The 1619 Project

The 1619 Project

Adult must read nonfiction
"Origin stories function, to a degree, as myths designed to
create a shared sense of purpose. Nations simplify these narratives
in order to unify and glorify, and these origin stories serve to
illuminate how a society wants to see itself and how it doesn't..."
In America we're initiated into an origin story of whites
fighting to achieve independence from an oppressive monarchy,
embodying equality of all men in their founding documents, and
fighting a civil war to free the slaves from the day we walk into our
first classroom. National holidays, political speeches, music,
movies, and museums (and those awful statues of armed white men)
reinforce this early indoctrination for the rest of our lives.
But what if it's bullshit? What if it leaves out all but the
things that make us feel like good people who have made huge progress
toward any defects our nation had in the past and are speeding toward
(if not already in) a post racial future? If you've ever had thoughts
like that you owe it to yourself to read Nikole Hannah-Jones' The 1619
Project.
Hannah-Jones doesn't place the nation's birth at 1776. She
chose 1619. That was when the White Lion, a year before the
Mayflower, arrived in Jamestown, Virginia carrying a human cargo, the
first of the enslaved Africans whose stolen labor would create not
only prosperity for whites, but a system of deeply embedded hardship
that would leave Blacks at severe disadvantage to whites over a
century after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Fast forward to 2019. Hannah-Jones was determined that the four
century anniversary of the White Lion not pass virtually unnoticed.
"But by 2019, I was no longer a curious teenager attending a
public high school in a small Midwestern town. I now worked at one of
the most powerful media institutions in the world. I wanted to use
that global platform to help force a confrontation with our past and
the foundations upon which this country was built."
Did she ever! She collaborated with a number of scholars from a
range of fields to create a New York Times Magazine special issue. It
created a great deal of both excitement and backlash. While many
educators began to incorporate it into their curriculum legislators
tried to strip federal funding from high schools that did so. Hannah-
Jones realized that the creation of a book would allow for a more
thorough and wide ranging exploration of the topic.
Each of the eighteen chapters of the book is centered on a
topic. It starts with a photograph of an everyday black person or
people related to the topic. Then there is a scholarly (but still
quite readable and engaging) exploration of the topic. The endings
are vignettes from history and fiction pieces based on them.
Chapter 11, Inheritance, features a formal portrait of a nicely
dressed couple. He stands slightly in front of her, looking directly
at the camera. Her arm is around his shoulders. Nobody has to tell
you they are each other's world. Their story starts the chapter. He
was an entepreneur who created a transport business and a general
store that featured Friday night fish fries and Sunday dinners. When
he bought a gas pump he'd crossed a line. He was shot down in broad
daylight by whites who didn't bother to cover their faces. There was
nothing left to pass down to his seven children. The narrative then
segues into a discussion of all the ways in which in which Blacks have
been prevented from creating and passing down intergenerational
wealth. The vignettes concern Alain Locke's 1925 publication of The
New Negro, ushering in the Harlem Renaissance, and and the 1932 start
of the infamous Tuskegee Study.
I earnestly entreat you to read this eye opening and thought
provoking book and give yourself more time than I did. Each chapter
can be the basis for much reflection. Unless a lot of American
citizens self enlighten and do something about those epiphanies we'll
continue on with our dysfunctional and damaging origin lies and not
even begin with the reparations we owe our Black fellow citizens.
On a purrrsonal note, I did binge read the book. But what else could
I do when isolating and not up to much else? Even though I can't get
my hands on one of those home testing kits I have no reason to doubt
being probably positive. And I don't have the energy to do much
else. If you haven't vaxed and boostered don't wait any longer. It
may very well be why I'm not in a hospital. (Jules)
My food and water bowls are full. My litter box is changed. I get my
attention. She's golden. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to church Emily who picked the book up
from the library and placed it on my porch so I could have access to
it without contaging anyone.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway






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