Nikole Hannah-Jones on The 1619 Project and 'Reckoning With What Our Country Was Founded Upon'

In her book, "The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story," creator and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones asks readers to reconsider the origin story of America: one that did not start with the Declaration of Independence, but earlier, in the year 1619.

That was the year the first enslaved African people arrived at the British colony of Virginia, a part of history that Hannah-Jones learned from a book given to her by a high school teacher — outside of class.

"We’ve been taught a very narrow version of American history," says Hannah-Jones. "It is a version that tries to keep us complacent. That tries to tell Black people that we haven't contributed much to this society, that we haven't resisted, that we don't have a foundational role."

The project, which touches on the history of slavery and its enduring role in American society, began as part of a 2019 New York Times Magazine special edition. The expansion of the project features new essays along with poetry and photography, and also serves as a response to the debates sparked when it was first published.

Hannah-Jones appeared on KQED Forum to discuss co-opted Black history in America, the development of "The 1619 Project," the case for reparations, and the direction of American society moving forward.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

On being called a 'discredited activist' when being asked to give a speech commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, and the manipulation and whitewashing of Black history and civil rights activists

This time of year, people who are actively working against the things that Dr. King most fought for like to use him against those who are still fighting for social justice. Many people who talk about Dr. King — [what he] would have respected, or what he would have wanted, or whose side he would have been on — have never actually read most of what he's written, and have no idea how radical he truly is. I know certainly Dr. King has been used against me, where people have said I have defiled his legacy by the work that I do.

Everyone seems to know about the part [in King’s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech made at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.] about judging. You know, "I hope one day my children will be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin" — but they don't know the rest of that speech, which is actually an indictment of America. He says that the Declaration of Independence was a promissory note, but that the United States had defaulted on that promissory note when it came to Black people, and that Black people had come to Washington to cash a check to demand that their rights be fulfilled.

If we're allowing people to teach us a truncated history, a manipulated history, and not actually doing the research for ourselves, then that is a means of social control.

On the moment she realized history can be managed and manipulated

I was 16 years old. I took a class at my high school. My teacher gave me a book called "Before the Mayflower" and, some 30 pages in, I came across the date 1619 — which marks, of course, the first Africans being sold into slavery and what would become the original 13 colonies. They were sold into Virginia. And this was a full year before the Mayflower.

And, as a 16-year-old child, I remember just being struck by the fact that we all knew about the Mayflower, and no one had taught us about the White Lion [the first slave ship]. No one had taught us about 1619, and I had no idea that Black people had been here that long, that slavery was that old.

This had never been mentioned, and I understood then that these were choices. That people had made choices about the history we were going to learn. And it really kind of began this lifelong obsession with trying to learn as much of this history as I could.

On the pitch and development of 'The 1619 Project' with The New York Times

The pitch was, "Do you know that this year will mark the 400th anniversary of slavery in America?" And the answer was no. No one knew that date in that room.

I said, "I would like to pitch a project that shows all of the ways that slavery still shapes modern society. Do you know that slavery undergirded capitalism in America? Did you know that slavery undergirded the lack of democracy in America?" And I just listed some things and said we should dedicate an entire issue of the magazine — not just to talking about what happened a long time ago, but to showing the surprising ways that the legacy of slavery still shapes America.

I've been working towards this in my career for a long time, and I have always infused my work with a lot of history. This 400th anniversary [of slavery in 2019] just seemed like a colossal moment in American history that you could produce something really big. And that's what we did.

On how the book has been expanded from its online version

All of the original essays that were in the magazine have been significantly expanded. Of course, we also have added endnotes — which I think is very important, particularly for people who have criticized some of the claims of the project — and for the regular readers who haven’t heard of these things before and would like to know where we got the facts in our project.

And then we've added eight new essays — all of them, except the new essays that I wrote, written by academic historians. We have an essay in there by the Harvard historian Tiya Miles on settler colonialism and Indian removal and the slave-holding tribes of the Southeast. There is an excellent essay by Carol Anderson on the Second Amendment and the role that slave insurrections played in us getting a Second Amendment.

One of my favorite essays is an essay by Michelle Alexander, the author of "The New Jim Crow," and her sister, Leslie Alexander, who’s a historian, on the Haitian Revolution, and how the Haitian Revolution really helped to shape the ongoing fear of Black Americans as this internal enemy who can't be trusted, and need to be violently suppressed. And then two of my favorite parts are ... the original project also had original short fiction and poetry by some of the greatest writers in America. And then there's archival photos.

On the role of 'The 1619 Project' in the case for reparations

I've been a believer in reparations my entire adult life. I do believe in journalism as activism. To create this project that is really trying to force an acknowledgment of the centrality of slavery — of the created generations of disadvantage that Black Americans experience, and to show that being a descendant of American slavery still disadvantages you in every aspect of American life — and to just leave it at that would feel like I was misusing the platform, and misusing the platform [of] journalism, and the platform of The New York Times. To me, an argument for reparations was always a natural outcome of this project.

I picked this project to force a reckoning with what our country was founded upon, and how slavery is a foundational American institution. But that reckoning also meant we have to reckon with ‘what do we owe to the people who had to go through this.’

On the role journalism plays in promoting systemic change

This ‘view from nowhere’ is actually fairly recent. The New York Times was founded as a Republican paper, and most journalism, for the vast history of this country, had a point of view. They were making arguments from [this] point of view, and certainly the Black press — which had to be founded in a country where first [Black Americans] were enslaved, and then we didn't have our citizenship rights recognized by our own government — you couldn't pretend to [be neutral] in your journalism.

So I've never bought into this idea of neutrality, and I certainly never bought into the idea that journalism is a neutral profession. I think we've been forced to try to pretend that we are. But you know this as a journalist, we all have points of view on the world we inhabit, on the things that we cover.

What we must do is try to ensure that we are being accurate, and that we're being fair to the things and the people that we're covering. But I've never believed in this idea that we are objective and certainly I'm not.

On the U.S. being built on a system of inequality, and how progressive change could bring an imbalance

The idea of democracy was "democracy for white Americans." And since we've now had to share democracy, and who gets to exercise the levers of power in the democracy, you have one political party that doesn't seem that interested in democracy anymore. It is a scary thought because our country was not designed to be a multiracial democracy.

But then the question must be asked: What is the alternative, then? That Black Americans and other marginalized Americans just bow out? That we don't try to exercise the rights that we should have always had, because there is a segment of white Americans who can't handle the idea of sharing power?

What happens is largely dependent upon what we do in this moment, and we do have power to make this country the country of our highest ideals. But too many of us are ceding that power right now.

On 'The 1619 Project' in American public schools

It was never our intent that "The 1619 Project" would replace the pretty poor history curriculum that we already get in most of our schools. And I wouldn't want it to, because "The 1619 Project" is the story of America told through the lens of slavery. And that is not the whole story of America either. "The 1619 Project" was always intended to supplement our understanding to really widen that lens.

You could have a similar project around Indigenous people. You could have a similar project around Latinos. I would love to see, of course, the project expanded into schools — not to replace history, but to add.

On the power of shame, white guilt and white denial

I find shame to be a useful emotion. When people do terrible things in our name, we should feel ashamed of that — and then we should use that shame to push for things to be better, to do things differently.

I realize how difficult and how shocking and disconcerting it has to be to have grown up and lived your entire life with this narrative of American exceptionalism … and then have to be confronted with all of the many ways that this country was cruel, and operated antithetical to its own highest ideals.

I hear from people all the time: "Well, my ancestors didn't own slaves." "My ancestors never did any of this." But your ancestors didn't sign the Declaration of Independence, either. Your ancestors didn't write the Constitution.

I think too many Americans don't want to feel any sense of obligation for the wrongs of this country, and they only want to take glory in the good things that this country has done. But you can't do one without the other.

If we actually believe in American greatness, then we can handle and withstand the truth. We show our greatness by grappling honestly with it, and then using our collective power to make amends for what was done.

On her feelings on where America is headed

As a nation, politically, I'm very afraid. Not because I think most Americans are content with the direction that our country is going. Not because I think most Americans want to see the dismantling of our democracy. But I do think a minority of Americans, as they always have in this country, have an outsized power.

With that said, you would not see [the efforts to suppress and discredit "The 1619 Project"] if there wasn’t a fear of Americans [who are] embracing this understanding of history.

And that is what gives me — I don't wanna say hope, because I'm not a hopeful person. But, I know that it speaks to the openness of so many Americans. "The 1619 Project" and other works that have undergirded the project is giving them that same sense that I had as a 16-year-old. Like, "Wow, what? What else haven’t I been taught?" And that is empowering.

I think there are millions of Americans who would do better, if they knew better.