I’ve been eagerly looking forward to this book since I first found out about it. It’s an expansion of an award-winning article published in The New York Times in 2019 to commemorate 400 years since the first ship carrying African slaves landed in America. It was a sensation, bringing a history not often taught or shared to light. The issue sold out and was talked about and circulated widely. I listened to the podcast which was based on the article, and it has become one of my favourite listens of all time. It expanded on the important themes discussed in the article (I’ve heard – I haven’t read the original article), and was one of the first exposures I had to the actual history of slavery in America from its very inception. This book goes even further. It includes essays, poems and works of fiction that serve to illustrate several key and vital moments in the history of the last 400 years, re-writing history as taught (or, rather not taught) in American schools to re-centre the experiences of the enslaved and their descendants right up to the present.
This book isn’t small. It’s more than 600 pages long, and the topics covered in it are not easy ones. And yet, I had no trouble becoming completely immersed in it. I never got bored, and I got to the end vaguely surprised that it was over. This book collects pieces written (and often read – I listened to the audiobook) by some of the most recognizable names in literary discussion of race and racism in America (Ibram X. Kendi, Claudia Rankine, Jason Reynolds, etc.), in various genres, and each piece is as unique as it is shocking and vital.
One of the elements that makes this book so successful is the breadth of the information provided, how it’s organized and which events are included. It’s organized by topics – Democracy, Race, Sugar, Fear, Dispossession, Capitalism, Politics, Citizenship, Self-Defense, Punishment, Inheritance, Medicine, Church, Music, Healthcare, Traffic, Progress and Justice. Each topic has three pieces of writing. These topics are carefully chosen. They encompass some of the most pivotal events, issues and struggles that have impacted Black people in America from when they were first brought here. In doing so, they help those who don’t know much about this history to begin to understand some of the impact these have had on Black people in America, and the long-term effects they’ve wrought. For example, looking at red lining (the process of separating out predominantly Black neighbourhoods so their property values would artificially be lower than those in nearby White neighbourhoods and denying Black people access to the same mortgage and interest rates as White people) helps to explain how Black families were able to accrue less capital, therefore passing down less wealth (if any) to their descendants, which continues to worsen cycles of poverty. Or how the lack of grocery stores selling fresh produce and healthy ingredients in poorer Black communities has impacted rates of health issues like diabetes and obesity in those communities. And right through to recent debates surrounding the election of Joe Biden in 2021.
Understanding how all of these events, policies and practices have shaped an inequitable America for Black people is vital to even the beginnings of an understanding of what it’s like to be Black in America today. I think there can sometimes be, thanks to a lack of accurate historical lessons in schools (and life in general), a sense of slavery being something that’s behind us. An event in the past that was horrible, but that is no longer a part of today’s America. But slavery and the policies that shaped it, allowed it and followed from it continue to impact the opportunities, health, education and day-to-day lived experience of Black people in more ways than those of us not in that group will ever know. While the practice of slavery itself may be a thing of the past (though arguably even this isn’t true – I recommend the film 13th if you’d like to learn more about why), the stratification of society it created is not. This book is a brilliant walk through some of the most important historical events and current policies that have created systemic racism on a massive scale, and shows what that means to people living in that broken system.
I listened to this book on audio while flipping through it to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. It’s got a lot of information, and yet it doesn’t feel like a difficult or dense read. It’s heavy, but not hard to get through at all. It’s a great book to start learning about the history that wasn’t taught in (most) schools, but also has so much more texture, detail and personal impact to offer to those who are already familiar with the events themselves. I highly, highly recommend this book. It was one of my first reads of 2022, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, at the end of the year, it still stands out as one of the best.
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a revealing vision of the American past and present.
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story builds on The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project,” which reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This book substantially expands on the original “1619 Project, “weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This legacy can be seen in the way we tell stories, the way we teach our children, and the way we remember. Together, the elements of the book reveal a new origin story for the United States, one that helps explain not only the persistence of anti-Black racism and inequality in American life today, but also the roots of what makes the country unique.
The book also features an elaboration of the original project’s Pulitzer Prize–winning lead essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones on how the struggles of Black Americans have expanded democracy for all Americans, as well as two original pieces from Hannah-Jones, one of which makes a case for reparative solutions to this legacy of injustice. – Goodreads
Book Title: The 1619 Project
Author: Nikole Hannah-Jones
Series: No
Edition: Hardback/Audiobook
Published By: One World
Released: November 16, 2021
Genre: Non-Fiction, Race, History
Pages: 624
Date Read: January 28-March 15, 2022
Rating: 10/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.64/5 (4,379 ratings)