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Photo taken by Alice Vergueiro, The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
REFRAMING HISTORY: THE 1619 PROJECT
Does a fight for equality also mean Iowa’s schools losing funds? Here’s how Iowa’s politics could affect how children are educated on American history. WORDS BY CALEB LILLQUIST DESIGN BY LILA JOHNSON
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ace has always been a topic of polarized American discourse. A project adding to this ongoing discussion is none other than the 1619 Project. The 1619 Project was created by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a native of Waterloo, Iowa. Jones published a series of papers that were adopted by the New York Times and are now being implemented in schools nationwide. The main purpose of the program is to challenge the narrative of slavery. The project challenges the creation of the U.S., along with other aspects of American slavery. The main page of the 1619 Project, along with its curriculum, can be found on The New York Times Magazine website. The landing page of the site states: “In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.”
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The New York Times describes the project as one that “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” Some of these “reframings” include assertions that the U.S. was built by the Founding Fathers to preserve slavery and to further use capitalism to enslave African Americans. Despite the program’s aim, over the past few years it has come under fire for alleged falsities in the form of accusations from renowned historians. The Atlantic’s piece, Historians Clash With The 1619 Project Is Not About The Facts, addresses the main criticisms. Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz is noted as being the first to call out the falsities of the project. A letter was written to the New York Times on the 1619 Project, signed off by James Oakes, Victoria Bynum, Gordon Wood, and James McPherson, who are “all leading scholars in their field,” according to The Atlantic.
