The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

“I had assumed that Before the Mayflower referred to Black people’s history in Africa before they were enslaved on this land. Tracing my fingers across the words, I realized that the title evoked not a remote African history but an American one. African people had lived here, on the land that in 1776 would form the United States, since the White Lion dropped anchor in the year 1619. They’d arrived one year before the iconic ship carrying the English people who got the credit for building it all. Why hadn’t any teacher or textbook, in telling the story of Jamestown, taught us the story of 1619?” 

This establishes the framework for the project: When one includes Black history, the beginning of America was in 1619. However, this history is not taught and is left conveniently out of the traditional American narrative.

“How might the reframing change how we understand the unique problems of the nation today—its stark economic inequality, its violence, the world-leading incarceration, its shocking segregation, its political division, its stingy social net? How might it help us understand the country’s best qualities, developed over a centuries-long struggle for freedom, equality, and pluralism, a struggle whose DNA could also be traced to 1619? How would looking at contemporary American life through this lens help us better appreciate the contributions of Black Americans—not only to our culture but also to our democracy itself?”

This is the thesis of Hannah-Jones’s project: the idea that looking at today’s problems through a historical lens might help us understand how to address them. Her metaphorical reference to America’s “DNA” is especially significant, as it speaks to the ingrained and systemic nature of the country’s white supremacy and anti-Blackness: The 1619 Project is not primarily about racism as an individual set of attitudes or behaviors, but rather about the structural racism embedded in American institutions (though the two obviously influence one another).

“Yet despite being denied the freedom and justice promised to all, Black Americans believed fervently in the American creed. Through centuries of Black resistance and protest, we have helped the country live up to its founding ideals. And not only for ourselves—Black rights struggles paved the way for every other rights struggle, including women’s and gay rights, immigrant and disability rights.”

Although enslaved for most of the 400 years the book covers, Black Americans believed in the freedom and justice that America was founded on. Their struggle for freedom ultimately gave structure and inspiration to other human rights campaigns. This bolsters Hannah-Jones’s argument about the importance of centering Black history: Doing so is not only a much needed corrective to the erasure of Black Americans from official history, but also provides important context to our understanding of other marginalized groups.