A New Origin Story - The 1619 Project

 

Created by Nikole Hannah-Jones

2021, The New York Times Company

Reviewed by Steven Halpern

While reading Nikole Hannah-Jones book The 1619 Project, I thought about the twelve years I spent in the public schools of Newark, New Jersey. There, the educational system promoted the idea that the United States is the greatest democracy in the world, where there is “liberty and justice for all.”

During those same years, the National Guard invaded the city and murdered 24 people in cold blood. During those same years, the federal government ordered millions of soldiers to murder millions of people in Vietnam.  

Then, I started to read books. I learned of the novelists, Tony Morrison, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and many more. I began to learn that there was a completely different story to the history of the United States than the one I learned in school.

Then, I learned that there were many more people who were interested in learning about this history. There were four blockbuster books. Two were by Alex Haley. These included: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Then, there was the book by Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow – Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. Now we have a comprehensive history of Black people living in this part of the world titled A New Origin Story – The 1619 Project created by Nikole Hannah-Jones.

While there have been many books about African American history, this book is unique. The title of each chapter consists of one or two words. There are two poems or stories related to each chapter. Also, at the beginning of these chapters are stunning black and white photographs related to the chapter. All the chapters and poems have their own authors.

The outline of this book

Malcolm X presented a similar history as The 1619 Project in a speech he gave on January 24, 1965, shortly before assassins took his life. Malcolm euphemistically referred to the United States government as “He,” and started this short history with the Civil War. 

“Then in 1865 he came up with a trick, pretending that he was fighting a civil war to set us free—which wasn’t to set us free. He came up with another trick, that he was issuing an emancipation proclamation to set us free—which wasn’t to set us free. And then he also pretended that he was putting some amendments into the Constitution to set us free—which wasn’t to set us free. Later on, he came up with a Supreme Court decision which he said was to give us free access to better education—which wasn’t to do that. And then last year he came up with a bill that he called also to give us more freedom—which also wasn’t to do that.”

Nikole Hannah Jones gave the other side to this history in the following quotation: “The effort of Black Americans to seek freedom through resistance and rebellion against violations of their rights have always been one of this nation’s defining traditions.”

So, with these quotations, we see how there were titanic struggles to win rights for African Americans, but then the government worked consistently to compromise all those efforts. 

Malcolm wasn’t arguing that there weren’t any gains made because of the Civil War, or the civil rights movement. He did make a clear argument that all those monumental struggles failed to create an atmosphere of freedom for African Americans. 

Evidence for that point of view comes from the fact that Malcolm’s father, Earl Little, was lynched by a racist mob. The government made no attempt to find or prosecute Earl Little’s murderers. To the contrary, Earl Little was one of thousands of African Americans who were lynched in this country, while the government was indifferent to the idea of prosecuting the murderers.

The 1619 Project didn’t start its narrative with the Civil War, but in the year 1619. This was the year that the first African slaves landed in what became the thirteen colonies. So, when we look at the history of slavery in this part of the world, we are looking at an institution that lasted for hundreds of years.

We also know that many of the leaders of the revolution of the thirteen colonies were slave owners. These slave owners, like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington made it clear that they would continue to defend the system of chattel slavery after the revolution. The 1619 Project reported that these revolutionaries oftentimes refused to arm slaves, because they feared those arms would be used against slave owners. 

On the other hand, the British understood this weakness within the revolutionary forces and promised freedom to the slaves who fought against the revolution. As a result, most Black people fought for the British and against the revolution. 

In fact, Crispus Attucks, a Black man who was the first to be murdered by the British in the revolution was an escaped slave. Had he survived, the revolutionary government would have worked to return Attucks to slavery. 

In fact, in the treaty negotiations between Britain and the United States, the members of the new revolutionary government demanded the return of thousands of ex-slaves. These former slaves, who became British soldiers, represented a considerable amount of money to the new United States government.

While slavery continued to be a fact of life in this country after the revolution, there was another dynamic that emerged as a result of the revolution. The new revolutionary government consisted of two factions. One was the pro-slavery anti-federalists. The other was the pro-capitalist federalists. So, although there were slave owners in the government, six states outlawed slavery after the revolution. 

Chattel slavery began to be seen by growing numbers of people as a roadblock to capitalist development. The slave owners wanted an agrarian nation that would dominate the western states. Workers living in the north wanted to establish family farms in those western states. The northern capitalists wanted industrial development that was at odds with the existence of slave labor camps. These increasingly hostile differences led to the Civil War.

Karl Marx was an ardent defender of the Union Army in the Civil War. Marx’s co-thinkers in the United States campaigned for the election of Abraham Lincoln. They also served in the Union Army. Marx argued that the existence of slavery wasn’t just an abomination, but hampered the interests of the entire working class. 

Clearly, with the defeat of radical reconstruction Black people were stripped of their citizenship rights. However, even with this severe limitation, the abolition of slavery was an advance that led directly to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.         

The 1619 Project also reported on the genocidal practices of the United States government against Native Americans. As with the slaves of the thirteen colonies, most Native Americans fought against the revolution. They understood that the new revolutionary government would become even more strident in their genocidal war. 

In fact, one of the grievances listed against the British in the Declaration of Independence was the lack of support the British gave to the colonist’s war against Native Americans. The Declaration used the racist word “savages” to describe the first nations who lived in this part of the world.

The 1619 Project also accurately reported that several Native American nations owned Black slaves. However, this book failed to report that after the Civil War many former slaves were recruited to be Buffalo Soldiers who participated in the genocidal wars against the first nations.

Understanding that history, I gained a further appreciation of Mohammed Ali’s refusal to join the armed forces during the war against the people of Vietnam. At that time, Martin Luther King argued that the United States government was the “greatest purveyor of violence” in the world. Malcolm X admired the Vietnamese struggle for independence and argued that while they had nothing more than tennis shoes, a rifle, and a bowl of rice, the Vietnamese carried out an effective struggle against the most powerful military force in the world.

Why has the institutionalized discrimination against Black people been so persistent?

One of the chapters in The 1619 Project written by Leslie Alexander and Michelle Alexander has the title Fear. These authors made the following argument. “There has never been a time in United States history when Black rebellions did not spark existential fear among white people, often leading to violent response.”

This chapter used a considerable amount of evidence to support that argument. There was the U.S. boycott of the Nation of Haiti after that nation’s revolutionary government abolished slavery in the 19th century. There was the emergence of the terrorist Ku Klux Klan after Black people won democratic rights with the reconstruction governments. There was the violent repression of demonstrations against police brutality in the 1960s and in 2020. 

Even when protests were nonviolent, those protests were met with harsh sanctions. Those included the blacklisting of Tommy Smith and John Carlos after they raised their gloved fists while being awarded medals at the 1968 Olympic games. Colin Kaepernick was blacklisted in professional football when he kneeled during the playing of the national anthem in protest of murders by the police.   

James Baldwin looked at this question from a different perspective. He gave his opinion as to the cause of violence against the Black community in the following quotation. This was taken from his collection of nonfiction writings in the book The Price of the Ticket.

“A mob cannot afford to doubt, that the Jews killed Christ or that n—s want to rape their sisters or that anyone who fails to make it in the land of the free and the home of the brave deserves to be wretched.  But these ideas do not come from the mob.  They come from the state, which creates and manipulates the mob.  The idea of black persons as property, for example, does not come from the mob.  It is not a spontaneous idea.  It does not come from the people, who knew better, who thought nothing of intermarriage until they were penalized for it: this idea comes from the architects of the American States.  These architects decided that the concept of Property was more important––more real––than the possibilities of the human being.”

Baldwin continued in this vein with the following passage.

“The point of all this is that black men were brought here as a source of cheap labor.  They were indispensable to the economy.  In order to justify the fact that men were treated as though they were animals, the white republic had to brainwash itself into believing that they were indeed animals and deserved to be treated like animals.  Therefore, it is almost impossible for any Negro child to discover anything about his actual history.  The reason is that this ‘animal,’ once he suspects his own worth, once he starts believing that he is a man, has begun to attack the entire power structure.  This is why America has spent such a long time keeping the Negro in his place.  What I am trying to suggest to you is that it was not an accident, it was not an act of God, it was not done by well-meaning people muddling into something which they didn’t understand.  It was a deliberate policy hammered into place in order to make money from black flesh.  And now, in 1963, because we have never faced this fact, we are in intolerable trouble.”

Here Baldwin argued that Black people, “were indispensable to the economy.” Why was that? Karl Marx defined the political economic system of capitalism as a relationship between capital and labor. Literally every commodity that has ever been produced was made by workers. Capitalists profited from all those commodities. So, without labor, there are no profits. 

Because of the nature of capitalism, corporations are driven to grow by selling more and more commodities while cutting costs. On the one hand capitalism has grown to be an international system. On the other hand, about 80% of the world’s population lives on ten dollars per day or less. 

As James Baldwin argued, because Black workers were systematically discriminated against, they became “indispensable to the economy.” So, when Black people discover their “own worth,” they begin to “attack the entire power structure.” Those people who defend this political economic system clearly feel threatened because of these legitimate demands.     

So, understanding all of this, I believe there are about eight things that everyone needs and wants. These include food, clothing, housing, transportation, communication, health care, education, and exposure to culture that includes music, art, dancing, film theater etc.…

However, during literally every minute we are on the job, and for every commodity we purchase, we are required to contribute to services we don’t need. These include corporate profits, interest to banks, insurance, advertising, landlords, corporate law, and let us not forget those thousands of atomic bombs that can eliminate all human life. As long as the capitalist system exists, we are all required to dedicate our lives to supporting these enterprises that only benefit the superrich.      

Nikole Hannah-Jones supports the idea of reparations to begin to reverse the horrific discrimination against African Americans over the past 400 years. While Black people today experience poverty and a lack of resources, she argued that what is needed is “wealth” to begin to reverse that reality. 

For me, the question is: How would reparations be used to support the unconditional liberation of African Americans? Given the history presented in The 1619 Project, I believe it is clear that the government that has subjected Black people to the horrors of over 200 years is incapable of bringing about the unconditional liberation that Black people deserve. 

In the United States, we have been raised with the idea that employers have the absolute right to control our lives during every minute we work for them. Both the democrats and republicans are agreed with this. 

In 2020, demonstrations erupted around the world protesting murders by the police in this country. Those demonstrators are becoming increasingly aware of the racist history of this country as reported in The 1619 Project. 

The change in consciousness in this country was made evident by demonstrations that occurred in the city of Duluth, Minnesota in 1920 and 2020. In 1920 thousands participated in a lynching of three Black men in the city. In 2020 hundreds marched in a demonstration against police brutality.  

Yet while there are over forty million people living in this country who don’t have enough food to eat, there are also four individuals who each own over one-hundred billion dollars in assets. No capitalist politician argues that we need to strip billionaires of their assets so millions of people will have food to eat. For them, this very idea is incomprehensible. 

That idea isn’t the only logical government policy people who have power feel would be incomprehensible. When we look at the skyscrapers in the cities, we are looking at monuments to the exploitation of workers. Enterprises in those skyscrapers support, corporate profits, interest to banks, insurance, advertising, landlords, and corporate law. None of these enterprises directly contribute to the goods and services workers need and want.

So, what kind of political orientation do we need today that can begin to reverse the discrimination that has existed for hundreds of years? To answer this question, I believe we need to look at the politics of the world. When we look at international politics, we see also see why racist discrimination has been so persistent.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was the central leader of the Russian Revolution. Before this revolution tzarist Russia was considered a prison-house of nations. Racist attitudes against all of those nations were routine before the revolution. Lenin argued that there would be no meaningful revolution unless his organization, the Bolsheviks, supported the unconditional liberation of all those nationalities. Today’s Russian invasion of the Ukraine is a clear example of how Vladimir Putin is completely opposed to the politics that Lenin advanced. 

Lenin also wrote a pamphlet in 1917 titled Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. In this pamphlet, Lenin reported on how international cartels were dominating the governments and economies of the world. This trend didn’t happen because of mistakes by individuals, but because the nature of capitalism requires domination of the entire world.

In the year 2021, a band of supporters of former President Donald Trump attacked the capital. Their goal was to reverse the presidential election and allegedly to “stop the steal.” While the news media expressed an outrage against this attack on the capital, they failed to report facts relevant to this event.

The United States government has a long history of working to overturn elected governments all over the world. The very land of this country was once the homeland of hundreds of Native American nations. In the 1950s the U.S. government worked to overthrow the elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran. In the 1960s the U.S. government worked to overthrow the elected government of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. In the 1970s the U.S. government worked to overthrow the elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. President Eisenhower acknowledged that if elections had taken place in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh would have won 90% of the vote. Yet the U.S. government ordered the military to defend a U.S. puppet government in Vietnam.

Cuba and the struggle against discrimination

When we think of the nation of Cuba, we are thinking about a nation that for most of its past had a similar history to the United States. Slavery in Cuba lasted longer than it did in the United States. Before the Cuban Revolution, institutionalized racist discrimination was a fact of life in both nations. However, as a result of the Cuban Revolution that reality began to change in profound ways.

Pennsylvania and Cuba have similar populations. However, Cuba has a larger percentage of Black people than Pennsylvania. When we look at the number of people who died from the COVID-19 pandemic, there were over 43,000 Pennsylvania deaths, while Cuba had over 8,000 deaths. So, although Cuba has much fewer resources than Pennsylvania, Blacks living in Cuba had a better chance of surviving the pandemic than Black people living in Pennsylvania.

Because the Cuban government had completely different priorities than the government in this country, the Cuban reality is entirely different. Shortly after the Cuban Revolution, the new government instituted a literacy program to teach everyone on the island how to read. Within a few years, that program proved to be highly successful.

As a result of that beginning, Cuba managed become the nation with the most doctors per capita than any other nation in the world. Cuban scientists have developed several vaccines for COVID-19 and about 90% of the nation has been vaccinated. Cuban doctors have treated patients in some of the poorest nations in the world. Thousands of students from around the world come to Cuba and learn to become medical doctors. Clearly Black people who live in Cuba have a better chance of becoming doctors than Black people who live in the United States. 

While the world was horrified by the police murder of George Floyd, Black people in Cuba have no fear of being murdered by the police. While there are demands for restrictions on gun possession in this country, every Cuban owns a gun and they have been trained in how to use those guns. The Cuban government supported this initiative to defend the island against a foreign invasion that might come from the United States.

In the years 2017 and 2019 I witnessed about one million Cubans celebrating their government on the international holiday of May Day. Many parents proudly held their children on their shoulders while they marched in the demonstration. 

In the United States we don’t see those kinds of demonstrations. Here there are massive demonstrations protesting murders by the police. 

Clearly Black Cubans continue to have problems. Those problems are exacerbated by the United States trade embargo. We might consider that this embargo is the result of legislation sponsored by the Jim Crow segregationist Jessie Helms. 

So, when Nikole Hannah-Jones argues that Black people need access to “wealth,” we can also say that the only way to get that wealth would be with an entirely different political economic system. That system would no longer view the labor of Black people as a way of enriching the affluent. That kind of government would make the unconditional liberation of African Americans its top priority.