Why American Senior High Students Should be Reading THE 1619 PROJECT
In June 2021, the Florida State Board of Education banned florida teachers from using both Critical Race Theory and the New York Time’s The 1619 Project in their classrooms. Now, nearly a year later, Florida’s public school teachers are dispirited and unsure how or even if they can teach their students about slavery and the history of racism in America.
About half the states have passed or pondered similar bans. In Florida for example, lawmakers’ main objection to the book is its understanding of racism as systemic. The 1619 Project sees racism as a societal characteristic. Traditionally, we’ve thought of racism as a personal character flaw. For the teacher to tell kids not to be hateful towards people is okay. But to say that American society has anti-blackness baked into its institutions, self-identity, religion, and government crosses a red line. Hence, several states’ ban of this book
There is something about The 1619 Project that makes its ideas particularly effective in rattling America’s political right? The book isn’t a straight line history of African Americans. Instead, it’s organized around topics like citizenship. Cultural scholars tackle each of these themes and trace their causes back through history, sometimes back to colonial days. For example, the curious persistence of Black families’ low net worth is nothing new. In fact, there is a clear thread of causation that runs back to the failure of the US government to follow through on its commitment to provide 40 acres and a mule to newly emancipated slaves during reconstruction.
All of The 1619 Project’s essays are similar to each other in one respect. They each trace the path of causation between the Black experience in the presence and its historical roots. Anthea Butler, writing about the Black Church, recalls how enslaved people would sneak away into the woods to pray and sing together. As it turns out, that ecclesiastical separateness between White and Black Christianity continues into the present with a distinct Black Church, which is quite separate from White churches. Much the same could be said of White fear of Blacks, which arose with White anxiety over slave revolds and continues today with the country’s dilemma of mass incarceration. Something similar can be seen in lagging health outcomes for African Americans. As with the other areas, inferior medical care is rooted to the plantation.
The 1619 Project leaves the reader with the impression that African American oppression and low caste status has always existed in many forms and continues today despite the popular opinion that racial justice is improving.
The original 1619 Project was a book length collection of newly written essays plus various historical poems, letters, and literary snippets. Taken together the essays and creative pieces provide the reader with a vivid summation of the Black experience and contribution to American society. They also provide a sense of the intransigence of Black difficulties which bring the stench of slavery even into the presence.
Journalist, Nikole Hanna-Jones enlisted the project’s authors, assembled the various readings, and wrote the first and last chapters. The original collection appeared in a large supplement which enjoyed an enthusiastic readership. The project was slightly enlarged and published in book form.
Students Know What is Going On and Book Banning Isn’t Going to Shelter Them From Bold New Ideas
I happen to belong to an anti-racist book club that has for 5 years read through the some of the best writing on Black history and culture. Our group is riding the wave of quality publishing by Black authors. This comes at a time when America’s history is under comprehensive reconsideration. The crowds that flooded into the streets of American cities following George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis is evidence enough that something powerful is shifting around race.
Kids are absorbing all of this. They are also studying and being frightened by climate change and the deconstruction of family and religion. It seems a bit silly to pull The 1619 Project off school library shelves and lesson plans to guard kids from what they’re going discover anyway. From what I’ve seen of students I’m guessing that they are already keenly aware of the daunting problems they will face.
My wife, an educator, and I, together with our Book Club, have spent several weeks reading the 1619 Project. I can report that this is not hateful, dishonest, partisan or manipulative piece of writing. Coming to the book after reading 40 of the best volumes on the Black experience and racism, I would rank the 1619 Project among the best written and most comprehensive writings on the subject.
I’d say that kids, Black and White, need this book.
The Power of Literature
This is the kind of material that does for history and social studies what literature has long done for students. I was a teen at the height of the counter-culture movement in the late 1960’s. As I reached my last year of high school, it dawned on me that placing literature in an adolescent’s hands allowed schools to introduce big passionate ideas that weren’t easily discussable or testable if spoken about in classrooms. Ralph Waldo Emersons’ “Self-Reliance” is a glorious example. Emerson’s basic message in that essay is to think for yourself. Don’t be fooled by te authority of teachers or celebrity intellectuals. From my first reading of Emerson’s essay as a 17 year old, I’ve felt empowered by its bold and inspiring message.
Much the same could be said about Thoreau’s Walden; D.H. Lawrence’s sensuous short stories which provided delicious beach reading during the summer before my senior year. Huckleberry Finn, is forever being banned and reinstated mostly over Mark Twain’s incisive treatment of slavery in that story. I read John Steinbeck’s, Grapes of Wrath, for an option assignment. It’s is a seductive invitation to radical politics that could never be simply advocated by the English teacher.
What About History?
I don’t remember history or civics being so compelling. The 1619 Project is a particularly compelling example of historical writing that can move its readers, especially students, to fresh convictions and deeper exploration.
At a time when upcoming generations are facing monumental threats in the context of ever new crises, we do our children a disservice by serving them the bland pablum of “patriotic education” while denying them access to some of the most incisive thinkers alive today.
Here are my top three reasons for wishing that students could read this book.
I. The book itself is the best general, current single-volume introduction to the field of Black studies.
The expertise of its authors is unimpeachable. It is history, but not the kind of history one would expect in a classroom. Wesley Morris, one of the writers, offers a brilliant history of Black music, which pretty much coincides with American music in general. Far from the topic of Music is Bryan Stevenson’s essay on punishment which traces the American tendency to imprison Blacks in harsh, lengthy ways for lesser crimes than other countries. There are 18 subject areas from religion to politics, which is I judge as a pretty good snapshot of the sweep of Black experience.
The readers first impression of The 1619 Project is that it is lengthy—over 500 pages. It gives the impression of being tedious. But I would argue that Hanna-Jones’ book is succinct. In the last 5 years, I’ve read book length treatments of most of the subject areas that Nikole Hanna-Jones includes. Having read excellent book length studies of the same topics, sometimes by the same authors, I can attest to the brevity and clarity of the 18 essays.
For example, Harriet Washington’s Medical Apartheid is a lengthy read. Washington tells the story of Black’s relationship with American doctors, hospitals, and medical research that makes vivid why Blacks even today are underserved and mistreated by the American medical system. I never knew that there was such a long terrible American tradition of medical mistreatment of Blacks. I spent many hours with Washington’s book, which while brilliant, is also a depressing read. At length, I could not finish it in time for our book club discussion.
The 1619 Project’s chapter on medicine was written by Linda Villarosa. In ten pages, Villarosa sailed through the story of Blacks and the medical establishment in America, hitting the important examples and illustrating the same underlying prejudice that Black bodies are different and not in need of assiduous attention and care. Villarosa captured 70 percent of Washington’s brilliant book in a fraction of the pages.
This is what I mean by “succinct.” Before I picked up The 1619 Project I had read Ibram X. Kendi, Carol Anderson, and Michelle Alexander. In addition to these I had the opportunity to read some of the best books on slavery and capitalism. The 1619 Project essays are crisp restatements of book length ideas. And they’re written by the authors that are leaders in their fields. So, the 1619 Project doesn’t suffer from being a secondhand substitute for the real thing.
I found myself envisioning how students and teachers could use this book. The chapters are discreet units. They stand alone and need not be used in conjunction with the other essays. This gives an enterprising teacher flexibility to guide students selectively through the material. Kids could pick their own topics and explore them as an adjunct to, say their textbook content or class lectures. Students could even have a soft opt out and read the quirky chapter on automobile traffic in Atlanta, a light treatment of racist urban planning which Richard Rothstein treats decisively in his Color of Law.
Add to this the exhaustive notes and bibliography which provides immediate recommendations for further study, maybe the beginning of term paper resources.
So, the structure, quality, and accessibility make this resource a real asset in secondary classrooms.
II. The 1619 Project is not an anti-White screed.
What Nikole Hanna-Jones has put together here is not an amped up version of the anti-racist training that was popular in the 1970’s where White participants could count on being found out to be, maybe deep down, vile racists.
The Florida State School Board knew this but apparently didn’t know that shifting the locus from the individual to the society doesn’t embarrass or vilify White students. It lets them see a much more compelling accounting for the world around them.
Robin Deangelio, to provide a contrasting approach, is an academic with expertise in critical discourse analysis. Her book, White Fragility, explores how the racism which resides in the culture can be unknowingly reinforced by non-hateful people through their talk and language patterns.
White Fragility’s postmodern, philosophical approach may be helpful in raising self awareness and helping motivated readers to clean up unconscious offenses that thread through daily life. But it is for advanced students.
The 1619 Project is not conceptionally difficult. It’s author’s assemble facts and episodes from history, many of which have been hidden, and lead readers to satisfying new understanding of the truth of Black struggle and low status that we can all see. The murder of George Floyd isn’t an outlier incident that popped up unexpectedly. Whites have long been frightened by the delusion that Blacks are more criminal than other groups. The need for harsh repression dates to the 19th century and threads uninterrupted to the present. Black households don’t have the capital resources that Whites enjoy. Trymaine Lee’s essay, “Inheritance” gives background to this that middle school students could understand. Enslaved people in America were never compensated or given reparations.
I was impressed with The 1619 Project’s consistent message. What we see in the present is explainable through practices that have remained very consistent. In many ways, America is still on the plantation, still reverting to anti-black tendencies, still inventing new ways of becoming a slave empire.
That, of course, is a tough message. But it’s not a personal one. Kids can deal with that. They must deal with that. The generation that is in school now faces the challenges of climate apocalypse, changing family patterns, the deconstruction of morals and religious faith, and the persistence of racial struggle.
III. The 1619 Project is more than a book. It is a glorious conversation.
Students who read the essays will do so knowing that they’re exploring what many grown ups including their parents, clergy, their governor, and school officials consider disruptive and inappropriate reading. “Important people don’t want me reading this.
Scholars are saying that this is factually inaccurate and leads to distorted conclusions.
As important as the facts, the content, of The 1619 Project are, why are people so stirred up about it? The controversy occasioned by The 1619 Project leads to other questions not related to African Americans and racism. Why is history important? Why does it seem to change? Why would someone want to criticize? Why is this important to me? What can I do to remedy my confusion. Who am I to believe?
My suggestion that The 1619 Project continue to be used and read by students extends to the criticism of The 1619 Project.
What an exquisite resource on which to base instruction in critical thinking!
I’ve had a bit of the experience I’m recommending here. After I had read about a third of The 1619 Project, I was impressed by its quality and the sharpness and freshness of its conclusions. In particular, I found Nikole Hanna-Jones opening essay especially provocative. What was it about this book that has triggered some critics and has become a favorite of red state politicians for bans.
I poked around the internet for a succinct criticism from a scholarly source and found one. American historian and academician Sean Wilentz was quick to have objections to The 1619 Project and enlisted a handful of other historians as co-signatories of a public letter to the New York Times, the institutional sponsor of Nikole Hanna-Jones’ project.
The historians were troubled by the projects factual accuracy and some of the sweeping conclusions Hanna-Jones was reaching, notably her seeming suggestion in the first chapter that American history is essentially Black history. She doesn’t state that American history collapses into Black history. The burden of the book is that African origin people have had a lasting and significant influence on America and that we would not be the same civilization without them.
At any rate, Sean Wilentz and company were concerned about a couple of very fine grain inferences that Nikole Hanna-Jones was drawing in her opening chapter and preface. The NYT editor who oversaw the project made limited adjustments in the text of the Project and the book stands pretty much unaltered.
What fascinates me is the question whether Sean Wilentz’ detailed critique of a small portion of the whole is grounds for banning the book. Or was his letter an effort actually to strengthen the book. Writing in the Atlantic to clarify his viewpoint, Wilentz concludes his essay with these warm words:
We wholeheartedly support the [1619’s Project] stated goal to educate widely on slavery and its long-term consequences. Our letter attempted to advance that goal, one that, no matter how the history is interpreted and related, cannot be forwarded through falsehoods, distortions, and significant omissions. Allowing these shortcomings to stand uncorrected would only make it easier for critics hostile to the overarching mission to malign it for their own ideological and partisan purposes, as some had already begun to do well before we wrote our letter.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/1619-project-new-york-times-wilentz/605152/
The 1619 Project offers a vivid example of a people trying to get their own history right. It is imperfect. It’s critics are imperfect. It’s all vitally important.
Let secondary students participate in this conversation! We’re postmodern for heaven’s sake! All values are under the microscope. The deconstructive climate that we live in will only get more unsettling. We need to equip our kids in the end to be—in Emerson’s expression, “self-reliant.”
And we’ve got a good resource to work with.
The 1619 Project Chapter Summaries and Marginal Notes
| Chapter Number | Chapter Name | Author | Notes and Summary |
| Preface | Origins | Nikole Hanna-Jones | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 1 | Democracy | Nikole Hanna-Jones | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 2 | Race | Dorothy Roberts | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 3 | Sugar | Khalil Gibran Muhammad | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 4 | Fear | Leslie Alexander and Michelle Alexander | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 5 | Dispossession | Tiya Miles | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 6 | Capitalism | Matthew Desmond | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 7 | Politics | Jamelle Bouie | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 8 | Citizenship | Martha S. Jones | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 9 | Self-Defense | Carol Anderson | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 10 | Punishment | Bryan Stevenson | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 11 | Inheritance | Trymaine Lee | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 12 | Medicine | Linda Villarosa | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 13 | Church | Anthea Butler | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 14 | Music | Wesley Morris | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 15 | Healthcare | Jeneen Interlandi | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 16 | Traffic | Kevin M. Kruse | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 17 | Progress | Ibram X. Kendi | Notes and Summary |
| Chapter 18 | Justice | Nikole Hanna-Jones | Notes and Summary |
[i] Hannah-Jones, Nikole . The 1619 Project (p. 278). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
