The New York Times Magazine published hundreds of thousands of extra copies of its special 1619 Project issue (August 18, 2019),which commemorated the year 1619 when the first shipload of enslaved Africans landed in the British colony of Virginia.
Unfortunately, despite its distribution at schools, libraries, and museums, I was unable to obtain a copy. It wasn't until three days ago that I found a damp copy of the issue in a Little Free Library kiosk on Saint Nicholas Avenue in Harlem. (It had been raining that day. I went home later and dried the issue on my living room radiator.)
Finding that copy was like finding a pot of gold or the holy grail. I could now read, if I chose, the magazine issue and the book it spawned, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (One World/ Penguin Random House, 2021) side by side. (I bought the book at the now-closed Target store in East Harlem in June of this year.)
Both the magazine and the book place slavery, considered America's "original sin," at the root of inequality and injustice in every aspect of American life.
The book will no doubt be among the many books banned and demonized in places like Florida and Texas. But, as the magazine issue's introduction states: "American history cannot be told truthfully without a clear vision of how inhuman and immoral the treatment of black Americans has been. By acknowledging this shameful history, by trying hard to understand its powerful influence on the present, perhaps we can prepare ourselves for a more just future."
The 1619 Project, the brainchild of Nikole Hannah-Jones, a New York Times Magazine staff writer, is also the subject of an original series on the streaming service Hulu. I'm looking forward to seeing it if and when it becomes available as a DVD set.
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