Nikole Hannah-Jones

A book-length expansion of the New York Times Magazineissue that explores the history of slavery in America and its countless toxic consequences.

Famously denied tenure at the University of North Carolina for her critical journalism, Hannah-Jones sounds controversial notes at the start: There are no slaves but instead enslaved people, a term that “accurately conveys the condition without stripping the individual of his or her humanity,” while the romantic plantationgives way to the more show more accurate terms labor campand forced labor camp. The 1619 Project was intended to introduce Black people into the mainstream narrative of American history as active agents. It may have been White people who enslaved them, but apart from the legal and constitutional paperwork, it was Black people who resisted and liberated themselves and others, from their very first arrival at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 to the very present. Hannah-Jones and colleagues consider a nation still wrestling with the outcomes of slavery, an incomplete Reconstruction, and a subsequent history of Jim Crow laws and current legal efforts to disenfranchise Black voters. As she notes, the accompanying backlash has been vigorous, including attempted laws by the likes of Sen. Tom Cotton to strip federal funds from schools that teach the 1619 Project or critical race theory. Among numerous other topics, the narrative examines: the thought that the American independence movement was fueled at least in part by the insistence on maintaining slavery as the Crown moved to abolition; the use of slavery to tamp down resistance among poor Whites whose functions were essentially the same as the enslaved but who, unlike Black people, were not considered property; the ongoing appropriation of Black music, which has “midwifed the only true integration this country has known,” as Wesley Morris writes, by a machine that perpetuates minstrelsy. Those readers open to fresh and startling interpretations of history will find this book a comprehensive education.

A much-needed book that stakes a solid place in a battlefield of ideas over America’s past and present. show less

A comprehensive history of race relations in America starting with the arrival of the first enslaved African. This collection of history and art recontextualized our current reality providing essential context for so many entrenched societal inequities.

Reading this book was like having words put to a ubiquitous truth that has shaped one's whole life and yet has gone unacknowledged. I've known much of this in part but to see it laid out in order so clearly was so extremely helpful.

Although show more frustrating and overwhelming at times, this essential book provides an avenue for reckoning with a nation's public secrets that much of polite white society would prefer to continue ignoring. However only through understanding our shared history are we able to unlock empathy and conceive a way forward. show less

No book or project could ever be comprehensive when it comes to exploring and capturing the history and legacy that began in 1619, when enslaved Africans set foot on the shores of North America, a year prior to the arrival of the Mayflower. The book is an enlargement of Hannah-Jones's foundational *The 1619 Project*, published in the *New York Times Magazine*. However, as a reclamation of American History, this book is a chronicle, a celebration of poetry, art, and writing, and a call for show more understanding and moving forward. "A truly great country does not ignore or excuse its sins, it confronts them and then works to make them right," Hannah-Jones says in closing.

The contributors to the book are many and varied, with some of the most profoundly powerful and influential voices of our time: Claudia Rankine, Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Michelle Alexander, Ibram X. Kendi, Henry Louis Gates, Terry McMillan, and so many more.

In the audiobook, some readers are more compelling than others, but the words are potent, well-researched, and a true call for understanding how conventional narratives of American history have been whitewashed. Turning points, such as Abraham Lincoln's assassination, are reframed so that we understand that when Andrew Johnson took over the presidency for a brief two-month period, he tried to rescind wartime Order No. 15 (known as "Forty Acres and a Mule") and that these original reparations never truly materialized in a way that provided widespread and sustained land ownership to Black Americans. The connection of this (and preceding events) to the current wealth gap between Black and white Americans is made clear.

Ibram X. Kendi's truth-telling is particularly powerful, especially as it targets and demolishes narratives of "post-racial" America. The criticisms may be hard to hear for some, but the cycle of attempts to declare any and all "wins" as progress has largely clouded the narrative in its failure to recognize the persistence of neglect and abuse toward Black Americans, and the systemic infrastructure that perpetuates it.

It is not an easy book to read/listen to -- nor should it be. There is deep and painful beauty expressed in the poems. Few facets of modern life are left un-addressed, whether it is healthcare or mass-incarceration. The book can be (and has been) excerpted to great effect, but sitting with it from start to finish has its own benefits. As a white American, it was invaluable to be reminded of the things I have learned, to be invited to de-center white historical narratives, and to critically consider how much we truly owe to the legacy of Black Americans and how we have failed (and continue to fail) to honor it and fight for it. There has been a lot of backlash and vitriol aimed at the project. I recommend engaging with the book instead of allowing the controversies to subsume the content. show less

You might be surprised to learn there were enslaved Africans in what is now the United States before the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620. When the system of oppression, violence and dehumanization go back more than 400 years, it is impossible to speak honestly about our country's history without looking at it through a lens of slavery. In this book of essays, contributors have each selected a specific focus of American culture, illustrating with brutal honesty how racism has guided show more policymaking in ways both subtle and overt, from everything from healthcare, public transportation, access to food and employment, and most importantly how our legal and justice systems function.

This is a powerful book, which brings to light the many hidden and surprising ways historical and present-day racism continues to shape life in the United States today. I found every chapter compelling and, while some of the information was already familiar, many of the chapters opened my eyes in new ways to considerations I had been either completely unaware of or nuances I was oblivious to. The "War on Drugs" of the 1970s and 80s was expressly aimed to incarcerate POC, urban freeways were designed to intentionally undermine, disrupt and destroy established Black communities, and (likely more well-known) voter suppression measures were written explicitly to disenfranchise POC. There are endless examples of things white folks have barely heard about or ever given thought to — for example, the Kerner Commission, a study convened by President Lyndon Johnson which concluded that white racism and white institutions were fundamentally responsible for the creation, maintenance, and condoning of the urban racial ghettos. LBJ chose to ignore and do nothing with the results of the study. The chapter pertaining to capitalism, in particular, was expectedly surprising and disappointing. The reader will detect some repetition, as the essays are all written by different authors and the topics naturally overlap, but in this case repetition in hopes that the ideas stick is a good thing. When Barack Obama won the presidency, there were many optimistic claims that we now lived in a post-racial society. However, I found this quote illuminating: "Slavery [now replaced by racism] persisted, and grew, protected by the argument that it was going away." This book is important and should be required reading. It confronts white Americans head-on with facts that make them uncomfortable, which is why many there have been movements to ban or restrict it in schools. show less