Howard’s Writers Guild hosted Nikole Hannah-Jones last week in the newly renovated Myrtilla Miner Hall auditorium to discuss her 2023 Emmy Award-winning Hulu documentary series, “The 1619 Project.” Based on her Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, the series explores the legacy of slavery in America.
Over 50 people watched the first episode of the series, titled “Democracy,” before engaging in a discussion led by Writers Guild President Rebbie Davis to interview Hannah-Jones. She was asked to elaborate on themes and issues presented in the episode, exploring their relevance to today’s America.
Hannah-Jones, a professor and the creator of The 1619 Project, explained to the audience the educational goals behind the series. The project, initially published in The New York Times Magazine in 2019, seeks to teach the Black community’s vital contributions to American society.
Part of this knowledge analyzes American democracy through a different historical lens than the one used in the American education system.
Central to the project’s message is a reframing of American history, particularly the history of democracy. Hannah-Jones argued that Americans have been “taught the history of a country that does not exist,” referring to the misconception that the United States was founded as a pure representative democracy. Instead, she described it as an “ethnocracy and slavocracy,” adding that true democracy only emerged with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1964.
While the original series of essays didn’t present any new historical findings, Hannah-Jones stated it was radical and transformative because it wanted to rectify this neglected knowledge and historical lens by teaching it to a wider audience, which Hannah-Jones also calls “reclaiming our memory.” She said this goal is why it is such a massive target for political actors.
Hannah-Jones elaborated, saying the political backlash was the greatest accomplishment of The 1619 Project.
“Donald Trump hates it?” she said. “That’s better than winning the Pulitzer Prize.”
The backlash only helped spread the project’s message further, Hannah-Jones said, even leading to the date “1619” entering the national lexicon as the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in colonial America.
Some students questioned why Hannah-Jones chose to emphasize patriotism in her series, given her emphasis on America’s oppressive history. Jacob Echevarria, a freshman interdisciplinary humanities major from Belmont, North Carolina, asked her thoughts on Black patriotism.
Hannah-Jones responded that she did not initially set out to be patriotic but came to see that there are different kinds of patriotism. To the journalist, many Americans are patriotic because they believe in a false history, failing to see the land of the free as a mirage of oppression. Black Americans, however, are patriotic because they have fought the hardest to make the United States live up to its promises.
Hannah-Jones espoused these beliefs while also acknowledging that the modern political climate and current presidential administration of America rejects diverse perspectives in an attempt to “revert America back to an ethnocracy.”
“I could not make or sell The 1619 Project today,” she said, as her work is currently stifled from reaching large audiences by social media algorithms. “Most of what I do you’re not going to see.”
However, she plans to continue using journalism as a form of activism and urged students to continue the work of their ancestors.
“Social movements are led by young people,” she said. “If I was a college student I wouldn’t want to be anywhere but Howard.”
Hannah-Jones followed by emphasizing that “we all have power,” and are accountable for fighting against modern injustices rooted in historically oppressive systems. She highlighted the historical struggles of Frederick Douglass against slavery and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee against segregation. To Hannah-Jones, the young student of today is fighting for “Palestine, undocumented immigrants,” and the inalienable rights promised to them 247 years ago.
Echevarria came away from the event intrigued by the depth Hannah-Jones added to the conversation by “bringing a contemporary perspective to what they were already discussing by bringing these essays, ideas and the conceptualization of discussing our memory and reclaiming our memory into the struggle that we have now with the Trump administration and a red Congress.”
He concluded that “more students need to participate in these types of events” in order to learn and develop themselves.
Alexandra Zepperio, a graduating philosophy major from Connecticut, agreed that this event was a good introduction to Hannah-Jones’ work, and even came out with a new perspective on Black Patriotism.
She said, “I want to leave [the United States], but once [Hannah-Jones] said that, I was like ‘Yeah, we did create this country. We should be here.’”
Davis, a senior honors English major and philosophy minor from Chicago, said this event was months in the making and had to be rescheduled multiple times. However, she said, “given the current state of our democracy, this was the perfect time for her to do it”.
“[Hannah-Jones] is a very powerful speaker, and I feel like today she gives students a lot of hope during a very dark time in our country,” she said. “I’m so very proud and humbled that our organization should get to meet such a changemaker.”
Copy edited by Camiryn Stepteau
