Latest news with #1619Project
Wall Street Journal
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Will the ‘1619 Project' Spoil America's Party?
When America celebrates its 250th anniversary next summer, some will mark the occasion by chronicling the nation's imperfections rather than its achievements. Consider the New York Times's '1619 Project' a grim preview of what's to come. Launched six years ago and led by reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, the project is a series of articles that 'aims to reframe the country's history' in a way that makes slavery central to its founding and the animating feature of its rise. According to the paper, America's 'true founding' dates not to 1776 but rather to 1619, the year the first African slaves arrived in Virginia. Ms. Hannah-Jones's profile on Twitter featured a banner graphic that showed the date 'July 4, 1776,' crossed out and replaced with 'August 20, 1619.'
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nikole Hannah-Jones: Trump is ‘eradicating the enforcement mechanisms for our civil rights'
Trump has dismantled over 60 years worth of civil rights progress over the course of two months, says Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and creator of the 1619 Project Nikole Hannah-Jones. While Trump 'doesn't have the ability to overturn the 1964 Civil Rights Act or The Voting Rights Act or The Fair Housing Act,' he's instead upended civil rights enforcement mechanisms. Which she says, 'sends the message that if you discriminate, there's no one in the federal government that's goi
Wall Street Journal
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
The Economics of Slavery
Juneteenth marks emancipation, yet debate still rages over how to teach slavery, why it arose and persisted, and what place it holds in America's self-image. Two projects set the poles. The New York Times's '1619 Project' recasts the nation's origin story, focusing on slavery and discrimination rather than the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Woodson Center's '1776 Unites' argues that the Revolution's democratic ideals, imperfectly realized at the founding, launched a long arc of progress, visible from the Civil War through the civil-rights era and beyond.
New York Post
11-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
‘Woke right' influencer bullies aren't just fringe — they're a true political danger
In 2018, some activists, appalled by woke nonsense being published by academic journals, submitted nonsensical research. One paper claimed researchers 'closely and respectfully examined the genitals of . . . ten thousand dogs' to learn about 'rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks.' Some journals published it. Advertisement But one of the hoaxers, James Lindsay, claims this 'woke virus' now has spread to the right. 'There is a radical segment embedded within MAGA . . . that acts the same way, uses the same tactics, acts like the woke left,' he told me. I was skeptical. But to make his point, Lindsay pulled off a new hoax. Advertisement He rewrote parts of 'The Communist Manifesto' and, using the pseudonym Marcus Carlson (a play on Karl Marx), submitted it to the conservative magazine American Reformer. His article criticized classical liberal ideas like free markets, global trade and individual freedom, like Marx did. Yet the conservative magazine published it. Even after a reader pointed out that it was 'The Communist Manifesto,' the magazine kept its article up, writing, 'It is still a reasonable aggregation of some New Right ideas.' Advertisement The New Right, says Lindsay, acts like the woke left: 'There's the victimhood mentality, the cancel culture, struggle sessions. They bully people online with swarms; they rewrite history.' The New York Times' 1619 Project rewrote history, claiming America was founded to protect slavery. Today's woke right says Hitler 'was trying to encourage community . . . family values' (social media influencer Dan Bilzerian). 'I want total Aryan victory . . . the only way we are going to make America great again is if we make this country Christian again,' says white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Advertisement Fuentes' videos have received more than 30 million views. On his show, he says, 'Jews better start being nice to people like us because what comes out of this is going to be a lot uglier and a lot worse for them.' Influencer Andrew Tate won 10 million followers largely by attacking feminism: 'I am absolutely sexist.' ''Men should be in charge, knock the women down,'' sighs Lindsay. 'The woke right literally becomes all the caricatures that the woke left said conservatives are: 'racist, sexist, homophobes.'' Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters 'They're fringe,' I say to Lindsay. 'No real threat.' 'That's what everybody said about woke kids on campuses,' he replies. Advertisement That shut me up. I admit I thought brainwashed college progressives would drop 'safe spaces,' trigger warnings, speech codes and other silly ideas once they had to earn a living. But I was wrong. Most didn't. Those kids brought about lots of change. Advertisement Their preferences got many companies to mandate DEI training and led many employees to fear speaking honestly at work. But today, says Lindsay, the energy is on the right: 'It's great that we're having a conservative revival . . . but there's also [something] called 'falling off the cliff.'' Elected officials now say things like, 'We should be Christian nationalists!' (Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene) and, 'I'm tired of this separation-of-church-and-state junk' (Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert). Advertisement 'Your ability to believe as you will,' says Lindsay, 'worship as you will without state interference, is a bedrock idea of the American experiment. Woke right, like the woke left, is this litany of bad ideas.' He fears that next election, the woke right will elect the woke left. 'The left is going to say, Hillary Clinton was right to call [people on the right] 'deplorable,'' he says. 'Then the left will sweep back in and dominate.' John Stossel is the author of 'Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.'
San Francisco Chronicle
09-06-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Lafayette helped Americans turn the tide in their fight for independence – and 50 years later, he helped forge the growing nation's sense of identity
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Matthew Smith, Miami University (THE CONVERSATION) America is nearing the 250th anniversary of its revolutionary birth, the Declaration of Independence. July 4, 2026, will mark a milestone – and a time for reflection. Yet as fascination with America's founding endures, controversy colors how the revolution is taught across the United States. From contested efforts by The New York Times ' 1619 Project ' to put slavery at the center of America's story, to attempts to limit teaching about race and racism, partisanship surrounds the teaching of American history. Anniversaries can inspire public passion, but they can also open old wounds. As an American historian and a naturalized citizen of the United States, I regard the American Revolution with both personal and professional interest. The fact that I grew up in the United Kingdom amuses my students to no end whenever we discuss the Revolutionary War. Sometimes, in my British-accented English, I remind them I did not personally grow up with King George. Teaching history is encouraging students to think critically about the past without dictating what emotions they should feel – patriotic or otherwise. Sadly, in the U.S., the sort of objective historical knowledge once taken for granted now appears to be waning. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, just 13% of eighth graders in 2023 ranked 'proficient' in American history. A 2010 survey found that 26% of adults could not identify from whom America declared its independence, with China, Mexico and France among the responses. America divorcing France would have been news to Gilbert du Motier, better known as the Marquis de Lafayette. His commitment to the new country not only helped secure its independence, but it also helped solidify American identity decades later. A privileged aristocrat who served in both the American and French revolutions, Lafayette went to war at age 19. Commissioning and equipping his own expedition across the Atlantic in 1777, he fought in many battles against the British, including decisive action at Yorktown. Earning George Washington's confidence, Lafayette attained the rank of major general in the Continental Army. Lafayette's enrollment in the U.S. military predated the 1778 alliance between his home country and the United States. Eventually, France's alliance turned the tide against Great Britain on land and at sea. By the war's end, the French had supplied some 12,000 soldiers, 22,000 sailors and dozens of warships to the American cause, plus huge financial resources. When Lafayette volunteered, however, he was one of just a few foreign volunteers – and the most acclaimed. 'Nowadays,' as historian Sarah Vowell conceded, Americans think of Lafayette as 'a place, not a person.' But an abundance of cities, counties and thoroughfares named after the revolutionary hero attest to his former celebrity. During World War I, U.S. troops sailed to France under the slogan 'Lafayette here we come,' promising to repay America's debt of gratitude to France. A growing country Older Americans may recall the U.S. bicentennial of 1976, marked with much pageantry and even a state visit by Queen Elizabeth II. America's semicentennial, however – the 50th anniversary of independence – played a far greater role shaping the idea of America in the minds of its citizens. Lafayette starred in the buildup to this 1826 commemoration, the first of its kind at the national level. President James Monroe, a fellow veteran of the War of Independence, invited Lafayette to be ' the guest of America,' honored as the last living major general of the Continental Army. Beginning in July 1824, at the age of 66, Lafayette embarked on a triumphal tour of all 24 states then comprising the union – nearly double the original 13. As Lafayette headed west, borne by horse-drawn carriage, steamboat and canal barge, he journeyed across a changing America. Nowhere was America's economic and demographic growth more evident than Cincinnati, where a crowd of 50,000 welcomed Lafayette in May 1825. Once a small frontier town, Cincinnati was growing faster than any comparably sized city in the nation: Its population increased from around 15,000 to roughly 115,000 in the quarter century following Lafayette's visit. He addressed his audience with emotion: 'The highest reward that can be bestowed on a revolutionary veteran is to welcome him with a sight of the blessings which have issued from our struggle for independence, freedom and equal rights.' Lafayette gave human face to America's national commemoration. He granted citizens of frontier states like Ohio – hitherto excluded from the revolutionary narrative – license to celebrate themselves. High turnouts in western stops such as Cincinnati reflected enthusiasm for grand spectacles. They also reflected the growth of America's print media, which had advertised his visit, and improved transportation in formerly remote regions of the country. Lafayette's tour culminated with a September 1825 state banquet in Washington, D.C., hosted by the new president, John Quincy Adams. Adams – the son of America's second president, John Adams – praised 'that tie of love, stronger than death,' connecting Lafayette 'for the endless ages of time, with the name of Washington.' The enthusiasm that welcomed Lafayette 200 years ago was authentic. But like all good history lessons, Lafayette's legacy is open to interpretation. His grand tour cemented the myth of ' the Era of Good Feelings ': a golden age of American political harmony. In reality, the seeds of America's civil war were already evident. Missouri's 1820 admission to the union threatened the country's precarious balance between states that opposed slavery and states that allowed it – a crisis Thomas Jefferson warned was ' a fire bell in the night.' Likewise, Lafayette's lionization in the western United States coincided with the ongoing forced removal of Indigenous people. Ohio, for example, forcibly removed its last Native American tribe in 1843. Despite the uses and abuses of historical memory and the aversion of modern historians toward hero-worship, Lafayette remains a charismatic figure – a ' citizen of two worlds ' who championed both abolitionism and women's rights. I believe his fading public memory indicates a troubling amnesia. America's anniversary offers the opportunity to reconsider his legacy, alongside revolutionary stories of Americans from all walks of life.
