Nikole Hannah-Jones‘ edited book The 1619 Project is easily the most controversial book in many years, maybe decades. I can’t think of another book that has been banned by conservative legislatures.
It first appeared as a special issue of the New York Times Magazine, where Hannah-Jones is a contributing writer. Soon after its publication, it was criticized by several eminent historians, who disagreed with the assertion that some Founding Fathers supported the Revolution to protect slavery. They had other objections and were no doubt miffed that a journalist had written a new history of the United States. The Times triple-checked, made some revisions, then The 1619 Project was published as a book and promptly denounced by conservative politicians, who hated the idea that Black people played a major role in the nation’s history, let alone a central role.
President Trump responded in September 2020 by announcing that he would create a “1776 Commission” to write a “patriotic curriculum.” Teaching that systemic racism exists, he said, was “a form of child abuse.” The day before the election, November 2, he established the commission by executive order.
However, he was busy trying to overturn the election and didn’t get around to appointing the members of the 1776 Commission until December 18. The president of the commission was Larry Arnn, president of conservative Hillsdale College. The commission included no professional historians of the United States. It held its first meeting on January 5 and released its new curriculum on January 18, no doubt a world record for the development of a course curriculum.
Hours after Joe Biden was inaugurated on January 20, he signed an executive order disbanding the 1776 Commission.
Now The 1619 Project has been turned into a six-part series, streaming on HULU. In states where it has not been banned, it should be a great tesaching tool. Count me as an admirer of the book. I have read many books about African American history, and I learned a lot by reading it.
Jesse J. Holland, a veteran journalist, reviews it here. He says that it’s a shame that the people who most need to see it are least likely to watch it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“I can’t think of another book that has been banned by conservative legislatures.
They aren’t conservatives, they are regressive xtian fundie theocrats who want to take this country back to a time and place that never was nor ever will be. Call them what they are reactionaries, xtian fundie nationalist, theocrat. . .
. . . but don’t call them ‘conservative’.
The vast majority of those who post here are true conservatives, not those who seek to destroy the good in society like the xtian reactionaries.
Thanks Duane–I heartily agree. These people aren’t conservatives–they’re radicals of the worst sort: flush with moral certainty and the zeal of the religious, they want cataclysmic change immediately. I can’t see how that is conservative.
“Call them what they are reactionaries, xtian fundie nationalist, theocrat. . .
. . . but don’t call them ‘conservative’”
Keep this up, Duane, and I will have to admit you and other Pastafarians to the Immortal Communion of We Could’a Been Saints, initiated by Saint Onan Procrastinata, who kept other sin at bay for 97 years, may he rest in the arms of our Savior, by engaging in the sacrament celebrated by Charles Edward Anderson Berry in his sacred hymn “My Ding-a-ling.”
cx: by Could’a Been Saint Onan Procrastinata
ofc
No worry Bob, Pastafarians seek no sauce!
Don’t bs a bser, Duane.
For the perspective of an actual historian – a very liberal and often very partisan Democrat – expand your sources of information and read the article linked below about the 1619 Project.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/sean-wilentz-fires-back-on-the-1619-project-and-the-climate-of-anti-history/
@Brenda Michels — Thank you for the resource. I love reading from all perspectives and learning. I downloaded his article within the article as well.
Not very impressive, this article. He just suggests that the 1619 is high schooling and states incorrect facts. His proof? He does not know any historians who consider it legit. He needs to do better.
Who gets to suppose in history? I saw no outburst when Jon Mecham suggested motivation for Andrew Jackson in American Lion. Other historians and journalists get to wonder aloud. Why not Hannah-Jones?
It’s always hard to judge with certainty which historian is right when they disagree. Esp when they disagree about things that happened centuries ago, when the documentation is thin.
Sean Wilentz is one the actual historians who pointed out the many major errors of the 1619 Project. His essay linked to below takes some time to read, but those of us who value sophisticated analysis rather than simple-minded polemics find it worth the effort.
Click to access 05.pdf
Since it’s the season, I’ll pick a cherry as proof that the entire tree is foul. Wilentz writes: “The British were not ‘deeply conflicted’ over slavery in 1776. Neither were the loud outcries in London against the slave trade until year after 1776. Neither were there loud outcries in London against the slave trade until years after the American Revolution. Nor did the colonists believe that ending slave trade would severely damage their entire economy. It was the Americans, not the British, who loudly called for abolishing the trade, albeit not always for humanitarian reasons, in petitions that Crown officials rejected out of hand. Indeed, at the time of the Revolution, there was considerably more in the way of anti-slavery politics in the colonies than in Britain proper. These are elementary facts.”
Not so elementary, my dear Wilentz & Co. First, “considerably more…anti-slavery politics…in Britain proper” shows a considerable lack of understanding of proportion, percentages, and perspective. There was no large anti-slavery movement on either side of the Atlantic in the mid-to-late 1790s. To claim “considerably more” is like saying if a disease incidence one that is 3/100,000 and you triple it, which could well be “considerably more” if you have the disease and don’t know better, that sounds real bad. In real numbers it goes from 3 to 9.
When he categorically states “The British were not ‘deeply conflicted’ over slavery in 1776”, that is a categorical distortion. In the mid-1770s, abolitionist sentiment had built in a minority of churches and according to a wonderful exhibit by the Royal Museum Greenwich on slavery, “As early as 1776, the House of Commons debated a motion ‘that the slave trade is contrary to the laws of God and the rights of men’.” That is an elementary fact.
Wilentz’s criticisms mainly come from making strawmen with unquantifiable phrases like “deeply conflicted” and “considerably more” and tries to make mountains out of semantic molehills. If it passes the muster of National Review, it’s impossible for anyone thinking being to go so low.
Sean Wilentz is like John Durham. Wilentz’ own writing is full of significantly more errors and supposed academic “crimes” than anything that Nikole Hannah-Jones did in the 1619 Project. But Sean Wilentz is just as desperate to discredit the 1619 Project as John Durham was desperate to discredit the very legitimate origins of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s many contacts with known Russian agents. In both cases, the “investigators” – Sean Wilentz and John Durham — proved that they were far more guilty of committing the same crimes they were accusing their “enemy” of committing.
Wilentz’ original letter – as well as his later screed in a right magazine – were full of never corrected errors far worse than any “evidence” that he offered up to prove Hannah-Jones academic “crimes” in order to discredit her. And Nikole Hannah-Jones — like most people with integrity – made changes to make the 1619 Project more accurate. Sean Wilentz — like most right wing Republicans who spew lies – doubled down on his errors and denied that anything he wrote was less than perfect.
Wilentz also disagreed with Harvard historian Jill Lepore, whose book: “These Truths” was the basis of some of the points made in the 1619 Project that Wilentz objected to. But Wilentz treated his disagreements with Lepore the way historians who aren’t on a personal vendetta do. Wilentz politely disagreed with Lepore without denouncing her the way Wilentz denounced Hannah-Jones. Wilentz didn’t try to discredit Lepore, but he did demonize Hannah-Jones. While Wilentz will deny his implicit racism, he has never once explained why he believed that Jill Lepore making these supposed errors were minor quibbles while Hannah-Jones making the same supposed errors were academic crimes that discredited all her work. Wilentz went after Hannah-Jones the way John Durham went after the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation – desperately trying to pretend non-crimes were crimes because their only goal was to discredit something they personally didn’t like.
And like John Durham, Wilentz own work attempting to destroy Hannah-Jones contained far more evidence of his own “academic crimes” than anything he could dig up on Hannah-Jones.
Thank you GregB, above, for pointing out some of them. I won’t hold my breath that Wilentz ever acknowledges or apologizes for his many errors. It seems that only people with integrity – like Diane Ravitch and Hannah-Jones – make corrections. People like Wilentz and Durham seem to believe they are above the very laws and standards they demand others — but only certain others who aren’t in their privileged circle – have to meet. Anyone who is in their circle of privilege gets a pass, including themselves.
There never was a history written that did not contain some debatable material. History is not freaking physics, Ms. Michels, and even physics is replete with debated material.
That said, the response to the 1619 Project by some conservative historians provides, ironically, meaty evidence of the very sort of desire to whitewash our history that the 1619 Project decries and attempts in part to rectify.
Not surprising. Non-self-aware white supremacists will be non-self-aware white supremacists who commit again and again the fallacies of the breed: amplification of minor details and diminution of major trends and themes, equivocation, and the association fallacy:
(∃x ∈ S : φ(x)) ⇒ (∀x ∈ S : φ(x)), meaning “if there exists any x in the set S so that a property φ is true for x, then for all x in S the property φ must be true.”
Premise: A is a B
Premise: A is also a C
Conclusion: Therefore, all Bs are Cs
I will not be surprised if Governors in the states of Florida, Texass, Kansas, Oklahoma, Montana, etc., etc., don’t try to shut down the viewing of the “The 1619 Project”. These Governors may have a massive heart attack of this event.
Sports-style media blackouts coming soon to a state near you (or the one where you live now).
Time to start researching for the best VPN service.
How many hours. I imagine every history teacher in states that allow it, will buy it copy 1619 project to show in class and build curriculum around it.
I very much hope that this is so.
https://1619education.org/builder/lesson/1619-project-docuseries-viewing-guide?gclid=Cj0KCQiAofieBhDXARIsAHTTldqae2bZISqOEe3Qu2lbDJ6gSuK8fw_UApGcz7kaQFlzRFtfT_HEVq0aAnvXEALw_wcB
https://1619education.org/
It’s a six-part series. Each episode is an hour long.
Will DeSantis et.al. ban Hulu?
Or Uhura?
Do you mean this?
I do not think RED states can legally stop HULU from streaming programs that the MAGA RINOI fascists want to censor in their states since HULU is a private sector business and anyone that had a HULU subscription should be free to watch whatever they want since the paid for it.
The United States is not on the “Enemies of the Internet” list yet. Still, some Red States are doing all they can to join that list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country
Hmmm, it seems I’m wrong. The United States was added to the Reporters without Borders “enemies of the internet” list in 2014. So maybe the fascists are succeeding as they strive to gain control of censoring everything.
I don’t know about legalities, but media companies block content based on region/country all the time. The best example in America is sports media blackouts. (Probably not so much anymore with newer streaming services like NFL Ticket, NBA Live, etc. that let you see virtually any game you want.)
The real question is not whether Hannah-Jones is correct about history, but why is this particular thesis seen as so toxic? Other historians like Zinn have advanced similar theses. Why now?
It has to do with increasingly divisive politics. So who are the dividers? That is easy. Those calling 1619 divisive are the dividers. Just like those who claim there is election fraud are trying to defraud the elections.
Roy,
You ask a good question. Why did the A list historians (5, I think) get incensed at Hannah-Jones, but not at Zinn? Think about it. Because she is not a historian? Because her work appeared in The NY Times and not a historical journal? Or something else.
Why did Wilentz get incensed at Hannah-Jones and not Jill Lepore (whose book was a reference for Hannah-Jones)?
That’s what implicit racism is. Holding people who you claim not to be biased against to an impossibly high standard (and denouncing them for not meeting this standard) that you don’t hold yourself or your privileged friends to.
Implicit racism is claiming your own errors and the errors of white historians who agree with you are just unimportant “quibbles”, but the errors of an African American writer are discrediting to the entire body of her work. Implicit sexism works that way too. Contrary to their claims of victimhood, white men like Wilentz are held to a much lower standard. Wilentz’ own work, rife with many times as many of the same kinds of supposed “errors” he cites in Hannah-Jones’ work, gets a pass. Privilege.
NYC: this is a good summary. Thanks.
Diane: I think the historians have one beef and the culture warriors are exploiting it. Historians have always looked at journalists as walking on shaky ground. Popular history writers are seen through skepticism just the same. Real historians pay their dues in dusty archives. But that is not what this conversation is about. This conversation is about people having a spasm over one historical thesis. This is a spasm designed to prove there is a threat so good Americans can look for a savior.
The brouhaha over 1619 Project exemplifies the need for CRT to understand it.
Exactly
Beautifully observed, Diane.
Platform. Hannah-Jones had the platform of the New York Times. So, even if the average person can’t name the writer, they do know that this is something that was published by the New York Times.
I know nothing of this Zinn person. I’m sure multitudes of people would say the same.
So, 1619 had greater reach and was thus a bigger threat to those who see it as such.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hallelujah+youtube+leonard+cohen&atb=v314-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DM9R6FBEe_10
I feel compelled to explain my thougts/feelings around choosing to reply to this post by Diane Ravitch about the TV series on Hulu based on Nikole Hannah Jones 1619 Project. It was to celebrate the voice of Ms. Jones being on TV. This put a joy in my heart that reached the heights of this song by Leonard Cohen.
Nikole Hannah Jones is a national treasure.