The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones et al. (One World, $38)
From the moment it was published, The New York Times’ 1619 Project “created a discourse that nearly obscured the thing itself,” said Rebecca Onion in Slate.com.
But the controversies stirred up by the special August 2019 Times magazine issue show how brilliantly it framed a revolutionary idea: that today’s America was born not in 1776 but in 1619, the year that the first enslaved Africans were brought to England’s American colonies. The magazine’s original collection of essays, fiction, and poetry has now been expanded into a book that “achieves the impossible on so many levels.” Though it’s significantly longer—with seven new essays and 19 new works of fiction and poetry—it’s “easier to read,” because it more clearly maps the 400-year history that each of the many contributors draws from when spotlighting a particular event or moment to show slavery’s enduring impact.
This expanded version of The 1619 Project repeats many of the original’s flaws, said Chris Stirewalt in TheDispatch.com.
Though the book is “kitted out with the trappings of scholarly work, including a kind of intramural peer-review process,” project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones “dismisses even the gentle reproaches of her kindest critics” while never justifying the book’s central claim that slavery was the foundation on which our country was built. A few contributors, including culture critic Wesley Morris, have listened to the feedback and thoughtfully modified their original essays.
Otherwise, this version of The 1619 Project is “very clearly built to be a sacred text”— the type of book that no reader can argue against without being accused of racism.
There is an elusiveness to the project that makes it hard for anyone to argue with, said Carlos Lozada in The Washington
Post. Sometimes the book seems to insist on recognizing 1619 as the date of America’s birth; other times, it suggests that America has many origin points. In a new example of shape shifting, this extended version of the project closes with a chapter by HannahJones that puts aside historical analysis to advocate a political agenda. In “Justice,” she argues that an enduring wealth gap is the most significant barrier for Black Americans today and that anyone who understands the nation’s history should support addressing this wealth disparity through reparation payments and the creation of free universal health care, child care, and college. The history provided up to that point is “powerful and memorable,” and “The 1619 Project’s activist turn need not necessarily affect how one regards the American origin story it presents.” Still, it’s instructive to know the purpose that the project is intended to serve.