The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

“The New Negro” poem by A. Van Jordan

“Bad Blood” fiction by Yaa Gyasi

Elmore Bolling was a Black entrepreneur who was a “one-man economy” in Lowndesboro, a town between Selma and Montgomery, in the mid-1940s. He and his wife had seven children. The two eldest went to school in Montgomery. Bolling never learned to read or write, but he knew the benefits of education, especially for Black Americans. Threatened by his success, two white men lynched Bolling in 1947. They shot Bolling in front of his son, and his death left an irreparable hole in the family. A year after their father’s death, the family’s wealth was gone, while the trauma lasted.

After Black Americans gained their freedom and citizenship, Reconstruction began. This was a huge undertaking, and Congress established the “Freedmen’s Bureau” to oversee food, housing, legal assistance, and medical aid for those recently emancipated. Reconstruction brought Black children to school, created a savings bank for Black Americans, and promised land to those who had worked fields without compensation. However, when Reconstruction neared its end, white Southerners didn’t fully embrace Black freedom or equality and fought through violence to maintain white superiority.

This legalized violence left Black Americans in fear and a constant state of chaos.