Nikole Hannah-Jones On Controversy Around ‘The 1619 Project’: “This Is Not Actually A Radical Project” – Contenders TV: Docs + Unscripted
Story by Matthew Carey • Saturday


The 1619 Project, according to one description, “illuminates the legacy of slavery in the contemporary United States, and highlights the contributions of Black Americans to every aspect of American society.” Nothing controversial there, right? Wrong.

The initiative, which originated with a New York Times Magazine issue and has now been adapted into a Hulu documentary series, has triggered passionate reactions from the start.

“This project has come out in a time where we have deep, deep societal polarization,” series host and executive producer Nikole Hannah-Jones noted during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted event. Hannah-Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for the print series. The furor notwithstanding, she maintained, “This is not actually a radical project. It’s based on decades of scholarship and within the history profession the ideas that we put forth are actually not that controversial. … Many Americans have been open to its arguments.”

Across six episodes, The 1619 Project examines the historical antecedents behind systemic racial injustice evident in policing, health care, wealth inequality, even capitalism itself.

“This isn’t just Black history, it’s American history. And these things impact all of us,” said Shoshana Guy, the series’ executive producer and showrunner. Guy was among those charged with turning the print series into a cinematic experience. “Our producers, our directors were constantly workshopping, coming up with ideas and ways to bring these stories to life,” she said.

Publication of The 1619 Project four years ago set off the virulent debate over “critical race theory.” Since then, Florida has led an effort by a number of states to control how history is taught in schools, prompting some textbook publishers to offer revisions to reading materials. For instance, one publisher put a new spin on Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat to a white patron on a segregated bus in Montgomery, AL in 1955. The revised wording reportedly omits any reference to race: “Rosa Parks showed courage. One day, she rode the bus. She was told to move to a different seat. She did not. She did what she believed was right.”

“In the state of Florida, the Department of Education there has prohibited the teaching of The 1619 Project in public schools,” Hannah-Jones said. “So, what you’re seeing is a response to that where we deracialize the story of Rosa Parks — which you cannot do, because Rosa Parks was standing up against the system of racial apartheid. And the reason she had to give up that seat was because she was a Black woman, not just because someone was being mean to her.”

Hannah-Jones added, “What that tells us is that we have people who are actually so ashamed of our history that they don’t believe that we can tell it truthfully and still believe in these ideas of American exceptionalism.”