1619 Project Gets Its Facts Wrong Yet Again

Readers who have followed the 1619 Project from its inception in 2019 as a New York Times Magazine special edition through its metamorphoses into a classroom curriculum in 2020, a book released in November 2021, an ongoing campus and library-lecture tour by 1619 Project impresario Nikole Hannah-Jones, and now a slickly photographed miniseries on Hulu narrated by Hannah-Jones, should by now not be surprised at four things.

First, while the project contains some useful perspective on the history of slavery, segregation, and racism in America, it is wrapped in a highly tendentious ideological framework that ranges from rank Democratic partisanship to Marxist economic and political theory. Second, it gets important facts glaringly wrong. Third, it advances arguments without the slightest shame or self-reflection after being called out publicly on getting the supporting facts for those arguments glaringly wrong in the past.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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Readers who have followed the 1619 Project from its inception in 2019 as a New York Times Magazine special edition through its metamorphoses into a classroom curriculum in 2020, a book released in November 2021, an ongoing campus and library-lecture tour by 1619 Project impresario Nikole Hannah-Jones, and now a slickly photographed miniseries on Hulu narrated by Hannah-Jones, should by now not be surprised at four things.

First, while the project contains some useful perspective on the history of slavery, segregation, and racism in America, it is wrapped in a highly tendentious ideological framework that ranges from rank Democratic partisanship to Marxist economic and political theory. Second, it gets important facts glaringly wrong. Third, it advances arguments without the slightest shame or self-reflection after being called out publicly on getting the supporting facts for those arguments glaringly wrong in the past.