The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

“At the Superdome After the Storm Has Passed” poem by Clint Smith

“Mother and Son” fiction by Jason Raynolds

Before Obama left office in 2016, he encouraged Americans to look back at the long history of the United States and the progress made since the country’s inception: “But the long sweep of America has been defined by forward motion, a constant widening of our founding creed to embrace all and not just some” (422). Progress has long been a part of the United States’ mythology, which points to historical changes such as the emancipation of enslaved people and constitutional amendments giving Black Americans the right to citizenship and voting as proof of this continuous movement forward. Today, as the Black middle class has become more visible, with Black culture influencing every corner of America and Black millionaires and billionaires emerging, it looks like the progress that so many generations have fought for has been achieved. Still, the racial gap has been in flux, widening and closing with each step of progress.

This is only part of the picture, however: When “the long sweep of history is cast as a constant widening of equity and justice, it overlooks this parallel constant widening of inequity and injustice” (424).