What's Wrong With The 1619 Project?

The thesis of The New York Times’ 1619 Project is that the United States was founded in 1619, when the first slave was brought to North America, rather than 1776, when the American colonies declared independence from England. According to The 1619 Project, “Out of slavery — and the anti-Black racism it required — grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional.”

“1619. It is not a year that most Americans know as a notable date in our country’s history. Those who do are at most a tiny fraction of those who can tell you that 1776 is the year of our nation’s birth,” reads the August 2019 print version of the introductory essay to the project. “What if, however, we were to tell you that this fact, which is taught in our schools and unanimously celebrated every Fourth of July, is wrong, and that the country’s true birth date, the moment that its defining contradictions first came into the world, was in late August of 1619?”

Shortly after The 1619 Project was published, a group of distinguished historians — the majority of whom are left-leaning — wrote a public letter condemning it. The historians wrote that they were “dismayed at some of the factual errors in the project and the closed process” behind its production. “These errors, which concern major events, cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing.’ They are matters of verifiable fact, which are the foundation of both honest scholarship and honest journalism. They suggest a displacement of historical understanding by ideology. Dismissal of objections on racial grounds — that they are the objections of only ‘white historians’ — has affirmed that displacement.”

Related reading: “The 1619 Chronicles” – Bret Stephens, The New York Times

The lead author of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her essay, which claimed that "one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery."

Hannah-Jones’ core premise was promptly debunked by esteemed historians. After she was awarded the Pulitzer, The National Association of Scholars penned an open letter signed by 21 scholars calling on the Pulitzer Prize Board to rescind the award because of the essay’s fatal factual errors and the Times’ failure to properly acknowledge revisions.

In an op-ed, New York Times opinion writer Bret Stephens declared that The 1619 Project had “failed” in both historical accuracy and journalistic transparency. “Journalists are, most often, in the business of writing the first rough draft of history, not trying to have the last word on it. We are best when we try to tell truths with a lowercase t, following evidence in directions unseen, not the capital-T truth of a pre-established narrative in which inconvenient facts get discarded. And we’re supposed to report and comment on the political and cultural issues of the day, not become the issue itself. As fresh concerns make clear, on these points — and for all of its virtues, buzz, spinoffs and a Pulitzer Prize — the 1619 Project has failed.”

Related reading: “Ideology Over Excellence: Awarding The Pulitzer Prize To The 1619 Project” – Patricia Barnes, Forbes

In their public letter condemning The 1619 Project, a group of esteemed historians debunked its claim that the revolution was fought to ensure that slavery would continue: “On the American Revolution, pivotal to any account of our history, the project asserts that the founders declared the colonies’ independence of Britain ‘in order to ensure slavery would continue.’ This is not true. If supportable, the allegation would be astounding — yet every statement offered by the project to validate it is false.”

Slavery was not under threat from the British when Americans declared independence; in fact, Britain didn’t free the slaves in its overseas colonies until 1833.

Northwestern University historian Leslie M. Harris, who was asked by the Times to help fact-check The 1619 Project, wrote in an op-ed for Politico in March 2020 that she “listened in stunned silence” as lead author Nikole Hannah-Jones “repeated an idea that I had vigorously argued against with her fact-checker: that the patriots fought the American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery in North America. … I vigorously disputed the claim. Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war.”

Slavery certainly made some Americans, like Eli Yale, rich. However, the institution of slavery did not make the country rich. In fact, the slave system badly slowed the economic development of half the country. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, in 1860, just one year before the Civil War began, the South had only one-sixth as many factories as the North.

At the time of the Civil War, almost 90% of the country’s skilled, well-paid laborers and professionals were based in the North.

Banking, railroads, manufacturing — all were concentrated in the North. The South was an economic backwater in comparison.

The cost of abolishing slavery was enormous, economically (Abraham Lincoln borrowed billions to pay for it) and in terms of human life: 360,000 Union soldiers died in order to free 4 million slaves. Some historians say the numbers are even higher.

In the almost 200 years since the Civil War, the population of the country has grown almost 900% and our national GDP has increased 12,000%.

The 1619 Project suggests that the United States is an inherently racist country that cannot overcome the “original sin” of slavery, claiming that “nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional” grew out of slavery and racism.

America has become the most successful multi-racial country in history, and the only white majority country to elect a black President, twice. Two million black Africans have come to America as legal immigrants in the last 50 years, and they have become one of the most successful groups in the country.

Black Americans have heroically fought for their rights, often against great odds. Joining them in the fight for racial equality over the decades has been a vast number of white people. One key example: the U.S. Senate that passed the landmark Civil Rights Act in 1964 contained 98 whites and two men of color, both Asians.

In their open letter exposing significant errors in The 1619 Project, a group of distinguished historians cite the famous endorsement of the U.S. Constitution by Frederick Douglass and highlight Abraham Lincoln’s attempts to promote racial equality, writing: “The project criticizes Abraham Lincoln’s views on racial equality but ignores his conviction that the Declaration of Independence proclaimed universal equality, for blacks as well as whites, a view he upheld repeatedly against powerful white supremacists who opposed him. The project also ignores Lincoln’s agreement with Frederick Douglass that the Constitution was, in Douglass’s words, ‘a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.’ Instead, the project asserts that the United States was founded on racial slavery, an argument rejected by a majority of abolitionists and proclaimed by champions of slavery like John C. Calhoun.”