In August 19 of last year I listened in stunned silence as Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter for the New York Times, repeated an idea that I had vigorously argued against,” reads the first sentence of Friday’s essay by Leslie Harris, a history professor at Northwestern University.
Harris is just the latest in a string of academics to levy criticism on Hannah-Jones and the 1619 Project. She is the first, however, who actually took part in the project as a fact-checker. During the publication process for 1619, Harris “vigorously disputed” the idea that the American Revolution was actually about preserving slavery. Nonetheless, there it was in print come August 2019.
While Harris cautions that some conservatives are too quick to call the whole project a wash, she is among a handful of American History academics ringing alarm bells that the project should issue corrections. These calls also come as several public school systems signal their intent to add 1619 to their curriculums.
Written by journalists and opinion writers, the project attempts “to reframe the country’s history” by suggesting America’s “true founding” was when the first slaves arrived in 1619.
Within days of its launch, multiple top historians pointed out glaring factual inaccuracies. Their concerns, however, went largely ignored, save for one response from NYT editor Josh Silverstein essentially dismissing a letter sent by five such historians.
The historians persisted, turning to op-eds and the World Socialist Web Site to urge the publication to take a second look at some of its reporting. Historian Gordon Wood, a professor at Brown University, even sent a follow-up letter to Silverstein, giving the editor-in-chief permission to publish.
“In the long run the Project will lose its credibility, standing, and persuasiveness with the nation as a whole,” Wood wrote in the letter, which urged the publication to issue corrections. This letter, previously obtained by the Daily Caller, was never published by the NYT.
Princeton's distinguished liberal historian Sean Wilentz absolutely pile-drives Jake Silverstein, Nikole Hannah-Jones, & the 1619 project: "No effort to educate the public...to advance social justice can afford to dispense with a respect for basic facts." theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
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In the meantime, the “1619 Project” had quickly begun to infiltrate American public schools, spreading from New York to California – complete with all of the inaccuracies the historians spent months pointing out.
“The schools can say they’re not responsible, and they can turn to the parents and say you’re not responsible,” Bob Woodson, founder of The Woodson Center and the “1776” initiative, which is aimed at rebutting the NYT 1619 Project, told the Daily Caller. “None of us are responsible for their failures. As long as they can keep attention riveted in some unseen forces resulting from institutional racism … then, they don’t have to answer the question: Why are black children failing in systems run by...
