I looked forward to finishing my coursework with The 1619 Project. I savored the sense of satisfaction with the completion of a goal and a noteworthy one at that. I also hoped to free up some additional reading and writing time. However, the end of this coursework became the beginning of what I will call real work. What do we do with this knowledge?
Some Background
What is The 1619 Project? The headnote from the online series reads:
The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.
My experience with the project punctuated my feeling that my early public school education had been inadequate. Nikita Stewart in “Why Can’t We Teach This?” wrote that we are “committing educational malpractice.” I do not disagree.
The Format of Our Exploration
A wonderful woman and respected educator in my community whom I call friend organized and facilitated a bi-monthly class through our town library that met via Zoom for an hour and a half in the evening every other week for six meetings. Each meeting or class centered on one topic or lens. Our facilitator emphasized we share our own racial experiences concerning the materials, whatever our color and background may be.
Race-wise, we were mostly white folks with only two people of color, one participant and our facilitator. Background-wise, we were culturally diverse as our discussions bore out.
We had two weeks in between meetings to prepare by reading articles, viewing videos, listening to podcasts, or a combination thereof. The depth of the research, the quality of the writing, and the excellence of the audio and video recordings earn top ratings from me for The New York Times and for the contributors to this project.
The Lenses
Session 1: Democracy
During this first session participants started by sharing our varied voices about our experiences of “othering,” a negative viewing or treating of others as different or alien. In a group of about twenty people, there were as many varied experiences. Extrapolate that to a national level!
The opening article by Nikole Hannah-Jones “The Idea of America” started the 1619 series off with a sit-up-and-take-notice kind of stance beginning with the suggestion that we look to 1619 as the true founding of this country. She aptly calls plantations “forced labor camps.” And did you know that while Lincoln opposed the cruelty of slavery, he actually opposed black equality? OK. He was a product of the culture of his times, as we all are, but why is this the first time I am learning about this?
I leave you to read the article yourself for additional eye-openers, but much brought a smile too. I loved the story about her father flying the American flag, yet she did not understand his patriotism as slavery is in their ancestry. I also loved delving into the many influences Black folks have had on American culture. Hannah-Jones closes with a powerful conclusion.
Now there was controversy over the portrayal of some facts in this essay for which she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, and then some scholars claimed the prize should be revoked. Maybe a few facts needed checking, but I do not believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We might need to throw out portions of our public school history curriculum for being lopsided and slanted, if that is the case.
Another article plus supplemental materials including a podcast and an interview rounded out this first week, as supplements did every week. I particularly loved the podcasts with fitting music and actual people’s stories often told through their actual voices. It’s all there, together online.
And, no, I do not get a kickback for promoting this project. It’s free. I get to process all I have taken in, and I hope to inform and inspire my readers.
Session 2: Economics
In “Capitalism” by Matthew Desmond, I read about “low-road capitalism.” The article states that 1% of Americans own 40% of the United States’ wealth, while a larger share of working-age people (18–65) live in poverty. Regarding workers’ rights, the United States ranked dead last out of 71 nations with a score of only 0.5. Wow! I thought the US was a role model for other countries, but it looks like it may be the other way around. The author named cotton plantations as America’s first big business, with cotton in the 19th century being like oil in the 20th century.
When Desmond states that only two average American lifetimes have passed since the end of slavery, with seventy-nine as the average age, I paused. Really? I thought it was back and back and long, long ago.
I recalled the Bible passage about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children up to the third and fourth generations. Do we really have one or two more generations before we are free at last? Along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I have a dream today.
I am reminded of a young Irish man I met in a Dublin pub in the mid-1980s when I was a young woman. He spoke starry-eyed about the American dream and about wanting to come to America. I tried to explain how the American dream has turned in part into a nightmare and that capitalism has run amok with anything for a buck.
Back to 1619, a very strong last paragraph concludes the piece by Desmond, but you’ll have to read the article. I don’t want to be a spoiler. Other articles and a podcast with Hannah-Jones and Desmond were part of the week’s materials.
At the end of this second session, our facilitator shared a few of her thoughts: that no one escapes this history, that we are all in this together, and that trauma is in everyone’s genes. She aptly referenced a favorite quote by James Baldwin, an American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist.
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
Think about that for a minute before reading on.
Session 3: Housing
Kevin M. Kruse in “A Traffic Jam in Atlanta” explores white flight to the suburbs and the inequities of segregated housing. White Flight is also a book of his. It shocked me to learn that when interstate highways were built, they were purposely positioned to divide white and black communities. To build the roads, it was common to bulldoze the neighborhoods that housed the poorest residents, usually racial minorities.
“Redlining” was marking minority neighborhoods as risky investments, and this kept people of color from getting loans to purchase their own homes. This contributed to the racial divide and a poverty cycle.
Kruse quotes James Baldwin, too.
Urban renewal means Negro removal.
It’s harsh to hear Baldwin’s assessment of that situation, but it was real.
Participants shared their stories of growing up white in Washington, DC, and in Baltimore, for example, and being aware of segregation. One woman spoke about how a beautiful Black neighborhood was destroyed in New Orleans to put in an interstate.
Kruse’s closing, like the closings in previous articles, was strong and impactful and left me wondering what other startling facts were in store for the last half of the project.
Session 4: Farming
“Sugar” by Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammed disclosed that in Columbus’ second voyage across the Atlantic in 1493, he brought sugar cane stalks from the Spanish Canary Islands. At the time, sugar was a luxury item in Europe and it may have remained so if not for enslaved laborers. Sugar farming was very labor-intensive, and life expectancy working on a sugar plantation was shorter than working in the cotton fields.
Queen Sugar beat King Cotton, as Muhammed refers to these crops, and made Louisiana very rich, but of course at the expense of the enslaved plantation and mill workers. Even children worked alongside adults and suffered as well.
The Whitney Plantation Museum in New Orleans opened about five years ago and is the only sugar slavery museum. Maybe I will get there one day. I remember visiting Dachau, a concentration camp near Munich, Germany, in the mid-1980s. I studied and read about the Holocaust and the camps; but walking through the museum, seeing the barracks, and especially the crematorium, set the horror of that history deep in the bones and created more sensitivity to such topics, and to injustice and inhumanity in any form.
Session 5: Health Care
“So interesting and eye-opening” is how I labeled my notes from this session, even though this applies to the entire project.
Jeneen Interlandi in “A Broken Health Care System” reveals that the United States is the only high-income country in the world where health care is not guaranteed to every citizen. I had to let that sink in.
She examines the history of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. While they shrank racial health disparities, they did not eradicate them.
With all the current debate about health care, this article is a must-read.
Session 6: Mass Incarceration
Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. Both still define our criminal-justice system.
Bryan Stevenson wrote these words in “Mass Incarceration.” The Netflix documentary 13th taught me so much on this topic as well. I watched it back in the summer, and at the end of the film, I lay face down on the floor weeping and thought about becoming a lawyer.
This article and all the articles in this project are very important and make some mighty powerful points.
What do we do?
During the final reflective segment, one participant in the discussion group wondered.
What did Germany do to heal after WWII and the Holocaust? We should find out, and maybe we can learn how to heal from our country’s past too.
Right after the Zoom screen closed out on my computer, I went into my email and immediately wrote my German friend who just celebrated her 60th birthday earlier this year. She replied.
Too much to write, long conversation sometime. There is a German spiritual teacher, Thomas Hübl who coaches groups on releasing cultural trauma. You can look him up.
And I did. What a find! Thomas Hübl has an impressive website, a new book, and a presence on YouTube on healing generational trauma, which is where I will be starting. My facilitator friend and I are going to dive in together to learn about his teaching and how we can apply it here. Perhaps there will be another community discussion group around Hübl’s work.
Other Resources
Participants shared additional recommendations for wrapping one’s head around and opening one’s heart to the legacy of racism. Their picks follow:
· The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
· My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
· Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
· The Danger of a Single Story, a TED Talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I am not sure I am going to get to every one of these, but I am going to try starting with the TED Talk and then seeing which of these books are on audio via my Libby app. I listen while preparing meals or cleaning or putting away laundry and sometimes when out for walks if on my own.
What about the young people?
At our final 1619 meeting, I shared I miss “my kids” also known as my middle and high school students as I recently retired after 34 years of teaching. I stated I would like to organize or offer a teen book club or some such group at the library. When I researched online I found many books, nonfiction, and fiction alike, so I will look to the teen librarian to guide me, but these Covid times are hard times. The last thing any school-aged child needs these days is another online class or Zoom group. We will see what the future holds.
Could we take The 1619 Project into the schools? Maybe. We have a parent committee in my town that meets with the local school district administration on a quest to integrate more into the curriculum about the experiences and contributions of indigenous people and people of color.
I hear Whitney Houston singing “The Greatest Love of All.”
I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.
But we can only teach the children what we know.
· First, gain some knowledge. The 1619 Project is an excellent place to start.
· Next, talk about it with others to deepen understanding and broaden perspective. Even if it’s just with one other person, it is about connection and community.
· Last, take some action. How will you speak with others who do not possess your new knowledge set? Will you become politically active and work toward a related cause? Can you donate time or money? Will you write an article about your experience to be of benefit to others? Maybe all of the above.
Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
I am grateful for the words and wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. May we all carry on, each in his or her own small ways, in service to the greater good of this land we call America, your land, my land, our land, with more of America’s full story in hand and with a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.
Read also on Medium with many hyperlinks.
article photo: Frances Gunn on Unsplash