For her part, Hannah-Jones has acknowledged that she overstated her argument about slavery and the Revolution in her essay, and that she plans to amend this argument for the book version of the project, under contract with Random House. They have demanded that the New York Times issue corrections on these points, which the paper has so far refused to do. A letter signed by five academic historians claimed that the 1619 Project got some significant elements of the history wrong, including the claim that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery.
Now it’s back in circulation the Times is promoting it again during journalistic awards season, and it’s already a finalist for the National Magazine Awards and rumored to be a strong Pulitzer contender.īut it has also become a lightning rod for critics, and that one sentence about the role of slavery in the founding of the United States has ended up at the center of a debate over the whole project. The Times produced not just a magazine, but podcasts, a newspaper section, and even a curriculum designed to inject a new version of American history into schools. The 1619 Project became one of the most talked-about journalistic achievements of the year-as it was intended to. So far, that’s exactly what has happened. I was concerned that critics would use the overstated claim to discredit the entire undertaking.
Overall, the 1619 Project is a much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our understanding of the past-histories that wrongly suggested racism and slavery were not a central part of U.S. In addition, the paper’s characterizations of slavery in early America reflected laws and practices more common in the antebellum era than in Colonial times, and did not accurately illustrate the varied experiences of the first generation of enslaved people that arrived in Virginia in 1619.īoth sets of inaccuracies worried me, but the Revolutionary War statement made me especially anxious.
I explained these histories as best I could-with references to specific examples-but never heard back from her about how the information would be used.ĭespite my advice, the Times published the incorrect statement about the American Revolution anyway, in Hannah-Jones’ introductory essay. The editor followed up with several questions probing the nature of slavery in the Colonial era, such as whether enslaved people were allowed to read, could legally marry, could congregate in groups of more than four, and could own, will or inherit property-the answers to which vary widely depending on the era and the colony.
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