmakers Representative Mark Lowery in Arkansas, Skyler Wheeler in Iowa, and Senator Angela Burks Hill in Mississippi also introduced similar bills. By late summer 2021, lawmakers in 27 states had proposed bills similar to Cotton's, aiming to block the 1619 Project from classrooms. 

While Ron DeSantis was governor, Florida banned the teaching of the 1619 Project in public schools. First, in 2021, the Florida State Board of Education passed a rule that banned critical race theory. Then in 2022, the Stop WOKE Act was passed, which also blocked the 1619 Project from being taught.

Related pages
 Historical revisionism

References

 Read more 
 Gordon-Reed, Annette; Stremlau, Rose; Lowery, Malinda; Reed, Julie L.; Barker, Joanne; Sharfstein, Daniel; Scott, Daryl Michael; Wulf, Karin; Greene, Sandra E.; Sweet, James H.; Troutt Powell, Eve M.; Schine, Rachel; Mikhail, Alan; Edwards, Erika Denise; Williams, Danielle Terrazas (2022). "The 1619 Project Forum". The American Historical Review. 127 (4): 1792–1873.






 Other websites 

 Print edition (2019 August). The New York Times Magazine.
 Podcast series (2019 August–October).
 "The 1619 Project Sparks Dialogue and Reflection in Schools Nationwide." Pulitzer Center (December 20, 2019).
 "Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting: 2019 Annual Report ." Pulitzer Center (2020).

Category:August 2019 events
Category:History of the United States
Category:1619