The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

Every black person worldwide and anyone else who cares about freedom and human dignity should have a copy of this book….. and keep it by their bedside as a treasure….. for all their life! It is that important.I bought this book when it came out in 2021, but never had the time to read it, until recently. I used to think that I know a lot about black history and slavery. This book opened my eyes to so much that I did not know.Thanks to the references in it, I have ordered more than 20 books in the last one month, to learn more on the topics covered by the book. If it is not mandated in every institution of higher learning, then every black family should make it mandatory for everyone in their family. I did!

Information provided from the view of writer that’s in touch with the reality of black the communities in the US past and present!

This is an extremely important book, that speaks the truth and a republican donor bullied the editor out of her receiving tenure as chair! This should be required reading by all high school students!

This history should be read by every American, especially if it was never taught in your school. I will gladly loan it to a certain politician in Florida. It is very well documented, as every history should be.

The late Randall Robinson in his book, THE DEBT, maintained that the story of America needed to be told in order for Americans to see the necessity of reparations. Whoomp! Here it is; What more needs to be said?

This book does a phenomenal job of slowly and eloquently pulling away the “gauzy way many white Americans tend to view history, particularly the history of racial inequality” and allowing the truth of the origin of America to be seen unvarnished and raw. It is not the “origin story of the United States that we tell ourselves through textbooks and films, monuments and museums, public speeches and public histories, the one that most defines our national identity, portrays an intrepid, freedom-loving people who rebelled against an oppressive monarchy, won their independence, tamed the West, advanced an exceptional nation based on the radical ideals of self-governance and equality, and heroically fought a civil war to end slavery and preserve that nation.“ This is the painful nauseating truth. But it is important to learn it so we can stop perpetuating it. So that we can now perhaps finally, finally accept the truth, change the narrative, stop all the isms that hurt all of us, and fix the broken parts.

If you truly want to learn the history of America THIS is theall inclusive version you’ve been waiting for! Take your time in between chapters to digest the information to make the connections needed to understand HOW WE GOT HERE today!

If you think you know this history, you need to think again and read.

His name was Thomas Dartmouth Rice, a New York entertainer who performed under the stage name of T. D. Rice. In 1828, Rice had been a nobody actor in his early twenties, touring with a theater company in Cincinnati, when he saw a decrepit, disfigured old Black man singing while grooming a horse on the property of a white man whose last name was Crow. “On went the light bulb,” writes Wesley Morris, one of several authors who composed essays for “The 1619 Project”. “Rice took in the tune and the movements but failed, it seems, to take down the old man’s name. So in his song, the horse groomer became who Rice needed him to be.” “Weel about and turn about jus so,” went his tune, “ebery time I weel about, I jump Jim Crow.” With that, this white man invented the character who would become the mascot for two centuries of legalized racism in America. Morris continues: “That night, Rice made himself up to look like the old Black Man, or some such thing like him, because for this getup, Rice most likely concocted skin blacker than any actual black person’s; he invented a gibberish dialect meant to imply Black speech, and he turned the old man’s melody and hobbled movements into a song-and-dance routine that no white audience had ever experienced before. What they saw caused a sensation. The crowd demanded twenty encores. “Rice had a hit on his hands,” continues Morris. “He repeated the act again, night after night, for audiences so profoundly jolted that he was frequently mobbed during performances. Across the Ohio River, a short distance from all that adulation, was Boone County Kentucky, which was largely populated by enslaved Africans. As they were being worked, sometimes to death, white people, desperate with anticipation, were paying to see a terrible distortion of the enslaved depicted at play.” With that, a new form of entertainment was born, involving hundreds of white actors who, like T. D. Rice, night after night, on stages across America, would blacken their faces and perform song-and-dance routines, skits, and gender parodies. Writes Morris; “Its stars were the nineteenth-century versions of Elvis, the Beatles, and ‘N Sync.” Film critic Wesley Morris is among the ten writers who wrote an essay for “The 1619 Project”. All of these writers are graduates of mostly Ivy League universities; many are professors, and journalists who contribute regularly to a number of big-city newspapers, notably the New York Times. Under the creative leadership of journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New Times helped developed “The 1619 Project”, beginning with an article it ran in an August 2019 issue. With help from ten contributors, “The 1619 Project” was compiled into a book. On May 4, 2020, the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Ms. Hannah-Jones for her introductory essay. The book is considered by some to be controversial because it challenges conventional U.S. history, beginning with the year 1619 when the first enslaved Africans were brought to America and sold into slavery. Indeed, the book has been banned in some state schools, notably in Florida. According to Florida governor, Ron Desantis, the book was banned because it made students “uncomfortable.” Without question, the book will make you uncomfortable, as the slavery story–of African Americans working from sun-up to sun-down in the stifling heat of the southern states, without pay and with no chance of escape–is painful to read. On top of that it doesn’t speak well of the Europeans who settled this land, and employed slave labor to work the fields of their southern plantations, which made them rich. Today, those of European descent are called “whites” and those of African descent are called “blacks”. Neither term existed when the first Africans were brought here. The labels were later applied to differentiate between the two races, making the ruling whites out to be good God-fearing Christians, and the blacks as little more than beasts of burden, deserving of their fate. People still use these labels, not realizing they are artificial and have no bases in anthropology. It should be noted that “white” slavery existed in the American colonies before Africans arrived. For “white” workers, it was enslavement that lasted only for seven years. At the end of seven years, the enslaved worker would be set free. It was how many Europeans got here; they were mostly impoverished people who could not afford to pay for passage to America. To get here they agreed to serve their benefactor for seven years as payment for the ocean journey. On the other hand, Africans were bound and brought here against their will, were then whipped into submission, and destined for a life-time of slavery. If they managed to escape (as some did), when caught, they would be put to death. For the unfortunate African slave, it was a life without hope. However uncomfortable this makes readers feel, it’s important to learn about this particularly ugly part of American history, rather than to downplay it, as some have, by deny its veracity. And there’s more. After reading about the inhumane treatment of African-American slaves, you’ll learn about things you thought you knew of the inhumane treatment of indigenous Americans, which will make you equally uncomfortable. As bad as this is, it’s how American enslavers, who called themselves Christians, justified their actions based on a few selected passages in the Old Testament. They did this while conveniently ignoring the New Testament, in particular Christ Jesus’ precepts in the Sermon on the Mount, the Apostle Paul’s “Ode to love”, or John’s revelation, that “God is Love”, not to mention Moses and the Ten Commandments (every commandment of which slave masters repeatedly broke). If nothing else, had enslavers only followed Christ Jesus’ Golden Rule, they never could have lived with themselves, nor enjoyed the ill-gotten fruits they were enjoying from the sweat of African-American slaves. You’ll also learn how the Founding Father’s justified slavery, while waging a war to free themselves from the perceived tyranny of England’s King George III. Several of the more enlightened Southern Founders, relieved their guilt by believing that slavery would eventually die out on its own, as it had in the Northern states. Take for example Thomas Jefferson, who brilliantly crafted The Declaration of Independence. Like other plantation owners he wasn’t prepared to release his slaves from bondage. He was counting on gradual emancipation to somehow solve the problem for him. What no one seemed to have considered at the time, was the vastly greater number of slaves living in the south as opposed to the few slaves who lived in the north, and that the south–particularly the Deep South–was still importing African slaves while the northern workforce was filling its depleted ranks with immigrant European free labor. Years later, when it was clear that southern slavery was not fading away but spreading into the western territories, Jefferson grew alarmed. In his final years, it awoke him, as he put it, “like a fire bell in the night,” filling him with terror. He believed the two races could not live together in harmony. Once freed, Jefferson believed the former slaves would take revenge on their former captors. “We have the wolf by the ears,” he lamented, “and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.” The good news in this book, is that they could free them without fear of reprisal, as witness the horrific violence that struck the A.M.E. Church in South Carolina, in 2015, by a white supremacist named Dylann Roof. Roof entered the Black church and opened fire on a Bible study group. The group included Clement Pinckney, both pastor of the church and a state legislator. What was striking to many observers was the speed with which some of the families were willing to forgive Roof. They told him so at his bond hearing just days later. “I forgive you,” said Anthony Thompson, whose wife was killed. “My family forgives you.” The daughter of Ethel Lance, who was also killed, told Roof, “May God forgive you. And I forgive you.” That Sunday, Reverend Norvel Golf, Sr., told the congregation, “We still believe that prayer can change things . . . prayer not only changes things, it changes us.” When the slaves were freed after the Civil War, it was not African Americans who attacked their former enslavers (as Jefferson had feared), but the former enslavers who attacked African Americans. Often they would hide their true identity cloaked in white gowns and white hoods (as the Ku Klux Klan) and wait until the cover of night to attack: burning down homes, businesses, and churches, and from their farms stealing livestock, wagons, plows, and other valuables. These white marauders reserved their worst punishment for any black man suspected of looking on a white woman. The authors point out that this fear was in fact projection on the part of white men, who, as enslavers had a long history of raping back women. The good news in this book is how African-Americans embraced Christianity, despite having never been taught to read (learning to read and write was outlawed in most southern states). How did this happen? Learning to understand and love the Bible, was a long process that had begun when some unknown enslaver decided his slaves needed to learn Scripture to save their souls, and began reading tracts from the Bible (but not stories from Exodus that told of Moses leading the Hebrews out of slavery and into freedom.) From this meek beginning, African-Americans learned Bible stories by heart, and put the words into songs, which they would sing in the cotton fields all day long, which would give them a certain amount of relief. These songs evolved into what would become known as Gospel Music, and eventually Blues and Jazz, and in our century, Rock ‘N’ Roll, Soul, and Hip Hop. Also discussed is their influence on American cuisine, cuisine that tended to be bland. They enlivened it with an imaginative use of herbs, spices, and peppers. They did it by making use of pigs feet, knuckles, rib meet, and other cuts of pork and beef that their white enslavers deemed as unfit to eat. As much as Black Americans strived to be accepted, and to participate in American democracy by simply voting, they struggled to achieve this goal through much of the twentieth century, despite faithfully fighting in two world wars, only to return home to find nothing of substance had changed. It wasn’t until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, that meaningful change began to take place. It was evident, first by the success of a number of black entertainers, college professors, and black businessmen, and culminated in the election of the first Black man to he elected president in 2008. Still the struggle is not over, as Obama was succeeded by a white supremacist in 2016. Also Black Americans find themselves still targeted by white police officers, and being stopped for DWB (driving while black), that continues to be a real problem if your skin is black. Fittingly, Ms Hannah-Jones concludes her book with a chapter entitled “Justice”, from which I have excerpted the following paragraph: “The efforts of Black Americans to seek freedom through resistance and rebellion against violations of their rights have always been one of this nation’s defining traditions. But the country had rarely seen it this way, because for Black Americans, the freedom struggle has been a centuries-long fight against their own fellow Americans and against the very government intended to uphold the rights of its citizens. Though we are seldom taught this fact, time and time throughout our history, the most ardent, courageous, and consistent freedom fighters have been Black Americans.”- END –

This is a must read. It talks about a lot of what some people don’t want to hear, but need too.

This book educated me beyond my imaginings. It is impressive! The research provides thorough and profound evidence of our unfamiliar and often buried history. The writing is brilliant. Highly recommended history–for at its core is the belief that truth is transformative.

Humanity, empathy, compassion and America’s historical short-comings as she struggles through democracy and the institution of slavery is overall a subject that is near and dear to me. THIS BOOK should be on everyone’s bookshelf, honored and read! I wished the publisher sent a copy to every single U.S. Senator, Representative, member of the Supreme Court, state Governors and election protectors, school committee members, and schools across this nation. Defying that this is factual, historical and essential to read and internalize, process and understand, is tragic. I regret that there are people that do these things, and sadly some are our own political and governmental leaders and of course their followers. For that, I am worn out, exhausted and overwhelmed. I know someone is going to read my review and some will say that I am some “wanna be” WOKE person. Really? Is that what Americans are thinking of their neighbors? Reading this is not a social media faux pas. I don’t use Facebook or Twitter anymore. I want to drink all history within this brilliant author’s findings and the publisher’s commitment and passion, and research the research. That is what we all should do. I have waited to buy this for a couple of years. Happy to have this book. I ask myself why isn’t this sold out? Shouldn’t it be? DEMOCRACY MATTERS/FACTS MATTER/HISTORY MATTERS. It came fast from the seller, once I bought it and it is in brand new condition, just as described with a protection jacket. My Christmas present to my husband and me for 2021.

I’ve wanted to read this book. Delivered and a good price.

This Project has inspired me to be an advocate for our. Afro- American History.This is a New. Origin Story; researched. Fact checked and told from a Black perspectiveThis Project should be required reading in every. History class, especially Afro-American Studies.Outstanding, well done, a great body of work!!

This is an awesome book. You should read it! It will change your pespectrive on history and the world we live in.

Even if you think you disagree, I think it’s important for everyone to read this book. We did it in a group one chapter per week with discussion and I think that made it possible. It’s would be easy to over dose on this and make yourself unable to read more. Each chapter is written by an expert of some kind so the writing is gripping even though at times the subject is dim. They have poems and stories between the chapters. This should not be skipped. This is great for a book club doing a chapter at a time. I encourage you to read this.

Anyone who is not moved to tears and fury by many passages of this book has no heart, no empathy, no humanity. This the story of 250 years of slavery and 100 years of slavery by another name and the unconscionable callousness of our White people and White politicians. It is the story of two failed attempts at reconstruction about 100 years apart during about 12 years after the Civil War and from 1954 marked by the Brown vs. The School Board decision ended legal segregation in our schools and through 1968 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act; all of which have been weakened by the courts.It is time for our nation to acknowledge our original sin and atone for it.

I just finished the book “The 1619 Project” which was excellent. It is my hope that people who have heard nothing but negative things about the book and project would be adventurous and read it. I think the vast majority would be surprised and wonder about all the negativity surrounding the book. Hopefully, it might open minds to see how people will try to inflame passions and divide us by creating “bogey” men in order to preserve cruel mythologies that continue to harm people. All this to say that near the end of the book is a great quote: “We can’t change the hypocrisy upon which we were founded. We cannot change all the times in the past when this nation had the opportunity to do the right thing and chose to return to its basest inclinations. We cannot make up for all the lives lost and dreams snatched, for all the suffering endured. But we can atone for it. We can acknowledge the crime. And we can do something to try to set things right, to ease the hardship and hurt of so many of our fellow Americans. It is one thing to say you do not support reparations because you did not know the history, that you did not understand how things done long ago helped create the conditions in which millions of Black Americans [and Native Americans and other people of color] live today. But you now have reached the end of this book, and nationalized amnesia can no longer provide the excuse. None of us can be held responsible for the wrongs of our ancestors. But if today we choose not to do the right and necessary thing, that burden is on us….If we are to be redeemed, we must do what is just: we must finally live up to the magnificent ideals upon which we were founded.”

Astounding book. Every American, white and black, needs to know this history in order to understand the origin of our problems.

Una obra que realza la importancia de los esclavos negros en la configuración de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica y sus luchas para la liberación, en escenarios que van desde las estrategias sociales y económicas, la consideración del marxismo, hasta la creación de la Teología de la liberación negra según profesarán el cristianismo o islamismo, teología que contribuyó a su unión y liberación, aunque luego descepcionaran los líderes religiosos. Me llamó la atención la lucha de los negros norteamericanos con las luchas de liberación negra en latinoamérica, y un dato muy importante, la Teología de la liberación negra fue precursora de la Teología de la liberación católica con el sacerdote dominicano Gustavo Gutiérrez, quien estudió la teología negra para aplicar a latinoamérica y europa en la Teología de la liberación católica. Totalmente recomendable su lectura.

This is a fabulous and phenomenal book that combines both the past and present and shows the basis of institutional and systemic racism in this country! I follow this author and she is absolutely amazing and really gets into her work but also brings in various teams of experts in the field of anthropology and African-American history!

“The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” is a well-researched and well-written eye-opener that should be part of any American History curriculum at least from fourth grade on if not earlier.In her opening preface, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes “I was maybe fifteen or sixteen when I first came across the date 1619” and learned that on August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia and were bought by the English colonists.Sadly, and somewhat embarrassingly, I didn’t learn that either until the New York Times Magazine first published “The 1619 Project” in 2019. It definitely wasn’t taught during my school years in the 1950s and 60s in Southern California. In fact, Jamestown wasn’t very prominent in my history classes as I recall, nor was black enslavement before the Civil War deeply covered.Back then, I learned more about how Blacks were treated in American history as a latchkey kid watching TV afternoon movies like “Slave Ship” (1937), “Pinky” (1949), “Home Of The Brave” (1949) and “Edge Of The City” (1957) than I did in school.Those same afternoon movies also taught me that America wasn’t always great nor did it always live up to its ideals. “Bad Day At Black Rock” (1955) showed me that the families of the two Japanese-American girls I knew from 1st through 8th grades had been interred in American concentration camps simply for their race and denied their rights as citizens. “Northwest Passage” (1940) taught that the British during the French and Indian wars (we were British America then) committed biological warfare by giving Native Americans smallpox infested blankets.American history is fraught with injustice to minorities or those standing in the way of so-called “American progress”: near genocide of Native Americans; enslavement of Blacks; anti-Mormon violence (Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs: “The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State.”); anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, anti-Chinese, anti-Jew, anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim, anti-labor, anti-anybody but “we red-blooded, right-thinking, god-fearin’, true ’mericans. Yowzah!”The ideals expressed in the “Declaration of Independence” and guaranteed by the “Constitution of the United States” can never come to full fruition without American History telling the complete story, warts and all. “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” is a good first step.

As a black male in America, I have found myself subjected to a large amount of unnecessary bullcrap from both males and females in the caucasian community. My truth will not allow me to give my black brothers and sisters a pass because I catch more hell and attitude from them than any other ethnic group. Reading this book opened up portals in my mind that were always there but I didn’t have the right keys to open them. There are bits of information that you will already know but there is also a plethora of information that will shake you to your core if you are a person with strong principles and values for righteousness and justice, regardless of your skin tone. Everyone who reads this book will learn something about themselves and others who don’t look like you or live in the same neighborhood as you. It will give you insight into the behavior of the people we see around us every day. This book was the best reading purchase I collected for 2021. Totally enlightening. I use the term, wow to be politically correct because that’s not the term that comes to mind. If you don’t purchase the book borrow it from a friend and read it. I guarantee that you will learn something new that you didn’t know.

When it comes to “wanting to know”, really know. This book does it’s job. Our own beliefs come from others. Starting at an early age, nothing new about that. But oftentimes we stay stuck in the knowledge vacuum. We don’t get or want the opportunity to upgrade our own software. Upgrade your software or live in a partial past. Constant new information, accurate information, is how we move forward. Get this book, and read it cover to cover!

I will start with the headline. We all have questions about life or events and wish at times to know more of the actual facts. This brings up a sensitive subject and narrates it with hard cold facts and events. This is a book I had to set down at times to give myself peace and reflection on what my ancestors and friends still deal with today.Well written with different perspectives, yet able to relate and give deep insight

Great Reading!!!

Good read

Like very much. To gain knowledge.

I like this book because Dr. Nicole Hannah-Jones gave me the Lesson in History that wasn’t taught in school. Gave me liberation to know the truth, no matter how disheartening it was, and is at times.I recommend this book to all who desire to know how the history of black America looks; without clothing; naked and unashamed.I rated this book 6 Stars because of the bold, brilliant, and brazen way Dr. Nicole presented, fearlessly. Thank you…..for your contribution to our history, our legacy.

I’m going to do something you normally don’t do when writing a review: state my affiliations & biases up front. I am a white male, raised in rural Central New York by conservative middle class parents, who was a registered member of the Republican Party until 2016. I also have a deep love of history, especially that of the United States. While I have never shied away from the darker stories in American history, I have always felt pride at the history of this nation.I came to the 1619 Project in a backwards way. I started by reading the criticisms of the many people who were negative about it. These included a long list of professors and historians, some of which I have read and respected (e.g. James McPherson). Next I decided it was time to find out what all this commotion was all about, so I read the collection of essays that made up the original 1619 Project. And finally, I ordered this book and read it on arrival.I think everyone in the US should read this book, and here are my reason why:#1: The Black story of America needs to be told – I was raised in the northeast with a public school education. In social studies, we talked about slavery, the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement – which was the full extent of what we learned about the impact of Black Americans in our country. The 1619 Project shows there is a much richer story to be told. Yes, some of this history is hard to hear. It’s difficult to admit that many of the Founding Fathers ran forced labor camps, and used violence and fear to maintain order & profits. But how is it we can really understand the people who came before us without knowing the conflict that was core to their being?#2: Don’t believe all the criticism – Much of the criticism of the original 1619 Project focuses on two points: a) that slavery was a driving reason behind Colonists supporting the American Revolution, and b) the statement 1619 instead of 1776 is the founding year in our nation. Nikole Hannah-Jones spends much more time justifying these two comments via historical references in this book. But at the end of the day, these are only two of literally thousands of points she makes – so you can choose to believe it or not and still learn from this work. It is stunning that so much noise has been made about such small points.#3 – Don’t be afraid of the past – The 1619 Project has been tied to Critical Race Theory and claimed as an attempt to erase history and/or make white children feel bad for the past. But this book does not make any attempt to erase history, nor does it make me feel bad. Instead I felt empowered by hearing our history from the perspective of Black Americans. I believe you can be proud of the many accomplishments of George Washington, while still simultaneously confronting his role as a slaveholder. After all the Founding Fathers, like us, were human.#4 – You cannot criticize what you do not know – If you read some of the reviews, you will see 1 star from people that are not verified as purchasing the book. I assume they read an article or watched a talking head to make their definitive conclusion about this book. Do you really want to be that shallow? I will defend your right to hold this belief… but only if you read it first. I am smarter for gaining a greater understanding of how African Americans have fundamentally shaped our nation, and you will be too.In closing I will say this: if HNJ wanted to design an experiment that would prove systemic racism still exists in our society, I’m not sure she could have created a better one than publishing the 1619 Project and watching the reaction to it.

I have read deeply on the Civil War era and the failure of President Andrew Johnson and the Reconstruction era to provide a path of inclusion for freed African Americans, so that they too could participate in the American Dream. This book captures that history and much more. It details the history and the sociology of the first African Americans brought forcefully to America 1619 on a slave ship, and their descendants battle for freedom, and how that freedom is still being sought in the current times. The 40 acres and a mule promised to freed black Americans in 1866 is a promise never realized. If anyone is owed reparations for past sins, it certainly is the black people in America. That said, the story presented in this book demonstrates that African Americans represent the best of America. They are a proud people which underscores everything great about America, and how they have contributed significantly to the culture of modern day America

Opened my eyes to the sweep of black people I this country Too much I did not know. Recommend this to all.

This is the clearest, most unambiguous American history I have ever read, or indeed, encountered in my lifetime. It is thoughtful, well-researched, heartfelt, eye-opening, humbling, and compelling, and the perspective it presents is critical if we are to move forward as a nation. Should be required reading at the high school level and integrated into history courses everywhere.

Reading the book was so much better than the documentary.

I am a 76 year old white college educated woman. I consider myself well read so thought I would know the history but every chapter had new information. It was sometimes shocking what I never learned in any school. It convinced me that reparations are absolutely necessary and long overdue. We can’t change the past but we can do the right things today.

Having always been taught that the Civil War was an honorable fight over states rights, The 1619 Project was an eye opener. As an Anglo with a typical historical perspective on slavery, the reconstruction and much of the 20th century I learned I was relatively clueless on how bad things really were. This book gives a very clear perspective and helps explain a lot of the cultural differences that exist between our Anglo and African communities. I live in Texas where the state wants to make sure this knowledge is hidden from all of society. That is incredibly wrong headed as this book does not look to create guilt among Anglos but it does give us a great education and insight into the differences between races in this country. Reading The 1619 Project will make you much smarter about how you view your country. Should be mandatory high school reading but that will never happen as the truth is too inconvenient. Should also add that it is an enjoyable read as well being an eye opener.

I just finished the book “The 1619 Project” which was excellent. It is my hope that people who have heard nothing but negative things about the book and project would be adventurous and read it. I think the vast majority would be surprised and wonder about all the negativity surrounding the book. Hopefully, it might open minds to see how people will try to inflame passions and divide us by creating “bogey” men in order to preserve cruel mythologies that continue to harm people. All this to say that near the end of the book is a great quote: “We can’t change the hypocrisy upon which we were founded. We cannot change all the times in the past when this nation had the opportunity to do the right thing and chose to return to its basest inclinations. We cannot make up for all the lives lost and dreams snatched, for all the suffering endured. But we can atone for it. We can acknowledge the crime. And we can do something to try to set things right, to ease the hardship and hurt of so many of our fellow Americans. It is one thing to say you do not support reparations because you did not know the history, that you did not understand how things done long ago helped create the conditions in which millions of Black Americans [and Native Americans and other people of color] live today. But you now have reached the end of this book, and nationalized amnesia can no longer provide the excuse. None of us can be held responsible for the wrongs of our ancestors. But if today we choose not to do the right and necessary thing, that burden is on us….If we are to be redeemed, we must do what is just: we must finally live up to the magnificent ideals upon which we were founded.”

I thought it was powerful and recounted an American history that is never told. I watched the Hulu 6 part docu-series even though I had the book first, which is over 500 pages. I highlighted 98 sections which includes essays and poems. Great documentation of African Americans who made up American History which is not taught in schools because of slavery. The 1619 project looks at the origins of the middle passage to the present with a look at the authors personal life to George Floyd. A lot of information that I can see using as reference point going forward. In depth information in each chapters: Democracy; Race; Sugar; Fear, Dispossession; Capitalism; Politics; Citizenship, Self-Defense; Punishment; Inheritance; Medicine; Church; Music; Healthcare; Traffic; Progress and Justice.

In spite of a former president declaring this book is a lie, I found it very well documented and written. There are over 95 pages of footnotes referring to documents, letters, newspaper articles, statistics and other facts. Different chapters and subjects are sometimes written by other black authorities, scientists and subject matter experts. It took a bit to wade through as it is more textbook than entertaining story but well worth the effort – especially for those of us white folks without a clue.

Adds a lot of dimension to our American history, and generally well researched and annotated. It’s a series of essays on black experience around different topics, ability to buy and keep property, get justice for torts and crimes, acquire and keep wealth and other topics. While I feel sometimes an author tries too hard to make an exclusively black connection, ignoring the larger societal injustice, this does not nullify the point the essayist makes.For example, Southern tenant farming was in many ways equally miserable existence for both impoverished blacks and whites, although perhaps the white farmers could seek other buyers without fear of reprisal, unlike blacks.Of course the book is about the black experience, so perhaps the authors are justified in telling their stories their own way.1619 is easily one of the best books I’ve read in the past decade.

A perspective that you will appreciate concerning Black History. This book covers every angle of racism from education and transportation to employment and housing.

This book has transformed my understanding of American history.

I chose this rating because the book changed the way I think about American history and the way I feel about it. This is the first time I have ever written a review of any book I have read, and I read all the time. I am a white-skinned American Jewish woman, a retired psychologist who is facing poverty in a few years because of decisions I made in ignorance and because of thousands of dollars I was conned out of or robbed of by people I considered family-by-choice. I may get some of it back. I live in a senior community that was all white until recently, and I greeted the new black resident saying, “I’m so glad you are here; this place has been too white.” My grandparents immigrated from Poland and Russia. I have many identities .White is the one I was mostly holding as I read this book, but I don’t consider it a major identity. Other identities that got activated were: female (I had the thought that women could claim reparations for all their unpaid labor in building this country), Jewish (white nationalists do not consider Jews to be white, but black people consider me white), American (the more history I learn the more I have mixed feelings. I ask myself “Are there any major nations that have not committed atrocities in their pasts?” “Are the European countries who profited from the slave trade also morally obligated to pay reparations “), a New Yorker (one of the first questions I am asked in the senior community where I now live is about where I am from) a Minnesotan (I was born and raised in Brooklyn, but I have lived in Minnesota since 1980), a clinical psychologist, an intellectual, a senior. I could go on.The book is well written and its arguments are backed by research. There were chapters that were painful to read, but had to be read and understood. There were chapters that were illuminating. I think it is a major contribution to our understanding of American history and what it means to be an American.

This is one of the most impactful books I have ever read. It should be required reading for everyone! Nicole Hannah-Jones did an amazing job, and I admire her for her tenacity, brilliance, organizational skills, and exceptional writing ability.

This book expands on the award-winning New York Times Magazine issue by the same name that reframes our understanding of US history by placing slavery and its continued legacy front and center. I did not read the original NY Times Magazine issue, and therefore was both thrilled and daunted when this book was chosen by my book club.In the end, I felt that everyone in America should read this book. First and foremost, the black story in America needs to be told, taken in, and understood. We cannot be afraid to look closely at our past as the continued minimizing (at best) and opportunistic distortion (at worst) only serve to continue the atrocities and show us to be cowards. We need to own our past in order to move in a better direction. The more mundane reason that I found this book intriguing is that I learned so many, many things. I will not do this book the injustice of trying to name a few…just read it.The reaction of the book club (and others that I’ve seen) was to feel depressed at the contrast to an idealized America, an America that one can always be proud of. I felt on the contrary that I can only be proud of an America that is not afraid to look squarely at its dark past and is ready to acknowledge its current continued practices that run counter to democracy and justice. It is only in this way that I think we’ll truly reach our ideals.