Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the factually inaccurate 1619 Project, will speak at two virtual events on April 8.
Jones will speak at Drake University for the Sussman Lecture offered by The Harking Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement. She’ll also speak to youth as part of the Then. Now. When. educational experience offered by the Greater Des Moines Leadership Institute.
Joseph Jones, the executive director of the Harkin Institute, said the 1619 Project has prompted “an important dialogue in our country about the role slavery and oppression of black Americans played in the formation of our country and its development in the centuries that followed.”
Companies supporting the event include:
*Bankers Trust
*City of Des Moines
*Delta Dental
*EMC Insurance Companies
*Greater Des Moines Partnership
*Kum & Go
*Nationwide
*Principal
*UnityPoint Health
Nikole Hannah-Jones argues that the American Revolution was fought in large part to preserve slavery in North America.
Her 1619 Project claims racism is embedded in America’s DNA, much of the nation’s wealth and its “uniquely severe and unbridled” form of capitalism are due to slavery and that history is mistaught in many public schools because it ignores that the Revolution was motivated in large measure to defend slavery.
The project also claims that President Abraham Lincoln “opposed black equality.” It also asserts that blacks fought “alone” for equal rights after the Civil War.
Historians of all colors and stripes have taken the Times to task for its factually inaccurate project.
Rarely mentioned are Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass.
Keep in mind some of the project’s most vocal critics are not conservatives — or Republicans.
Sean Wilentz is a Democrat who supported the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. But he said teaching children the American Revolution was fought in part to secure slavery “would be giving a fundamental misunderstanding not only of what the American Revolution was all about but what America stood for and has stood for since the Founding.”
Wilentz said there was more anti-slavery activity in the colonies than in Britain.
There are layers upon layers of historical inaccuracies in the 1619 Project.
Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted that “it would be an honor” for last summer’s protests to be called “the 1619 riots.” In fact, 1619 was spray-painted on a toppled statue of President George Washington last year.
Nonetheless, Hannah-Jones will be presented as a person of influence, someone who should be seen and heard. And she’s going to be speaking to the youth.
