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Nikole Hannah-Jones

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary and Study Guide

Overview

The 1619 Project is a series of essays, poems, and short fiction about the lasting legacy and implications of slavery in the United States. Named after the year the White Lion anchored and sold the first enslaved African people to the English colonies, these essays rethink the United States origin story to explain how a country founded on ideals of freedom preserved the institution of slavery and the lasting legacy of it. Nikole Hannah-Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein edited the collection.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the author of the book’s preface and its first and last essays, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and celebrated academic who has won multiple awards for her work, including two George Polk Awards, a Peabody, and three National Magazine Awards. Hannah-Jones is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and a professor at Howard University; she reports on and studies racial injustice and the persistence of racial segregation in the United States. In The 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones explains that when she learned about the landing of the White Lion in 1619, she began to understand a history that the popular American narrative erased and ignored. As the 400th anniversary of 1619 loomed nearer, she knew it would go uncelebrated, unacknowledged, and unpacked. Hannah-Jones then pitched her idea to The New York Times Magazine—“a special issue that would mark the four-hundredth anniversary [of 1619] by exploring the unparalleled impact of African slavery on the development of our country and its continuing impact on our society” (xxii).

Published in 2021, this book is a hybrid collection of nonfiction, including essays from writers, academics, journalists, and historians exploring 18 different American institutions and phenomena: Democracy, Race, Sugar, Fear, Dispossession, Capitalism, Politics, Citizenship, Self-Defense, Punishment, Inheritance, Medicine, Church, Music, Healthcare, Traffic, Progress, and Justice. The collection also includes poems and short fiction.

Once published, The 1619 Project garnered praise and criticism alike. This book appeared after a year of political upheaval, nationwide protests, and calls for racial justice after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery—all amid the Covid-19 global pandemic. Some historians challenged and attempted to discredit the arguments presented—especially “the framing, which treated slavery and anti-Blackness as foundational to America” or the “assertion that Black Americans have served as this nation’s most ardent freedom fighters […] or the idea that modern American life has been shaped not by the majestic ideals of our founding, but by its grave hypocrisy” (Hannah-Jones et al. xxv). Congress soon presented legislation to prevent The 1619 Project from being taught in schools and universities. President Trump spoke out against the project, establishing the “1776 Commission” as one of his last acts as President. This sought to discredit the project by “reinforc[ing] the exceptional nature of our country and to put forth a ‘patriotic’ narrative” (Hannah-Jones et al. xxvii).

This collection includes racial slurs targeting Black people and other mixed-race populations. The editors, however, have purposefully chosen to use the term “enslaved person” rather than “slave,” as the former “accurately conveys the condition without stripping the individual of his or her humanity” (xiii).

Plot Summary

In August 1619, a year before the Mayflower made land, the White Lion anchored in the harbor at Jamestown. This ship carried enslaved Africans stolen from their country and sold to Englishmen in the American Colonies. This sale was the first of enslaved peoples in Anglo-America and marked the beginning of the institution of American chattel slavery. This text reexamines the founding mythology of America and posits that over and over again, Black Americans have been the actual fighters of freedom. To suggest that our country’s founding happened in 1619 rather than with the Mayflower or the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence challenges the ingrained mythology of the United States, which says we are a country built on ideals of freedom and liberty. By contrast, the writers, authors, and scholars in this collection argue that many American establishments derived from the legal institution of slavery with the goal of cementing the status of enslaved people as property.

Perhaps the most radical claim is Hannah-Jones’s contention in “Democracy” that the American Revolution was fought to protect the colonists’ “property”—that is, their claim to an enslaved population—from the British Empire. Not only did slavery provide free labor and serve as property that could be traded, sold, and reproduced, building the wealth of many colonists, but it also provided a way to create a government without an apparent ruling class. Poor white colonists (whose numbers were already limited precisely because the “working class” mostly comprised enslaved people) saw that Black people had no legal rights, and they identified with the wealthier white colonists in power. The colonists built a country off the backs of the enslaved, protecting the institution of slavery through the Constitution, which protected the property rights of enslavers.

Throughout the collection, the authors make it clear that the institution of chattel slavery in the United States was not simply in the background of history but rather at the center. Chapter 2 (“Race”) examines how colonial law “invented” whiteness and Blackness in their current form to safeguard slavery. Chapter 3 (“Sugar”) discusses the pivotal role sugar cultivation played in the development of American chattel slavery. Chapter 4 (“Fear”) documents the fear of Black rebellion that continues to spark white violence. Chapter 5 (“Dispossession”) discusses Indigenous Americans’ relationships to whiteness, Blackness, and slavery. Chapter 6 (“Capitalism”) considers the mutually reinforcing relationship between capitalism and white supremacy. Chapter 7 (“Politics”) explores the racism baked into the US political system.

From here, the book moves on to more specific topics. Chapter 8 (“Citizenship”) recounts Black Americans’ struggles for citizenship. Chapter 9 (“Self-Defense”) questions which US citizens can claim self-defense, especially with regards to gun rights. Chapter 10 (“Punishment”) examines the mass incarceration of Black Americans. Chapter 11 (“Inheritance”) explores the factors that have prevented Black Americans from building intergenerational wealth in the way that white Americans have. Chapter 12 (“Medicine”) discusses systemic racism within the US medical system and its implications for Black Americans’ health. Chapter 13 (“Church”) considers the role religion has played in Black freedom struggles. Chapter 14 (“Music”) traces traditionally Black musical genres back to their origins and discusses their complex relationship to race and racism. Chapter 15 (“Healthcare”) situates the contemporary debate about healthcare in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War and the plight of newly “free” Black Americans. Chapter 16 (“Traffic”) explores how seemingly benign infrastructure reflects the legacy of slavery and segregation. Chapter 17 (“Progress”) argues that the idea of progress can act as an impediment to real-world progress. Finally, in Chapter 18 (“Justice”), Hannah-Jones returns to summarize the project’s implications with an eye towards building a more equitable future.