1619

Leave it to the New York Times to spark another culture war.  The newspaper that conservatives love to hate initiated a 1619 Project last year that marked 400 years since the first slaves were sold to English colonists at Jamestown.  It is not about the history of slavery so much as it is how slavery has impacted the American psyche.  Most essays have a contemporary feel to them.  The creator of the project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, hoped it would spark discussion and debate, but I doubt imagined it would become the focal point of Trump's recent attacks and subsequent attempt to initiate a 1776 Commission to promote "patriotic education."

There is no mischievous socialist agenda in the 1619 Project, as being suggested by conservative pundits.  The project provides a platform for contemporary essayists to weigh in on the residual effects of slavery in contemporary society, such as the lingering impact on the criminal justice system, written by Bryan Stevenson. It is a wholly private effort, just like Dennis Prager's infamous Prager University, which essentially offers one man's opinion on American society as told through carefully selected surrogates.  However, we have a desperate president hoping to revive the cultural war that worked so well for him in 2016, and it seems his campaign staff told him he should focus on the 1619 Project.

While it has become popular among high school teachers and university professors, it isn't required by any school district or college.  However, the fact that it has resonated with people during this time of social unrest over the police killings of unarmed black persons has led conservatives to treat it as though it is a Black Lives Matter or Antifa Manifesto.  

This cultural war is nothing new.  Conservatives, especially religious conservatives, have been lamenting the liberalization of education in America for decades, which led them to create their own private universities, news channels, publishing houses, magazines and websites to present their vision of America.  Liberty University is perhaps the most successful example of this "whitelash," as Van Jones coined in 2016.  It is a college created by Jerry Falwell in 1971, whose sole purpose is to put Christianity back at the forefront of education.  The school has grown tremendously since then with its vast online student body.  It also has a very large campus and collegiate sports program, rivaling that of other evangelical colleges like Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma. 

We have seen a great number of conservative authors rewrite history.  David Barton garnered quite a bit of attention a few years back and had an active hand in reshaping the Texas high school curriculum, essentially to put his vision of America first.  His most controversial book was The Jefferson Lies, in which he made the highly dubious case of our third president being an Evangelical Christian, and having founded the University of Virginia on Evangelical Christian principles.  I guess you could say Jefferson was ahead of his time, as the evangelicalism we know today didn't appear until the second half of the 19th century, long after Jefferson had passed away.  The book was eventually recalled by its publisher, but that hasn't stopped Barton from peddling his uniquely evangelical view of America.  

The sharpest criticism came from other evangelical historians, who took exception to Barton's exceedingly narrow portrayal of Jefferson.  Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College, created a website exclusively to calling out David Barton's lies and was instrumental in getting the publisher to recall the book.  Throckmorton eventually collected his thoughts in a book, co-authored by Michael Coulter, exposing the many factual errors and gross opinions in Barton's book.

One can do the same with the 1619 Project if one is so inclined, as it is not above peer review.  In fact, several prominent historians have spoken out on the project, notably Gordon Wood, over the past year, noting factual errors and questioning the date of the project, as slavery appeared on American shores long before then.  Ms. Jones was notably irked by the "campaign" against her project, but then few if any of these historians had been contacted before its release, which is why they were so surprised by what they found in the New York Times magazine.  This was her baby and she chose to present it in her historical tone.

She has been featured quite a bit lately on CNN as the cultural war heats up, which to be honest was the first time I heard of her.  I hadn't paid any attention to this debate beforehand.  From what little of the essays I have read so far in her project, it is less history and more informed opinion.  The authors raise a number of salient topics, like how our criminal justice system has evolved since the abolition of slavery.  There is no doubt that Southern states  indentured free blacks on the pettiest of crimes to provide menial labor, not much unlike slavery itself.  I think these topics very much need to be brought to the fore, as there is a tendency to whitewash history to make it more palatable to the masses.

For years we were fed such claptrap as how George Washington couldn't tell a lie, similarly Honest Abe.  The Civil War was largely presented as a battle over state rights, and still is regarded by many in this same light, blithely ignoring that it was slavery these states were trying to protect.  However, many prominent historians have weighed in on these subjects in recent years.  One of my favorite books is David Blight's Race and Reunion, which unabashedly lays out how the US put the Civil War behind it so quickly for political expediency, allowing much of the animus that led to the war to linger to this day. 

Trump and indeed many conservatives prefer a Forrest Gump version of American history. They don't want to deal with the thorny issues that continue to plague our society.  They want to extol the heroes of the past, and pretend that we did away with racism long ago and that any lingering bad feelings are of those who can't make it in today's society.   For them, America is a shining city on a hill.

I applaud Ms. Jones initiative and hope she addresses the serious feedback prominent historians have given her.  We badly need to discuss these malingering issues out in the open, which is why it is so gratifying to see the Black Lives Matter movement resonate the way it has this summer and into fall.  How much it will impact the general election is anyone's guess, but the only one politicizing the 1619 Project is Donald Trump.  He probably thinks this project is about him.  No, Donald, it is about much more than you!