The 1619 Project: Th e 1619 Project, a magazine by the New York Times, spurred national controversy when it argued that America’s true founding was in the year 1619, when the fi rst slave ship landed in Virginia, and that the United States was designed as a “slavocracy.” Despite its controversial arguments, M-A students have read excerpts from the 1619 Project in their US history classes. Th e magazine, originally published in 2019, won three Pulitzer Prizes, and the project has since expanded to include a podcast and educational resources. However, many historians take issue with the central theme of interpreting American history through a solely racial lense. ***** US history teacher Anne Olson compiled “a coursewide DBQ on the historiography of the economics of slavery” using the 1619 Project. Document-based question (DBQ) assignments present a set of documents investigating a central question that allow students to interpret a historical situation. Olson said that what made the 1619 Project valuable to her curriculum is that, “it’s literally reframing our concept of US history. Th e whole concept of the 1619 Project is US history doesn’t start in 1776, or in 1789. US history starts in 1619.” While traditional narratives emphasize democratic ideals and the years of the American Revolution, the 1619 Project argues the project and listening to the podcast has helped me bring in newer ideas to the classroom… Textbooks spend maybe a paragraph on the year 1619, if that, which is not nearly enough when it comes to such an important year in our nation’s history.” A study conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that many American high schoolers lack basic knowledge about the role of slavery in the country they live in, such as the expansion of slavery causing the Civil War. Numerous US history classes across M-A used Olson’s DBQ 26 Controversy and Contention that the more important year is 1619: the beginning of the nation’s ugly history of slavery and inequality. In a sense, the naming of the project after the year 1619 undercuts conventional history and implies that Americans should regard their history not with pride but with shame. Mallory Bryne, another US history teacher who has used the 1619 Project in her curriculum, agreed with Olson. “Reading through “ Th e whole concept of the 1619 Project is US history doesn’t start in 1776, or in 1789. US history starts in 1619. assignment, but not all; in fact, several teachers from the history department who frequently give interviews for the M-A Chronicle and Mark refused to speak about the 1619 Project. ***** A panel of fi ve historians specializing in US history, including two Pulitzer Prize recipients, wrote a letter to the New York Times ” editor-in-chief expressing their grievances that multiple sections of the 1619 Project were misleading or factually inaccurate. Th ey stated, “Th ese errors, which concern major events, cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing.’ Th ey are matters of verifi able fact, which are the foundation of both honest scholarship and honest journalism.” Th e letter to the New York Times editor-in-chief expressed three substantive concerns with the project’s presentation of US history. Besides the three concerns, the letter stated that the project’s central idea, that the United States was established as a slave state, was originally one that abolitionists rejected and those in favor of slavery promoted. Th e fi rst criticism refutes the project’s claim that a direct cause of the American Revolution was the fear that Britain would make slavery illegal. “One of the primary reasons the colonists decided to
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