Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the 1619 Project, called the backlash against her revisionist history work her “greatest honor.”
Speaking at an MSNBC event called “National Day of Racial Healing,” which included a tribute to Native American tribes by host Chris Hayes, Hannah-Jones shared what she believes to be the “truth” of her work.
“If we recognize what this country was actually built on, if we recognize that the reason black Americans live in the circumstances we live in is not because of our pathology, but because of a country that was built around us, literally To deprive wealth we must do something about it,” she said.
She also blamed “powerful interests” for the backlash to the 1619 Project, which many on the right and center have dubbed awakened revisionism.
Hannah-Jones, a reporter for The New York Times Magazine, created the 1619 project with the outlet in 2019, using essays, photos, podcasts, and eventually a book and guide for educators arguing that America in the year was founded when a group of slaves arrived in the country and not when independence was granted in 1776.
Project 1619 founder Nikole Hannah-Jones calls the backlash against her revisionist history project her “greatest honor.”
“The truth scares those in power in this country. And I’m glad they’re scared,” she said, reaffirming her belief that America was built on slavery.
The leftist author added that she said the backlash was because Americans are “being taught this history so badly,” citing education about the plight of African and Asian Americans.
She also blamed the media and “entrenched interest groups” for causing divisions between blacks and other minority groups.
“There are powerful interest groups that don’t want us to understand this story, that don’t want us to understand our common struggle,” she said. So we’re over here fighting for crumbs and respect while maintaining hierarchy and staying in place.
Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project will continue to spread in media circles with the debut of a six-part documentary, streaming on Hulu later this year and produced by Oprah Winfrey.
“It aims to reshape the history of the country by placing the aftermath of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the heart of our national narrative,” NYT Magazine wrote on its website.
The project won a Pulitzer Prize that year.
Speaking at an MSNBC event called “National Day of Racial Healing,” which included a tribute to Native American tribes by host Chris Hayes, Hannah-Jones shared what she believes to be the “truth” of her work
She also blamed “powerful interests” for the backlash to the 1619 Project, which many on the right and center have dubbed awakened revisionism
Released in August 2019 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia, the work drew criticism from some academics for its claims – and angered many others who saw it as unpatriotic.
In December, Hannah-Jones told the Associated Press the ongoing debate was not surprising.
“We were taught the history of a country that doesn’t exist,” she said.
“We have been taught the history of a country, which makes us unable to understand how we get an uprising in the largest democracy on January 6.”
She said America “deliberately” avoids its complicated and painful past, and that’s why her work is so polemical.
“Steps forward, steps towards racial progress, always meet with an intense backlash,” she said.
“We are a society that willfully refuses to engage with the anti-Blackness that is at the core of so many of our institutions and indeed our society itself.”
Her work has sparked an intense debate about history teaching in schools.
Critical race theory, which evaluates race and its impact on society and questions whether racism is embedded in legal systems and policies, has infuriated parents and ignited school board meetings for the past year.
The 40-year-old academic theory has become a symbol of America’s culture wars, and in the years since The 1619 Project has sparked heated debate about what children should be taught.
Hannah-Jones was considered for a tenured position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last year, but pressure from donors ended up offering her the non-tenured position — something she found deeply disappointing.
She eventually turned it down and instead accepted a tenured position at Howard University.
Nikole Hannah-Jones speaks onstage at The Hollywood Reporter 2021 Power 100 Women in Entertainment in December
Nikole Hannah Jones appeared on the cover of Essence Magazine. She won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the history of the United States
However, she hit back: a book based on the articles was published in November and became a bestseller. A TV documentary about the work is due out later in 2022.
“I’ve gone from being a simple journalist to becoming a kind of symbol for people who either love me and my work or slander me and my work,” she said.
“Certainly speaking, the fact that very powerful people are so concerned about a piece of journalism called The 1619 Project that they would try to discredit it, that they would try to censor it, that they would try to deregulate it, speaks volumes Forbidding it is borne out by the fact that there are millions of Americans who want a more honest account of our history, who want a better understanding of the country we are in, who are open to new narratives.’
She said questioning the academic merit of her work was “legitimizing a propaganda campaign.”
But when asked what she thought of critics calling it “agenda-driven work,” Hannah-Jones said, “You’d be right.”
She said: “The agenda is to force a reckoning with who we are as a country.
“The agenda is to move the history of black Americans in slavery from an asterisk to a fringe to a central element in our understanding of our country.
“But when people say that, I know they’re saying it in a derogatory way.
“I’m just being honest about the nature of this work.”
Hannah-Jones sparked further controversy when she said last year that parents shouldn’t decide what is taught in schools.
“I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what is taught. I’m not a professional educator,” she said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“I don’t have a degree in social studies or science. We send our children to school because we want them to be taught by people who know the subject. And that’s not my job.”
Proponents say teaching the 1619 Project is necessary to underscore how deeply racism runs in society. Critics say it’s divisive and portrays everyone as a victim or an oppressor.
“That’s why we send our kids to school and not at home because those are the professional educators who have the expertise to teach social studies, history, science and literature,” she said.
“And I think we should leave that to the educators.”
She also told Fox News that “professional K-12 educators, not parents, are the experts at teaching, including those raising my own child.”
1619 project of the New York Times
In August 2019, The New York Times Magazine published The 1619 Project, a collection of essays, photo essays, short stories, and poetry aimed at reshaping American history based on the impact of slaves brought to the United States .
It was published to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in the English colonies.
It is argued that the nation’s birth was not in 1776 with independence from the British Crown, but in August 1619 with the arrival of a cargo ship carrying 20 to 30 enslaved Africans at Point Comfort in the Virginia colony, ushering in the system of slavery.
The project argues that slavery was the origin of the country and out of it grew “almost everything that has made America truly exceptional.”
These include economic power, industry, the electoral system, music, inequalities in public health and education, violence, income inequality, slang and racial hatred.
However, the project is debated among historians for its factual accuracy.
In March 2020, historian Leslie M. Harris, who served as fact-checker for the project, said the authors ignored their corrections but believed the project was necessary to correct prevailing historical narratives.
One aspect that is up for debate is the timing.
Time magazine said the first slaves arrived in a Spanish colony in present-day South Carolina in 1526, 93 years before the Jamestown landings.
Some experts say slaves first arrived at present-day Fort Monroe in Hampton rather than Jamestown.
Others argue that the first Africans in Virginia were indentured since life slavery laws did not appear until the 17th and early 18th centuries, but essentially worked as slaves.