1619

[Hadi Sapre]

The1619 Project is a long-form journalistic revisionist historiographical work that takes a critical view of traditionally revered figures and events in American history, including the Patriots in the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers, along with Abraham Lincoln and the Union during the Civil War.[1][2][3][4] It was developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from The New York Times, and The New York Times Magazine. It focused on subjects of slavery and the founding of the United States.[5] The first publication from the project was in The New York Times Magazine of August 2019.[6] The project developed an educational curriculum, supported by the Pulitzer Center, later accompanied by a broadsheet article, live events, and a podcast.[7]

The project has become a leading subject of the American history wars,[8] receiving criticism from historians, both from the political left and the right, who question its historical accuracy.[3][9] In a letter published in The New York Times in December 2019, historians Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson, Sean Wilentz, Victoria E. Bynum, and James Oakes applauded "all efforts to address the enduring centrality of slavery and racism to our history" and deemed the project a "praiseworthy and urgent public service," but expressed "strong reservations" about some "important aspects" of the project and requested factual corrections. These scholars denied the project's claim that slavery was essential to the beginning of the American Revolution. In response, Jake Silverstein, the editor of The New York Times Magazine, defended The 1619 Project and refused to issue corrections.[10] On May 4, 2020, the Pulitzer Prize board announced that it was awarding the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary to Hannah-Jones for her introductory essay.[11][12]

In 2020, The New York Times premiered a dedicated podcast series.[19] In 2021, a book anthology of essays and poetry The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story was published, as well as a children's picture book The 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Hannah-Jones and Rene Watson. In January 2023, Hulu premiered a six-part documentary TV series created by Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine.[20] This series won an Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series at the 75th Creative Arts Emmy Awards.[21]

The project dedicated an issue of the magazine to a re-examination of the legacy of slavery in America, at the anniversary of the 1619 arrival of the first enslaved people to Virginia. This framing challenges the idea that American history began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which created the United States, or with the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.[28]

The project quickly grew into a larger endeavor,[25] encompassing multiple issues of the magazine, with related materials in other Times publications, as well as a school curriculum developed in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center.[25] With support from the Smithsonian, the project recruited a panel of historians to research, develop, and fact-check content.[29] The project was envisioned with the condition that almost all of the content would be from African-American contributors, deeming the perspective of Black writers an essential element of the story to be told.[30]

The first edition appeared in a 100-page issue of The New York Times Magazine on August 18, 2019. It included ten written essays, a photo essay, and a collection of poems and fiction,[31] with an introduction by editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein,[23][32] as follows:

One of the claims made by Hannah-Jones is that the colonists fought the Revolutionary War to preserve slavery.[33][34] The claim was later softened to say that "some of" the colonists fought to preserve slavery.[35] The essays further discuss details of history as well as modern American society, such as traffic jams and the American affinity for sugar, and their connections to slavery and segregation.[36] Matthew Desmond's essay argues that slavery has shaped modern capitalism and workplace norms. Jamelle Bouie's essay draws parallels between pro-slavery politics and the modern right-wing politics.[30] Bouie argues that the United States still has not let go of the assumption that some people inherently deserve more power than others.[37]

The magazine issue was accompanied by a special section in the Sunday newspaper, in partnership with the Smithsonian, examining the beginnings of the transatlantic slave trade, written by Mary Elliott and Jazmine Hughes. Beginning on August 20, a multi-episode audio series titled "1619" began,[36] published by The Daily, the morning news podcast of the Times.[25] The Sunday sports section had an essay about slavery's impact on professional sports in the United States: "Is Slavery's Legacy in the Power Dynamics of Sports?"[25][38] The Times plans to take the project to schools, with the 1619 Project Curriculum developed in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center. Hundreds of thousands of extra copies of the magazine issue were printed for distribution to schools, museums and libraries.[22]

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting has made available free online lesson plans, is collecting further lesson plans from teachers, and helps arrange for speakers to visit classes.[39] The Center considers most of the lessons usable by all grades from elementary school through college.[40]

In November 2021, Random House's One World imprint published the anthology The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. It is a book-length expansion of the project's essays. The book was created by Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine, and is edited by Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein.[41][42] Six of the essays from the anthology were adapted into a six-episode miniseries, "The 1619 Project", which premiered on January 26, 2023, on Hulu.[43][44]

In an essay for The New York Review of Books, historian Sean Wilentz accused the project of cynicism for its portrayal of the American Revolution, the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln, who Wilentz wrote is "rendered as a white supremacist".[4] In a December 2019 letter published in The New York Times, Wilentz, along with fellow historians Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes expressed "strong reservations" about the project and requested factual corrections, accusing the authors of a "displacement of historical understanding by ideology". The letter disputed the claim, made in Hannah-Jones' introductory essay, that "one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery". The Times published the letter along with a rebuttal from the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jake Silverstein,[10][45] who defended the accuracy of the 1619 Project and declined to issue corrections. Wood responded in a letter, "I don't know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves ... No colonist expressed alarm that the mother country was out to abolish slavery in 1776."[46][47] In an article in The Atlantic, Wilentz responded to Silverstein, writing, "No effort to educate the public in order to advance social justice can afford to dispense with a respect for basic facts", and disputing the accuracy of Silverstein's defense of the project.[1]

Also in December 2019, twelve scholars and political scientists specializing in the American Civil War sent a letter to the Times saying that "The 1619 Project offers a historically-limited view of slavery." While agreeing to the importance of examining American slavery, they objected to what they described as the portrayal of slavery as a uniquely American phenomenon, to construing slavery as a capitalist venture, and to presenting out-of-context quotes of a conversation between Abraham Lincoln and "five esteemed free black men". The following month, Times editor Jake Silverstein issued a response stating that no corrections were necessary.[2]

In March 2020, historian Leslie M. Harris, who had been consulted for the project, wrote in Politico that she had warned that the idea that the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery was inaccurate, and that the Times made avoidable mistakes, but that the project was "a much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories".[50] Hannah-Jones has also said that she stands by the claim that slavery helped fuel the revolution, though she concedes she might have phrased it too strongly in her essay, in a way that could give readers the impression that the support for slavery was universal.[45][50] On March 11, 2020, Silverstein authored an "update" in the form of a "clarification" on the Times' website, correcting Hannah-Jones's essay to state that "protecting slavery was a primary motivation for some of the colonists".[51] This "clarification" was reportedly prompted by a private warning to Silverstein by Harvard classicist and political scientist Danielle Allen that she might go public with criticism if the passage on the revolution were not corrected.[17]

In December 2023, historian James Oakes wrote a detailed essay published in Jacobin that criticized the historical accuracy of the project in multiple areas, stating that it "has botched the history of the slave economy, misconstrued the origins of Northern economic development, erased the history of antislavery, and rendered emancipation irrelevant".[52]

In September 2020, Nikole Hannah-Jones criticized conservatives for their depiction of the project because it "does not argue that 1619 is our true founding".[17] Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf responded on Twitter by citing statements from Hannah-Jones that 1619 was the nation's true founding.[17] Critics cited by The Washington Post, such as Quillette magazine, argued that this showed that the Times was quietly revising its position without acknowledgement of the original mischaracterization.[17] The conservative National Association of Scholars published a letter asking for the revocation of the project's Pulitzer Prize.[17][53]

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