The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

Hannah-Jones reflects on her father, who was born into a family of sharecroppers and served in the army; he proudly displayed an American flag. As a young person, Hannah-Jones wondered at her father’s loyalty to a country that had repeatedly belittled him: “I had been taught, in school, through cultural osmosis, that the flag wasn’t really ours” (9). When she grew older, Hannah-Jones began to realize that her father’s display of the flag was a symbol of what Black people have contributed to the American identity.

The chapter details the role of Black people in shaping the American landscape both physically and culturally. Hannah-Jones writes that the 20 Africans who arrived in 1619 were part of more than 12.5 million Africans who would eventually be kidnapped and brought to American shores. These enslaved individuals would clear territories, teach colonists how to farm and grow food, build the White House and the US Capitol, and provide the foundation for America’s economic success. However, Hannah-Jones emphasizes that it is important to avoid diminishing the contributions of Black people to American identity by focusing solely on what they built while enslaved. In fact, Black Americans created a spirit of freedom and justice by fighting for their freedoms and the freedoms of others: “It is we who have been the perfecters of this democracy” (10). By being denied freedom, enslaved people became singularly focused on the importance and sanctity of liberation.

Meanwhile, colonists enacted slave codes, which were designed to maintain their wealth and uphold racial separation. Hannah-Jones notes that, while American colonists held tightly to the system of slavery and apartheid they had created, Britain offered emancipation to any enslaved people who joined their side in the political debate between the American colonists and the British leading up to the American Revolution. According to Hannah-Jones, fear of slave revolts led American colonists to transform into revolutionaries, challenging British rule. Hannah-Jones explains that this contextual understanding of the American Revolution is often left out of school curricula. Following the American Revolution, with the American people no longer tied to Britain, they now had to own their association with slavery. The chapter details how racist ideologies impacted Lincoln’s pathway toward Emancipation and Reconstruction. Every effort made toward freedom and equality was met with overt white resistance.

December 1662

The House of Burgesses in Virginia passes a law mandating the status of a child as enslaved or free is to be determined by the status of the mother. This means that a child born to an enslaved woman will also be enslaved, creating an incentive for white enslavers to rape Black women, Hannah-Jones notes.

“Daughters of Azimuth” by Nikky Finney

This poem describes a group of women, passing along medicinal knowledge about herbs that will assist in abortion. The women care for one another, knowing that the rest of the world will not show kindness to them.

1682

The Virginia House of Burgesses makes it illegal for Black and white people to marry, the first law of its kind in the modern world.

“Loving Me” by Vievee Francis

This poem is told from the first-person perspective of a person in love. The speaker describes the ordinariness and unexpectedness of love, which emerged during an evening like any other. At the end of the poem, the speaker reaches out to touch the cheek of a lover. The speaker recognizes power in her gaze, evidenced by enslavers’ desires for her to keep her eyes cast downward.

In 1967, the US Supreme Court reversed Virginia’s 1924 law “An Act to Preserve Racial Integrity” by making it illegal to ban marriages between people of different races. Roberts claims, however, that many of the structures that supported racial separation remained in place, a fact that a couple discovered in 2019 when their marriage application was denied for failing to indicate race. Roberts details how slave codes and restrictions like these gave incentives for white enslavers to commit sexual assault and violence, forever codifying race into the American identity.

Roberts states that founding father Thomas Jefferson kept Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman whose father was her own mother’s enslaver, at his forced labor camp called Monticello for more than 30 years. Hemings gave birth to seven of Jefferson’s children. Crimes of rape were not applied to enslaved people, so the assault of Black women went without punishment.

Roberts shares that recent developments in genome testing reveal the prevalence of white sexual assault against Black women throughout American history. Furthermore, Roberts notes that, although slavery changed things, a mythology about the sexual licentiousness of Black women—a racist assumption born from white sexual violence against Black women—persisted. This hypersexualized image continues to pervade popular culture. A 2008 case of an 11-year-old girl who was raped by a group of white men was dismissed by DC police officers who believed the young girl’s sexual assault was a result of her “promiscuous behavior.” Roberts highlights the ways Black women fight against sexism and apartheid through activism.

June 24, 1731

Samba, an enslaved man in Louisiana, is the subject of suspicion for an enslaved uprising. He is executed for the alleged conspiracy.

“Conjured” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

This poem centers on Samba’s story. Samba’s name means “second son.” A historical description calls Samba and seven other enslaved Africans “Conjured” rather than “kidnapped” or “enslaved.” The speaker of the poem praises Samba’s rebellious spirit and defiance of bondage. While the white French colonizer who executes Samba fades into history, Samba’s name is remembered.

May 10, 1740

In response to a rebellion led by an enslaved man named Jemmy, the Negro Act is passed in South Carolina in 1740, denying enslaved Africans the rights to assemble in groups, earn money, grow food, or read and write.

“A Ghazalled Sentence After ‘My People...Hold On’ by Eddie Kendricks and the Negro Act of 1740” by Terrance Hayes

Hayes briefly describes the Stono Rebellion along the Stono River. One group of people violently pursues and enslaves another group of people who seek freedom and bodily autonomy.

Muhammad states that when people examine the history of forced labor camps, called plantations, and slavery in the American South, they usually place focus on crops like cotton and tobacco. However, sugar was the crop that dominated the global market. Labor-intensive sugar became a popular crop on American plantations in Louisiana and had a major impact on the American diet. Muhammed describes the conditions that kidnapped Africans endured on slave ships and plantations, noting that the violence Africans endured while being trafficked and the harsh and dangerous conditions of slave ships were a part of a program of conditioning and mental deconstruction.

March 5, 1770

During the Boston Massacre, a formerly enslaved man named Crispus Attucks is the first die for independence.

“First to Rise” by Yusef Komunyakaa

Komunyakaa’s poem centers on Crispus Attucks. The poet describes how Attucks fought against the Redcoats before being shot in the chest twice, the first to die in the American Revolution. John Adams condemned the colonist fighters.

1773

A book of poetry by a 20-year-old African American woman named Phillis Wheatley is published. Although Wheatley is freed from slavery after her book is published, she lives the rest of her life in hardship.

“proof [dear Phillis]” by Eve L. Ewing

In this poem, the speaker imagines being at the gravesite of Phillis Wheatley. She talks directly to Wheatley, asking the deceased writer to relive her history. Phillis’s name is a derivation of the slave ship that brought her to America. The speaker conjures many imaginary scenarios with Phillis—that Phillis was recognized in the way she deserved to be recognized, that Phillis did not love America, that she was never jailed for her husband’s debt. The poem ends with the words from Phillis’s gravestone: “Phillis Wheatley: thirty-one. Had misery enough” (94).

In Chapter 4, Leslie Alexander and Michelle Alexander unpack the relationship between fear and racism and show how white fear galvanized systemic and structural racism. Understanding how white fear functions continues to be an important part of unpacking contemporary examples of racism, such as the prevalence of murders of Black victims by law enforcement. The authors share the stories of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, two Black citizens killed by police officers in 2020. George Floyd was arrested when a convenience shop owner who claimed Floyd tried to pay with a $20 counterfeit bill. Breonna Taylor’s home was raided while she slept when the police suspected her boyfriend may be involved in drug trafficking.

Due to these deaths and many others, largely nonviolent protests erupted across the globe. However, government workers and law enforcement reacted to these protests with extreme acts of violence. The authors note that this level of protection and justice was not enacted during an insurrection on January 6, 2020, when President Donald Trump incited a white mob was to storm the Capitol.

The authors notes that white fear of Black people emerged as early as the 13 colonies, when white colonizers faced potential uprisings from enslaved Africans. In order to justify their actions and maintain slavery, white enslavers set strict codes and laws to maintain racial separation and oppression. Black people were stripped of all rights—including the right to read or to even resist a white person in any way.

According to the authors, a disturbing pattern emerged that continues to persist in modern American life. White people terrorized Black people, often in the pursuit of profit, causing Black people to resist. Fear of rebellions cause white people to double down on their initial efforts, further strengthening brutal, violent, and racist policies. When the Haitian Revolution began, white Americans worried that similar uprisings would occur at home. After the Civil War, white Southerners feared economic ruin as formerly enslaved citizens now gained access to paying jobs. At every turn, white fear created a catalyst for systemic oppression:

White fear of the disruption of the racial order meant that almost any act by a Black person, especially anything that signaled Black progress or the willingness of a Black person to step out of their place in the racial hierarchy, could spark a conflagration (115).

Another example came in 1921 when a white mob of more than 2,000 men and women attacked a thriving area in Tulsa, Oklahoma known as Black Wall Street.

November 7, 1775

To quell Patriot dissent, Lord Dunmore offers emancipation to any enslaved person willing to join the British Army.

“Freedom Is Not for Myself Alone” by Robert Jones Jr.

This poem is written from the perspective of an enslaved person seeking emancipation from Lord Dunmore. When the speaker arrives, one of Lord Dunmore’s soldiers tells him that he will not be able to secure freedom for his wife and child. The speaker wonders what good liberty is if it is only for one. He is transformed into a British soldier but soon realizes that he is being placed at the front of the line of fighting. After enduring the slave ships, the speaker hopes he will die by fighting so that he will not be forced to endure another journey across the sea.

August 19, 1791

An intellectual man named Benjamin Banneker sends a letter to Thomas Jefferson, criticizing the treatment of Black people two years after the Three-Fifths Compromise.

“Other Persons” by Reginald Dwayne Betts

In this poem, the speaker explains that many argue that there is no such thing as “race” in the Constitution, but the speaker provides names for those who are impacted by the document’s racism: “[A]nother word for slavery is a fraction” (129). Snippets from the Constitution and a letter written by Benjamin Banneker pepper the poem. In the final line, the speaker addresses Jefferson directly, condemning the suffering Jefferson caused.