The 1619 Project
The 1619 Project is a collection of revisionist history developed by The New York Times to "reframe" (in their words)[1] American history exclusively around slavery and racism, reading into history what the liberal revisionists can only wish was the reality.
The work has been roundly criticized,[2] including by prominent historians James Oakes,[3] Gordon S. Wood,[4] Victoria Bynum,[5] James McPherson,[6] Richard Carwardine,[7] and Sean Wilentz.[8] Historian Leslie M. Harris has also criticized the project. Harris was one of the historians who was consulted by the Times during development of the 1619 Project. She wrote in Politico that despite her warnings as to the historical inaccuracy of the idea that the 13 colonies went to war to protect slavery, that the Times was more interested in its narrative than it was with the facts, so it ran with the story anyways.[9]
Project History
The 1619 Project is named after the tragic year slaves from Africa first arrived in Virginia, and its premise is that America’s 18th-century founders fought a revolution “to ensure that slavery would continue,” that slavery was part of “the brutality of American capitalism … low-road capitalism … winner-take-all capitalism … racist capitalism.”
However, among other scholarly rebukes, Princeton historian Allen Guelzo criticizes the misrepresentative 1619 Project, finding that it presents:
- "slavery not as a blemish that the Founders grudgingly tolerated with the understanding that it must soon evaporate, but as the prize that the Constitution went out of its way to secure and protect. The Times presents slavery not as a regrettable chapter in the distant past, but as the living, breathing pattern upon which all American social life is based, world without end.” "The 1619 Project is not history: it is polemic, born in the imaginations of those whose primary target is capitalism itself and who hope to tarnish capitalism by associating it with slavery." [10]
References
- ↑ The 1619 Project, The New York Times
- ↑ Lowry, Rich (January 3, 2020). Historians Roast the 1619 Project. National Review. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
- ↑ An interview with historian James Oakes on the New York Times’ 1619 Project
- ↑ An interview with historian Gordon Wood on the New York Times’ 1619 Project
- ↑ Historian Victoria Bynum on the inaccuracies of the New York Times 1619 Project
- ↑ An interview with historian James McPherson on the New York Times’ 1619 Project
- ↑ Oxford historian Richard Carwardine on the New York Times’ 1619 Project, World Socialist Web Site
- ↑ A Matter of Facts
- ↑ I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me., Politico
- ↑ Marvin Olasky (March 01, 2020) Misplaced Blame: Using 1619 For Propaganda in 2020 Townhall.com. Retrieved March 05, 2020
