Recently, the New York Times announced the paper will highlight a drive to bring something called the 1619 Project to its readers, and through its influence on the national media, to all Americans. The 1619 Project, headed by New York Times Magazine domestic correspondent Nikole-Hannah Jones, seeks to “reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.”
In other releases, by claiming America really began in that year, in which about 20 Africans were brought to Virginia to work on the plantations, the Timesseeks to place the narrative of white supremacy at the center of the political discourse, and in doing so tie President Trump to the evils of slavery by association.
The notion that slavery was the underlying foundation of capitalism in America and other nations is not new. In 1944, a black intellectual, Eric Williams, wrote a major work about the intersection of capitalism and slavery in Capitalism and Slavery,which posited that black slaves were an integral part of the growth of capitalism. His work has sparked academic studies arguing both for and against his central theme.
This project by the Timeshas brought quick rebuke from conservatives, and rightly so. One among many is from Byron York:Byron York, Fox News contributor and chief political correspondent of the Washington Examiner, wrote an opinion piece for the Examiner titled “New goal for New York Times: ‘Reframe’ American history, and target Trump, too.”
There is no argument that slavery was a part of American history. But to claim that America began with the introduction of that odious institution denies much of what we are. Slaves did contribute much to the Southern way of life, and to the Northern economy through what they worked to produce in the fields of the antebellum South. Yet at least 260,000 white Union soldiers and sympathizers died in the Civil War to eradicate the “peculiar institution” from America’s life.
But those who claim that “white privilege” and “white supremacy” must be subsumed by slavery’s achievements are ignoring history and rewriting American history. When at university, those of us who were studying American and World history were counseled that efforts such as these were “revisionist” history, taking what is known and making those events fit a narrative never before discovered by previous historians. One example of that was a book called Backdoor to War, which posited that Franklin Roosevelt, President at that time, could not get the American people to support the Allies in the first years of World War 2. So he goaded, by our trade and monetary policies toward Japan, the Japanese into attacking us, which they did at Pearl Harbor. This meant, according to those who held this belief, that when we declared war on Japan, their ally, Germany would declare war on us and thus we could get into the conflict on the side of the beleaguered allies. Hitler obliged, and on December 12,1941 declared war on us. Thus, the back door to war. That revisionist history has been mostly debunked, but it seems that those who take a dim view of American exceptionalism are trying to revise the record today, this time in the 1619 Project.
It is certain that slavery kept many slaves who were highly intelligent from contributing their talents for the greater good. But to bury the work of those white men and women who did achieve greatness is intellectual dishonesty.
A few of those whose importance will be lessened include the founding fathers Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. James Madison, like Jefferson and Washington, were slave owners, but his ideas are enshrined in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The Louisiana Purchase was made by an old white man, Jefferson. Other contributions by white politicians were made by Abraham Lincoln and U. S. Grant, among others who, along with at least 260,000 everyday white men and boys took up arms and helped eradicate the odious system of slavery.
But “old white men” made many other additions to the fabric of American society. Thomas Edison, Alexander Bell, Andrew Carnegie and many others lent their skills and talents to our nation. Henry Ford “put America on wheels” in the early part of the 20thcentury. Television was “invented” by a white man in the 1920s, and the Wright brothers were at the forefront in the quest to conquer the skies.
In a short essay, the number of contributors to the fabric of the American mosaic are too numerous to mention. Of course, there is no denying the great African-Americans who made their mark. Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth among others deserve their part in America to be remembered. More recently, W. E. DuBois, George Washington Carver, the Tuskegee Airmen, Benjamin Davis, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other stalwarts of the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s are rightly honored by historians.
Any recounting of American history must include all who contributed, regardless of their skin color, but to claim the bedrock of the American experience rests solely on the institution of slavery and its aftermath is just not a correct reading of the past.
One hopes that the American public sees through this attempt to redirect our view of the past as just another way to criticize Donald Trump, who has done much more for the black community than any recent President. Keep this revisionist history out of the public discourse and out of our schools, and teach history without an agenda or narrative, which seems to have sprung from the mind of a junior member of The New York Timesstaff.