When I grew up in Houston, Texas, I attended segregated public schools. Everything was segregated, including movie theaters, drinking foundations, churches, restaurants, public transit (the sign “colored” divided passengers, with blacks in the back of the bus; if there were more white passengers than black passengers, the sign was moved back and black passengers gave up their seats and stood), and everything else. Even newspaper ads were segregated, by both race and gender. Blacks entered white homes through the back door. Blacks were expected to step off the sidewalk and into the street when passing a white pedestrian.
In my high school American history class, we learned almost nothing about black history. Our textbooks recognized George Washington Carver and his discovery of the many uses of peanuts. That was about it. In eleventh-grade U.S. history, the textbook taught the now-discredited Dunning theory of the Reconstruction Era (William Archibald Dunning was a Columbia University history professor who taught the white Southern view of the period); we were taught that the South after the Civil War was overrun by corrupt black politicians who bankrupted their states and by white carpetbaggers who helped the corrupt blacks. We now know that the Dunning version of history was untrue, and that the post-Reconstruction governments in the Southern states produced a remarkable period of progressive legislation.
In college in the late 1950s, there were no courses in black history. Not until I was in graduate school did I study black history in depth and learn about the systematically vicious, brutal, and demeaning treatment of black Americans by white Americans. I knew it from life experience, but at the same time I did not know it in full, as Hannah-Jones presents it in The 1619 Project.
Her essay in the collection is a powerful and persuasive history of black people in the United States.
History has often been taught simply as facts to be memorized. But history taught well involves not only facts, but discussion about controversies. Historians agree about basic facts, but not about causes and consequences. Historians disagree. Events seldom if ever have a single cause. And they usually have multiple consequences. Students must learn about the disagreements and think critically about what they learned. They may come down on one side or the other, but they should learn to respect those who disagree with them.
Was the American Revolution intended to preserve slavery, as Hannah-Jones asserts? Most seismic events have multiple causes, and their participants have different motives. Some American rebels fought to escape British colonialism; some fought to avoid British taxation; and some fought to stop the abolitionist fervor from reaching their plantations. Is racism part of the DNA of America? If so, the situation is hopeless and the prospects for change are out of reach. Thoughtful people look at the same set of facts and draw different conclusions about their meaning. That’s what makes the study of history interesting.
In the current controversy surrounding The 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones offers a pessimistic view of the treatment of black people in America. Her critics think she is too pessimistic. They don’t differ about facts, but about interpretations of facts. I usually find myself responding to questions of interpretation by saying, “It depends.”
Some white Americans say that the proof of black progress is that the nation elected and re-elected a black President; that some blacks (like Oprah and other stars of the entertainment and sports industries) are fabulously successful; that affirmative action has allowed blacks to enter elite universities and executive suites; and that Congress has passed multiple civil rights laws to forbid racial discrimination.
Other white Americans recognize that institutional and personal racism still exists, despite laws on the books, despite the success of Obama and Oprah. They know the statistics about black poverty, segregated schools, maternal health, access to medical care, and other indicators of disadvantage. They see black neighborhoods that are blighted, racially segregated, and lack decent public services. They know the incarceration rates for people of color. They know that state legislatures are passing laws to make it harder for them to vote. They see how few blacks make it into the executive suites.
If I were black, I would admire The 1619 Project and share it with my family and friends. I would be impressed by Nikole Hannah-Jones’ courage, audacity, and scholarship. I would feel that at long last the story of black people was told.
Should The 1619 Project be used in high schools when teaching American history? Absolutely yes. It should be taught alongside the criticisms of its ideas. It is a wonderful teaching tool. It is thought-provoking. It demonstrates how history can challenge conventional thinking. It shows black people as agents, not simply as victims. It shows a seamy and vicious side of American life that was real and important to know. Students should not be ignorant of black history. By using this material, students will learn that our understanding of history is constantly evolving and that the subject is a fascinating battleground of ideas.
Whether they agree with critic Sean Wilentz of Princeton or Hannah-Jones, they will be far better educated about American history by reading their disagreements. We must confront and debate our history and move beyond efforts to indoctrinate students with a whitewashing of the past.
Hi Diane,
It might surprise some readers to know that Canada, the destination of the Underground RR did not abolish slavery here until 1833. It was on a much lower scale, a few farm hands here and there, domestic servants in Montreal and Halifax, but slavery nevertheless. No civil war was required. A new Governor was sent from Great Britain who didn’t like slavery and abolished it largely with the stroke of a pen. The main foundation of the black population of Canada are the decendants of run away American slaves brought to Canada by people like Harriet Tubman. They crossed at Niagara and Detroit areas, a few near Montreal. There were other sources. Post American Revolution some “Loyalists” of GB brought their slaves to Halifax. Most of the rest are Caribbean immigrants over the years. The slave history of Canada was never seriously discussed in Canada until recent years.
The Kamloops school recently in the news- while the story’s focus is not slavery, the story is about abuse by European whites who considered themselves and their God superior. Was there serious discussion about it before now?
Could not agree more. Thanks for taking this on. If nothing else the last five years have exposed the bitter truth of that old adage about how the North may have won the war but the South has won the peace: from the Dunning school, Birth of a Nation, all the way down to Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression laws today. Reversing this outcome is going to take a lot of education and work.
I totally concur with you. Not until I starting digging (when I taught American Government) did I find out information I was never taught. Recently, I have been part of Racial Injustice webinars and felt ashamed I was so ignorant to Black History and questioned why. As many of my friends, who happen to be black, told me most was HIS-story. I made it a point to teach my students about our Black Heroes (sort of as the rogue warrior because it wasn’t part of the curriculum) to make sure my students understood their contributions to this country more than just in February.
The biggest issue I see with critics of 1619 and CRT stem from their complete embracing of personal experiences over seeing the broader picture. Many white people talk about racial discrimination as a past practice because they do not engage in such, completely discounting the systems that have given them greater advantage over people of color. They refuse to own any part of racial disparity as they themselves seem satisfied with their own choices and identify as “not racist.” If they don’t see a problem with themselves, it must not exist for others.
stems*
Thank you for your reasoned approach to the study of history. History is only not black or white, but often shades of grey. Everyone views information through their own personal filter. Even the members of the Supreme Court view the law through their own personal perspective. The same law can be interpreted and applied differently depending on who is making the judgment. Once upon a time slavery was perfectly legal, and abolitionists were considered enemies of the state.
While I agree with most of what Diane wrote here, I must comment about one point; ” and learn about the systematically vicious, brutal, and demeaning treatment of black Americans by white Americans. . . .”.
Part of the divisions facing our nation today centers on one side or the other making sweeping accusations of the other race. I have heard statements in my classroom from Black students claiming that, “I hate White People because . . .” or White students stating that, “I hate Black People because . . .”. Such comments are far too sweeping and ignore the many in either race who contribute to society in rich and meaningful ways, and who socialize well with each other.
For example, my parents took me to see MLKs speech in 1963 on the Mall. There were many White faces in the crowd, all cheering and applauding. Nobody ever hears of that. How about those Whites who gave their lives in support of the Civil Rights Movement who were lynched by White Supremacists. Did all Whites participate in “vicious, brutal, and demeaning” treatment of Blacks? Of course not. Yet, that is how your sentence reads.
While I fully endorse your key point, while teaching about the brutality and the cruelty of our collective history, we also need to teach about those Whites and Blacks who have worked, shared, and supported one another as well. I am not saying to whitewash anything; I am merely saying that we need to stop blaming each other. Certainly,”all” Caucasians are not the problem, “all” Blacks are not the problem. But it will take both races to correct any problems. We also need to teach this point.
A great cure for Pollyanna views of American history is actually to study black history and black music and black art, and not just on the surface, but in depth. Read the narratives written by enslaved black persons. Read the material about slavery that was cut from the Declaration of Independence. Read Thomas Jefferson’s disgusting answer to the great letter from Benjamin Banneker. Read a couple dozen biographies of great black Americans and some histories of slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement. Read about the history of black housing in America. Read through Kwame Appiah and Henry Louis Gates’s great encyclopedia, Africana. Read the Core Knowledge textbook Grace Abounding, of which I was the lead editor. Read the great novels and nonfiction by black American authors. Read the stats on black poverty and disease. Then, come back and let’s talk about whether “this country has seen the systematically vicious, brutal, and demeaning treatment of black Americans by white Americans.”
It EMPHATICALLY HAS. AND furthermore, this is ongoing. How many George Floyds and Breonna Taylors and Attatiana Jefersons and Stephon Clarks and Erik Garners and Trayvon Martins and on and on and on does it take?
However, the overt stuff is relatively easy to see. The covert stuff–including multi-generational poverty due to systematic exclusion from decent jobs and housing and even freaking food–is harder but very, very real.
Diane put it mildly, I thought, given the horrific realities.
I find the use of Pollyana as an adjective offensive. Thank you.
LOL, Beth. Really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna
Beth says: “I find the use of Pollyana as an adjective offensive.”
I’m interested in why you find it offensive? Isn’t is an eponym like Reaganomics or gerrymandering (which I just learned was named after someone) or Achilles’ heel or Napoleonic or Dickensian?
Are there other literary characters’ names that are not allowed to be used because they are offensive? Is it worse to use authors’ names and say “Orwellian” or is that even worse because it’s a real person?
@NYC public school parent – Ok , so you’re not a feminist. To explain why Pollyana as an adjective is problematic would take a lot of time. If I can find the time, I will respond. I may not be able to get to this for many days.
So, using the term Pollyanna disqualifies one as a feminist? Quite the assertion, there. What do you suggest as a penalty for the egregious crime of saying, “Don’t be so Pollyanna?” I would suggest, Beth, that you get some perspective.
Instead of using Pollyanna as an adjective suggesting unwarranted optimism, how about Candide? Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
Candide indeed!!!
How about if I referred to someone as a Pippi Longstocking? Or a Laura Ingalls Wilder? Would this also be offensive?
What, exactly, is the difference between this an referring to someone as “Walter Mitty like”?
I suspect that stereotyping based upon having a rosy view of the world is more related to age and to gender–its about youthful innocence and naivete.
unbridled optimism. For some reason, my last post got mangled. It was supposed to read, “more related to age THAN TO sex or gender”
Key word in Diane’s thoughtful comments above is “systematically” which removes categorical denunciation of all white people. “systematic” oppression of black folks refers to the racist tilt of public and private policies and institutions which have favored whites over centuries and still do. All whites benefit from this white bias of American society whether or not they do or say racist things. The evidence for this centuries long white privilege tilt against black folks is admirably cited in Bob Shepherd’s long post, thank you, Bob. All us white folks who reject racist speech and behaviors are not “guilty” but we are “responsible,” meaning that the only way we can deal with the unearned white privileges we were born into is to use that privilege to fight institutional and existential racism in society.
Thank you that point is very important.
Can you imagine if historians ordered every history book that mentioned of the rise of Hitler in Germany and WW2 to never, ever, ever, ever use the term “the Germans” or “the people of Germany” in history books because the use of that supposedly “false” phrase “the Germans” was a big lie that discredits the entirety of the history book?
Would Wilentz and those other historians’ own work stand up to that requirement that he seems to demand of Hannah-Jones.
There is a shorthand that white historians always use and scholars like Wilentz always are fine with it when their scholar friends do it. I bet if we looked through Wilentz’ books — or his scholar friends’ books or writings — they uses shorthand like “the Germans went to war” or “Southern leaders did….” – which apparently would be decried by them as a lie because 100% of Germans did not take up arms and fight on battlefields or because there is not documentation that every single southern leader known and unknown did that.
But if any historian who those white scholars don’t consider “one of us” comes along offering a view of history that makes them uncomfortable, but they are too lazy or don’t have any real arguments to attack them, those white scholars like Wilentz suddenly take a ridiculous position that is tantamount to demanding that every history book that mentions “the Germans” as a shorthand must be banned forever and discredited.
It’s a double standard.
Key word in Diane’s thoughtful comments above is “systematically” which removes categorical denunciation of all white people.
Nailed it, Ira. Systemically would be even better. And thank you.
Darn, I changed systemically to systematically. Who knew two letters would set off alarm bells?
LOL, Diane. One has to get out of bed pretty darned early in the morning to get ahead of you! Always a great pleasure to read what you write.
Thank you. Scientifically, there is only the human race. What the purveyors of race-ism ignore is that society’s major division is between classes and that slavery was practiced for thousands of years before 1619 and within Africa as well. Slavery is an economic system and not really about skin color.
Some members of the human race have advantages denied for generations to other members of the human race. Those members of the human race whose skin color is brown or black have been subject to horrible mistreatment by those with a light skin color. Why?
Jeannie,
In the US, slavery was most certainly about skin color. White slavery – especially as a hereditary status – did not exist in this country.
Fascism doesn’t always mean annihilating every Jewish man, woman and child (including babies) in massacres and gas chambers. What does that have to do with a discussion as to whether criticism of the fascist Nazi regime which DID have a policy to annihilate Jews is allowed in history books?
Are you equally critical of Jews who wrote accounts of the atrocities in Nazi Germany because they are not allowed to write such histories of the atrocities in Nazi Germany without including a lot of information about how there were “good” Germans? I guess most of Elie Wiesel’s books don’t meet your standard.
Now, if we could only have similarly nuanced discussions about the controversies today over public education, privatization, funding, choice etc, etc. Not everyone seeking to change public education is a super rich, selfish traitor out to destroy American education, though one might get that impression from some commenters here who maintain their own “echo chamber” rather than discuss complex facts and issues.
Walter Hussman whose newspaper in Arkansas is a platform for “school choice” gives the privatization campaign a bad name. He’s in the news at the University of North Carolina regarding the 1619 project.
The large number of state Catholic Conferences lobbying for school choice give the privatization campaign a bad name when some quote Pat Buchanan and some co-host choice rallies with the Koch’s AFP. Since 1980, only 20% of Catholics in the regions like the mountain west voted Democratic while more than twice as many, 42% voted GOP (Wikipedia). Republican Pres. Trump showed the nation, racism when he was supported by and, praised white supremacists. When Steve Bannon geofenced Catholic churches for Republican messaging, it wasn’t good PR for conservative religion.
Racist Georgia Gov. Talmadge first proposed school privatization to avoid court-mandated integration.
If a scheme walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
So, we freed the slaves, won Supreme Court cases, passed the Civil Rights era legislation, and turn out in large numbers to demonstrate for Black rights. Have we solved the problem?? After all, these events walk and quack like the duck of liberty!
But of course we haven’t solved the problem by looking at only those events. And you are looking at only one group of events in your response to my comment. There are MANY who seek public education reform who are NOT racist Gov. Talmadge et al.
Fifty years ago people were writing about the failure of various aspects of public education—Jonathan Kozol, Paul Goodman, John Holt, Herb Kohl and others. A century or more ago, Maria Montessori and Rudolf Stenier were developing their alternatives of Montessori and Waldorf Education.
Why is there little or no discussion here about the education problems of those times, what was attempted, what succeeded and what failed, why problems persist to the present, and why and how people OTHER THAN Talmadge & Trump types ARE STILL SEEKING ALTERNATIVES??
Recently, the debate has opened again about whether to track students in math. The details can be found online. I would like to see a detailed assessment here of the pros and cons, the research, past studies, trials, experience of teachers, etc. However, I expect to read here only the same old, same old accusations of racist officials, profiteering by phony philanthropists, etc. I KNOW ABOUT THEM! I know they exist. I read it here all the time! Instead, tell me something about MATH EDUCATION, please.
Diane allows narrow-focused people who hawk privatization via “math” concerns to post at her blog. And, she allows me, an Ohio resident, to post here.
My fellow Ohio taxpayers were ripped off of an estimated $1 bil. by corrupt charter schools. Most of us don’t want to pay for schools run by the religious who alter the U.S. pledge of allegiance making their students recite church doctrine.
When Bellwether advised ed reformers to reach out to churches to achieve their goals, they must have known that conservative religious want to position women’s rights with those that women have in 3rd world nations.
Teaching is the profession that lifted the most women into financial independence. The teaching career is essential to preserving an American middle class. Biel v. St. James Catholic school means religious school teachers are exempted from civil rights employment protections. The theft of a Main Street asset, local schools, has irreparable economic consequences to the community. But you, Mark, care nothing about any of the above because you think whining about an incredibly small part of curriculum trumps all other issues.
Somebody should inform Bill Gates that most jobs in America don’t require math sophistication. Somebody should inform Wall Street that
the workforce that they malign is making up for the Street’s 2% drag on the economy. And, that is despite disputed claims about public school student “math deficiencies”.
Who is the “we” in your first paragraph? What did you personally do to accomplish anything you listed?
Linda: “all other issues”? You have no other issues. The points you make are all variations on the theme of corruption that we’ve heard over and over and over–and I and most of us agree! I simply want to hear more depth and breadth on the subject of education and reform.
.
Diane’s two essays here about the 1619 Project are such. Your comments are nothing but the same old preaching to the choir. I apologize for wasting your precious time “whining about an incredibly small part of the curriculum.” [math? SMALL?] It was only one of a variety of education stories in the news this week, and I was expressing my hope that I might find a focused discussion about that here, because I only have so much time to research the debate and the details myself.
I would recommend beginning an AH course with Adam Gopnick’s “We Could Have Been Canada,” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/we-could-have-been-canada Was the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War necessary? I find the 1619 Project too negative, our future seems hopeless, and I agree with Wilentz, her lens is too narrow, History should be thought provoking …. not presenting a long list of “events,” …. the “dark side” is just as important as the “bright” side …. I loved it when as they left the classroom kids would say, “That was hard” I’d reply, “Life is hard.”
There is nothing wrong with agreeing with Wilentz as an OPINION.
But Wilentz claims that his view of history is the only true one and confuses opinion with fact. His opinion is that what he thinks is the most important IS the entirety of what is the most important and other events he does not think are important must never be given any weight. And Wilentz prides himself in “allowing” lesser people to refer to other events in history as long as they follow his orders to make sure that the experience of African Americans in America is given its proper place (which Wilentz is the arbiter of): their importance is whatever white historians like Wilentz say it is and giving their experience one iota of more importance than Wilentz allows means the work must be censored.
Harriett Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was once considered an accurate portrayal of slavery that students should read to learn more about slavery (even when I was a kid this was true). Important white historians claimed it was important and accurate. Then other people questioned it. They were silenced by the “important white historians” until they weren’t and people took an unbiased look at what they all never questioned because smart white scholars told them it was true.
If those who questioned the value of reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin were doing so today, they would hear: “how dare you question anything we superior white historians know is true, your criticism of this book is censorship and you must be silenced for daring to criticize it or us because we know it is an indisputable fact that reading that book is the proper way to learn about slavery.”
If our democracy survives long enough – which is questionable when people like Wilentz help promote fascism with their “the white view is the right view” attitude – the next generation is going to look at the people who attack Hannah-Jones the way they look at the defenders of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Close-minded white scholars who decided they were always right and demanded silence from anyone who questioned them because they were not actually interested in discussion, just defending their superiority as historians whose view was always right.
… and then she was denied tenure!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/05/unc-faculty-slam-decision-not-grant-tenure-nikole-hannah-jones/7560654002/
Yes. This brings me to my point from the other blog post. She is as worthy as any other journalist to be called a modern historian.
Walter Hussman, one of Arkansas’ biggest school choice advocates, is integral to the tenure story.
Wilentz? I reread this twice trying to find the reference to Wilentz, to no avail.
That is one of the historians who wrote in opposition to the New York Times piece. See Diane’s previous post.
Wilentz is not without his detractors. In 2005, Slate had an article that described Wilentz as presenting history with “polarizing certainty”. The essence of the criticism was that he didn’t allow for the fluidity of changes in party composition. I presume Wilentz still got tenure.
Thank you for this, Diane. With the “anti-CRT” bills and policies sweeping the red states, it’s becoming more fraught all the time to teach history and geography. I worry for my students and students everywhere and what they may not learn because teachers will not dare even mention race, gender, etc. I will do my best to continue teaching as many things as I can about underrepresented groups in the US, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I am terrified of possible repercussions. If this school year has taught me anything, it’s that some students and their parents have decided that they will only learn what they want to learn and denigrate anything else. Openmindness seems to have become a bad word in my corner of the world. You should see the list of “CRT” things that a crazy member of the Utah state school board posted for “parents to watch for,” including diversity, social emotional learning, multicultural, etc. In Utah, it seems, if we don’t teach the victors’ skewed views of history, we are going to be in trouble.
The 1619 Project fails to combat racism, it perpetuates and inflames it by portraying anti-black racism as a part of “America’s DNA, the immutable “essence” of the nation’s history and the result of unremitting hostility by whites against blacks. It tramples on the Enlightenment principles of equality that motivated the American Revolution, for all its limitations. [There is no basis for the charge that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery. This has been amply refuted by the referenced historians, particularly Gordon Wood.]
There was not just the horrors of slavery, America uniquely spawned a massive anti-slavery movement, inspiring the enslaved across the world including notably in Haiti [where the British authorities made clear their ruthless support of the slave trade, backing the French to ensure their own colonies did not revolt.] The Civil War, at the cost of 600,000 lives, was testimony to the powerful anti-slavery movement to which Lincoln gave leadership. Moreover, the abolitionist movement, the underground railroad, the Civil Rights movement, the labor struggles of the IWW, Socialist and Communist Parties and the sit-down strikes unified across racial and ethnic lines in the 20th century. Examples are too numerous to mention. Of course the multi-racial anti-police violence protests of 2020 against the murder of George Floyd was a massive, and international, example.
The number of falsifications involved in the 1619 Project are too numerous to cite. A whole book “The New York Times 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History” is devoted to debunking the lies of Nicole Hannah Jones’ piece from the left, with factual research and lengthy contributions from James McPherson, Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, Claybourne Carson and others.
History is not a matter of anecdotes and personal experience no matter how compelling. It must be contextual and truthful. Likewise, the answer to ongoing racism needs to be found by
elevating the whole society not pitting one section against another, in other words, by establishing real social equality.
A whole publication, “the 1619 Project”, is devoted to debunking the falsifications too numerous to cite in the discredited book “The New York Times 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History”. “The New York Times 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History” falsely claims that all Founding Fathers were devoted to fighting racism and slavery and that debunked book also makes the totally false claim that not a single “patriot” who supported the Revolutionary War even knew that there was an abolitionist movement happening in England. That debunked book ignores the clear evidence that colonial era newspapers were reporting on that abolitionist movement in England BECAUSE it was of interest. Instead, their entire argument rests on their belief that it was virtually impossible for even one colonial patriot to have known or cared.
History must be contextual and truthful, which is why some white historians’ claims that no one in America even knew about the abolitionist movement in England should be called out as the lie it is and those white historians forever discredited.
Have you actually read the book? There is no evidence of in your post. The “The New York Times 1619 Project” does not make the claims you state “no one in America even knew of the abolitionist movement in England” etc. What it does refute is the claim by the NYT and Jones that the American Revolution was conducted to preserve slavery to bolster the claim that racism is part of the “DNA of America,” an ahistorical and permanent condition.
To refer to your point on the founders, again your claim is nowhere to be found in the text. One of the essays in the book notes, “Franklin, Washington, the Adamses (both Samuel and John), Jefferson, Paine and many others were the greatest representatives of an extraordinary generation of revolutionaries. They did not hold identical views on many subjects, including the eventual fate of slavery. But the argument that any of the principal leaders of the Revolution, let alone their mass following among the colonial population, were fighting to defend slavery against the threat of a British-led emancipation movement is historically and politically preposterous. It can be legitimately said that the Founders did not know or agree among themselves on how to end slavery, but none of them initiated and led the Revolution in order to save it.”
NYT hangs its hat on the Dunmore Proclamation as a supposed trigger event of the American Revolution. They ignore the inconvenient fact that the proclamation occurred well after revolutionary ferment and hostilities began. The “New York Times’ 1619 Project and Historical Falsification” gives the context: “As governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore had refused to sign a bill closing the slave trade to Virginia. But confronted with the threat of rebellion, Dunmore saw the need for a tactical initiative. He wrote to Lord Dartmouth on March 1, 1775 that he hoped freeing the colonists’ slaves would “reduce the refractory people of this Colony to obedience.” He acted in November 1775, issuing a proclamation that applied only to adult male slaves belonging to owners who actively opposed the crown. The divide and conquer maneuver was a well-practiced ruse of the British to crush dissent.”
This was the British monarchy after all, building a global empire based on the exploitation, enslavement, pillaging and military subjugation of the peoples of the world. The Irish, the Indians and the Chinese were being subjected to brutal oppression that would last hundreds of years.
Sylvia Frey wrote in her 1983 article “Between Slavery and Freedom: Virginia Blacks in the American Revolution”: “Dunmore was no champion of emancipation. A slaveowner himself, he persistently invited slave defections without, however, freeing his own slaves or unleashing the black violence feared by the horror-stricken proprietor class.…
“The narrow limits of the policy were, moreover, purposely and unashamedly designed to accommodate the army’s time-honored practice of taking spoils of war. Military expediency joined to the practice of despoiling the enemy produced a policy of ambivalence that both contradicted and invalidated even their limited and selective offer of freedom.”
Most damning of all to this thesis is the fact that the British treated the thousands of runaways with such extreme brutality that many soon fled the British. Loyalist forces returned slaves whose owners switched their support to the crown, subjecting the slaves to brutal punishment as captured fugitives.
Finally the notion of “white historians” and “black historians” as an important determinant as to truth is repulsive. One of the hallmarks of the current identity politics campaign is postmodernism, the rejection of objective truth and its substitution for narratives all considered equal. These racialist categories speak to deeply reactionary, in fact, zoological attitudes. Truth is truth and the use of racial categories to discredit it can serve only liars.
“The 1619 Project fails to combat racism”
Why would the goal be to “combat racism” or to “unite people”?
Those are worthwhile things to do but why would it be the duty of these writers writers to do them? Couldn’t they just write a history without also being responsible for combating racism or uniting people?
Historians and others write about WWII without setting out to “combat fascism” and they certainly were never told they had a duty to “unite people”. The Civil War was very divisive. Literally. No one scolds Civil War historians and says “your goal is to unite people”. Did any of the authors even pretend that’s what they set out to do and do they have to? Why?
Thank you – such a great point.
Jones and many others like BLM at School claim the piece was necessary to “reframe history” and combat “systemic racism.” After numerous errors, omissions and distortions were widely reported, she said it was not a history, but journalism. Its purpose is ideological (her conclusion firmly in mind beforehand–that American history can only be understood when viewed through the prism of racial conflict).
Far from just writing a history, Jones has a political agenda. And what is it? Instead of seeking to eradicate racism by eliminating poverty and social inequality and “unite” the working class, it is to support the growing industry of identity politics consultants, diversity training, sensitivity psychologists, and carve out more set-asides for an upper-middle layer like herself. This can only result in backlash and more racism. It ignores the increasingly desperate plight of millions of workers, black and white.
One can hardly imagine that the best historians on WWII were neutral on fascism. One of my personal favorites is Ian Kershaw, famous for his biographies of Hilter. Kershaw served as historical adviser on numerous BBC documentaries, notably The Nazis: A Warning from History. He taught a module titled “Germans against Hitler.”
I don’t think this is a fair or accurate portrayal of the 1619 Project. Its purpose is not end racism or poverty but to tell the history of black people in America and to argue that they have made this nation strive to live up to its democratic values by their struggle for equality and justice. Thank God we are no longer a nation where blacks are excluded from voting, sitting on juries and enjoying the other rights of citizenship.
The typical tactic that detractors use to knock down a person like Hannah Jones is evident in the media’s reporting. Hannah Jones’ detractors pick what they perceive to be the weakest of her arguments and fixate on it i.e. a purported cause of the Revolutionary War.
The truth that the big picture tells can be overshadowed with the tactic. It’s a variation on the technique, “But what about”…
Exactly. Which is the typical racist framing done by those who absolutely claim to not be racist but just somehow manage to treat people who are not white without the extreme bending over backward deference they treat white folks who agree with them.
(An example of this in policing are racist police and their racist defenders who claim that just because police let white teens shoot assault weapons at police without police mowing them down, and just because police shoot and kill black teens who just “seem” like they might be about to hurt them, how dare you call police racist. They are just reacting to the absolute “facts” and “truth” about when police are in danger and when they are not.)
Wilentz benefits from white privilege in which his essay criticizing Hannah-Jones contains all kinds of falsehoods and mischaracterizations of evidence, but not even one of Wilentz’ critics calls out Wilentz hypocrisy by demanding that Wilentz’ body of work be discredited the way Wilentz professes is a standard Hannah-Jones must meet but he himself does not have to meet because he is white and privileged and his work must never be criticized.
Particularly galling is the condescension in the critics’s letter written after Hannah Jones was denied tenure in which they said they thought politicization should not enter into her tenure decision. What have those critics personally done to make their institutions less discriminatory? Princeton’s legacy admission rate has been estimated
at 60%.
Once again I highly recommend the two part podcast The Problem We All Live With from This American Life/Pro Publica. Fans of Nikole Hanna-Jones should not miss her reporting about the Normandy School District.
The podcast can be found here: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with-part-one
The criticisms of some elements of historical accuracy of the 1619 Project by historians who specialize in the areas they criticize are important and need to be addressed factually. We have already seen the consequences: The ahistorical, “patriotically correct” 1776 project and right-wing state legislators attacking the inclusion of events that detract from their version of American history. By promoting unsupported interpretations of some historical events, the 1619 Project gave a toehold to those opposed to historically accurate accounts of the role of slavery and the enslaved in American history.
Here are several articles:
“I helped fact-check the 1619 Project.”
“I was concerned that critics would use the overstated claim to discredit the entire undertaking.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248
“On August 19 of last year I listened in stunned silence as Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter for the New York Times, repeated an idea that I had vigorously argued against with her fact-checker: that the patriots fought the American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery in North America.”
A very thorough criticism of the 1619 project that goes into the sources that influenced Nikole Hannah-Jones::
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/28/nytr-d28.html
Also:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/1619-project-new-york-times-wilentz/605152/
“the patriots fought the American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery in North America.”
First of all I read Nikole Hannah-Jones saying that SOME patriots fought “IN LARGE PART” to preserve slavery.
Wilentz himself can be attacked as no longer credible on those grounds.
Wilentz now claims that Nikole Hannah-Jones is wrong because Wilentz now falsely – without a single bit of evidence – claims that no patriot cared at all nor even thought about preserving slavery when they fought in the American Revolution.
Since Wilentz now claims that not a single patriot in the colonies had any concern about preserving slavery or the British abolitionist movement, and we now have clear evidence that the issue had been talked about, that means Wilentz uses false statements and must be discredited and his books never again taught in any class.
I bet most people don’t agree with that because they have a double standard in which white historians don’t have to be truthful, but Hannah-Jones can only say true things if she agrees that those true things only matter if white historians say they do and otherwise they are so unimportant that they don’t deserve to be mentioned.
^^^critics of the 1619 project who aren’t right wing neo Nazis have forgotten that there is a difference between lying – as the far right does – and telling true facts while giving those facts more weight than other people might give them.
The historians who claim not to be racists are giving liars credibility by helping push the totally false narrative that there is no difference between offering up facts that are blatant lies to support more lies, and putting more weight on some true facts as influencing or not influencing history.
My history book growing up taught us how important Betsy Ross was. They also taught us false facts about what Betsy Ross did. But there were also true facts about who Betsy Ross was.
There is a debate to be had about whether Betsy Ross had any importance at all and what it was. That debate can be had using true facts – as Nikole Hannah-Jones always does in her historical writing – or with false facts – which the right wing often uses.
Wilentz seems to confuse having a debate about the importance and or influence of Betsy Ross with having a debate about what is the truth about Ross and what is not. Wilentz seems to believe that there is no difference in how much weight a historian gives to true facts, and how much weight a historian gives to blatant lies that never happened. That mistake by Wilentz should discredit him as a historian for all time. It is dangerous.
There is a legitimate debate to have as to whether the weight that Nikole Hannah-Jones gives to various true facts is the appropriate one, just like there is a legitimate debate to have as to whether the weight that Wilentz gives to true facts is the appropriate one.
But Wilentz is promoting a view that there is no difference between blatantly making up facts and claiming that is history, and an interpretation of history that places different weight on facts.
No wonder this country is in such danger. Wilentz is complicit as he tries to misdirect Americans into thinking facts don’t matter, just like the right wing does.
Hannah-Jones ALSO believes in facts. The right wing does not.
Two supercilious professors from the bastion of entitlement -Princeton
What a shock, Robert P George describes Sean Wilentz as follows, “This is what scholarly integrity looks like. Anyone who has the privilege of knowing Sean Wilentz will not be surprised that he is exemplary. He is a scholar in the highest sense: a seeker of truth”. The National Affairs editor at AEI also likes what Sean says.
Put the three of them on an island without their privilege to eat the bread for which others toil and see how fast they starve.
Yes. Confront. Do not ignore.
On that note, this has been an elucidating day of reading. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your posts today. Although I am not a scholar, I think I am as well versed on the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement as any lay person. These posts are very informative and, dare I use the phrase(?), fair and balanced.
I had a similar problem reading Zinn. His historical detail was impressive. But the narrative was extremely dark. The problem is there is no way to simply dismiss the historical details.
It is tough to undo prevailing myths we would like to believe. To claim the Revolution was fought to preserve slavery may be a bit of a stretch as there were too many competing interests. Certainly for some this was the case and the Revolution may not have happened without their support. . But still it is far more plausible than maintaining that Lincoln truly believed “the Declaration of Independence proclaimed universal equality, for blacks as well as whites” when his own speeches as a Congressman show he clearly did not.
I also felt that way about Zinn when I first read him when I bought the children’s version of “A People’s History…” for my kid and read it myself. I’m not sure my kid even read it for many years.
But then my teenager, raised in a far more multicultural society, mentioned Zinn and a few other historians and felt their view seemed far more plausible and grounded in evidence than the rosy picture of American history I learned.
The double standard that condemns Hannah-Jones for using the kind of shorthand that all historians use truly disgusts me. It isn’t an attempt at real criticism. It is those old historians no longer having the intellectual capacity to defend their white-centric view of history and looking for reasons to discredit Hannah-Jones that don’t depend on them offering up a real defense for their own views.
It reminds me of the way defenders of racist policing in America ALWAYS cherry pick something — anything – that justified a young unarmed African American teen being gunned down by police for being “dangerous”. While they pretend not to notice that when it is white teens using assault weapons to fire dozens of times at police, those white teens are treated with restraint.
The attacks on Hannah-Jones scholarship could be made against Wilentz himself. But he sits in privilege he does not even recognize that his own historical work contains the same cherry picked shorthand all historians use but that he believes justifies severe punishment because it is “very dangerous” when an African American scholar uses it but not when a privileged white man like himself does.
Thank you for posting all this. It is an important conversation to have as our country passes from mostly European to mostly everything else.
Hannah-Jones wrote a great essay and deserves to be taken seriously. No one who has any historical background at all would suggest that Black Americans have had a fair shake. She is also correct in that change has primarily arisen from Black activism. While she may not speak in that essay of sympathetic people from other cultures, it is hard to see how she is supposed to be responsible for that within the framework of what she was attempting. I do, however, feel she is in the European trap.
European views of world history over the post-Columbia’s period suggest that this period is characterized by the civilization of Europe, especially post-enlightenment Europe, meeting a predominantly uncivilized world. This view paints a poor picture of the real story. The Europeans who first colonized, then dominated the world were really no different from the rest of the world as a whole. They were at least as addicted to tyranny as any of the small Christians or mighty empires they overcame.
The view that Europe was civilization leads historians to justify all sorts of behavior on the basis of the things we like about ideas that came out of Europe. It also has led others to blame Europe for barbarism common across the globe. The truth is that elements of what we call civilization- things like democracy and the scientific approach to industry and medicine- might just as well have arisen elsewhere. Representative government existed in almost all cultures. Rational thought traditions surfaced in many places, always residing, as it still does today, with the most barbaric of ideas and behavior.
Europeans did what they did and do what they do not because they are civilized and refuse to do better but because not enough of us humans actually evidence civilization. It is a work in progress. There is not always very much progress.
Well, there’s a lot, lot, LOT I could say here.
But I have to go get my classroom windows open and try to get a head start on what is going to be a 95+ degree day with just-about-to-graduate 12th graders…and we’re still wearing masks.
1619?
1776? 1861? 1914? 1941? 1954? 1973? 2001? 2016?
I’m curious as to what students think of all these dates -as well as the whole debate about the teaching of racism. I’m sure someone must’ve asked them.
Meanwhile, summer is here. I’m wearing chill colors and hope to embrace the heat, ha, ha…
Enjoy!
Diane – Is there a reason you didn’t point to the glaring disparities in education between whites and people of color? This underscores Hannah-Jones’s pessimism and my own about progress. I work in a Title I school in North Carolina, and I serve on our district’s Equity Committee.
I agree with Dr. Cornell West who argued that Obama represented “Black faces in high places,” but not any systemic change. Finally, the CNN program on Lincoln revealed his, to put it mildly, mixed opinions on the conditions of slaves in America.
The conflict between Cornel West and Larry Summers (Harvard’s reprehensible former president) provides context for your observation. After damning reports about Summers, he was appointed, in 2012, as a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Based on Biden’s appointments, Neera Tanden, CAP’s director, has outsized influence, no doubt because of the wealthy neoliberal billionaires who fund her organization.
Biden appointed more ivy leaguers, particularly harvard grads to the WH admin than Trump did in his first iteration (ProPublica). As long as harvard, bastion of the white entitled and promoters of predatory capitalism dominate public policy, Bernie and Cornel West’s efforts against racism and poverty will have to be redoubled.
Harvard has been at the forefront of school privatization.
Summers and Bill Clinton’s links to Epstein speak to their character.
Apologies for my omission of Trump’s links to Epstein.
Robert Vellani, I should have mentioned the glaring disparity in resources between schools in affluent white districts and those attended by children of color. The outcomes are a result of lack of resources, lack of medical care,and other preconditions
Would the solution of this disparity in resources result in equal, but separate schools? Perhaps that is the limit of what can be done.
True however, all the way back to Coleman research demonstrates “outside factors” basically poverty accounts for most lack of success. White is Appalachia do very badly due to poverty.
When your community, has high poverty levels it will have a lot of education problems. Some can be mitigated but only up to a point. The very best plan to eliminate education problems is to eliminate poverty. USA 20% poverty, Canada 9%, Finland 5%.
Thank you Diane
Outstanding pieces about this topic, Diane!!! Thoughtful, nuanced, informed, beautifully written.
Thank you.
Who is Wilentz? I didn’t see any reference to him in the article until the end. How do his views differ?
Sean Wile to is a distinguished historian at Princeton.
Clio and the Contemporary site posted, “There’s a legitimate critique of the 1619 project and, there’s Sean Wilentz”. The article is a takedown of Wilentz’ points and it informs about his self-appointed, persistent role in undermining the 1619 project.
The question to ask Wilentz is how he has used the Princeton platform over his long career to inform students and the public about the Tulsa massacre. Then, as a follow-up, to ask him if the estimate that Princeton is 60% legacy admission is accurate.
Ofc, the folks gathered to draft the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution were wealthy merchants and planters, for the most part. And they had particular interests in not being taxed heavily.
An important point that Diane makes: events have multiple causes. There was a popular science book out a few years ago called something like “Why Are There So Many Ants on the Sidewalk?”
Answers (plural): Ants lay down chemical trails and follows these. Sidewalks make good substrates for those trails. People spill good stuff to eat on sidewalks. Ants are everywhere, but you see them more clearly on sidewalks.
Almost always, there are multiple answers, though the Pareto Principle often applies.
Consider this quotation from a white, American man of the nineteenth century:
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”
Now consider this quotation, also from a nineteenth-century white, American male:
“On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that ‘all men are created equal’ a self evident truth; but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim ‘a self evident lie.’”
Some folks (though not many readers of this blog) would be surprised to learn that both quotations are from Abraham Lincoln–the first from a debate with Stephan A. Douglass at Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, the second from a letter to George Robertson in 1855. The first isn’t likely to be printed in any high-school history textbook, but it is, sadly, accurate.
By accurate I meant, of course, that it is generally considered to be an accurate transcription of what Lincoln said.
I am Mexican-American and went to school in Texas. Our legal documents of those times identified us racially as Caucasian before the hyphenated labels were invented. When schools began to be integrated, the education system used us to bring students together and claim that schools were now integrated with Negros and Caucasians. In reality our schools had only had black and brown students. Whites, who were identified as Caucasian too, escaped the mixing. That’s one of the best kept secrets of the systemic racism of integration fraud.
Thank you for adding your comment.
Wow!!! What an astonishing piece of history!!! Thank you for this.
Thank you for such a thoughtful assessment.
Thank you, Diane, for this article, and I’d like to comment that, even if racism is part of the DNA of the USA, “the situation is” never ” hopeless and the prospects for change are” never “out of reach.
My own enslaved ancestors have taught me how important education is to us all, and I thank you for your constant advocacy and education for us all.
Very best regards,
-Shira
I need to read more about, and of, the 1619 Project. But Diane Ravitch’s piece seems a fair assessment, as it invites critical thinking about our racist tendencies and our struggles to counter those traits. While I write this, I recall reading, just today, about a new biographical study of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln’s marriage. The New York Times review of the book takes a negative view of the author’s reappraisal of that famous relationship. Why? Partly because the book, by a recognized Lincoln scholar (male, as most are), relies at times on admittedly prejudiced accounts of Mary’s irascibility and instability by William Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner and partisan. But also because advocates for Mary, informed as she could not have been about bipolar illness or the consequences of vitamin deficiencies, wish to cudgel supposed male chauvinist historians on behalf of a First Lady they see as a proto-feminist.
But it’s not this controversy I want to directly enter. Rather, the NYT readers who commented on the book review betrayed not one glimmer of acquaintance with the book itself (the Kindle preview reveals the historian to be even-handed, with sympathy for Mary as well as acknowledgement of Abe’s deficiencies in warmth). Nor did anyone commenting express interest in examining the book before reacting. As a historian once remarked, nothing is gained by contempt prior to investigation.
So much for this long digression. Here’s the point: I would imagine many Americans, even those who consider themselves good readers, need brushing up on their critical thinking skills (I’m not excusing myself), which would greatly help them better appreciate the 1619 project, and possibly bring them around to Diane Ravitch’s position on still-smoldering historical controversies: “It depends.” Much depends on the careful selection of facts, and on presenting the facts in their historical context. I believe we white Americans, North or South, come out, even in that context, looking quite other than enlightened or progressive in matters of racial equity and acceptance.
[…] Some school districts have adopted the 1619 curriculum, others banned the curriculum. Diane Ravitch views here. […]