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1619 and its Discontents

To mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of “20 and odd” enslaved Africans in the British colony of Virginia, the New York Times Magazine published a special edition in August 2019, consisting of 18 articles and a number of short essays about the legacies of slavery. Ever since, The 1619 Project's claims have fueled intense debate about how Americans should teach, think, and write about their past. This collection represents the twists and turns of that debate.
Updated by Tony Field on May 13, 2025. First created July 14, 2022.

A Brief History of the History Wars

Conservative uproar over the 1619 Project is just the most recent clash in a battle over how we should understand America’s past.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on August 20, 2019 
Reaction to the 1619 Project was fast and in some places, furious. A week after its publication, Slate's Rebecca Onion offered some historical context for the emerging backlash.

Preaching a Conspiracy Theory

The 1619 Project offers bitterness, fragility, and intellectual corruption—not history.
by Allen C. Guelzo via City Journal on December 8, 2019 
Historian Allen Guelzo was an early critic. Here, he argues that the project "is not history: it is polemic, born in the imaginations of those whose primary target is capitalism itself and who hope to tarnish capitalism by associating it with slavery."

A Matter of Facts

The New York Times’ 1619 Project launched with the best of intentions, but has been undermined by some of its claims.
by Sean Wilentz via The Atlantic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on January 22, 2020 
Historian Sean Wilentz spearheaded a high-profile critique of the project that was co-signed by a small group of fellow historians. Here, he explains why.

The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts

A dispute between some scholars and the authors of NYT Magazine’s issue on slavery represents a fundamental disagreement over the trajectory of U.S. society.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on December 23, 2019 
The Atlantic's Adam Serwer weighs in on the Wilentz letter: "Americans need to believe that, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, the arc of history bends toward justice. And they are rarely kind to those who question whether it does."
Slave shackles.

The Hidden Stakes of the 1619 Controversy

Critics of the New York Times’s 1619 Project obscure a longstanding debate among historians over whether the American Revolution was a proslavery revolt.
by David Waldstreicher via Boston Review on January 24, 2020 
Much of the debate about the 1619 Project centered on the role of slavery in the American Revolution. Here, historian David Waldstreicher offers some background for that debate.

1619 and All That

The Editor of the American Historical Review weighs in on recent historiographical debates around the New York Times' 1619 Project.
by Alex Lichtenstein via American Historical Review on February 3, 2020 
Historian Alex Lichtenstein takes issue with the way some of his fellow historians took issue with the 1619 Project. "[S]ingling out errors in one essay does not suffice to dismiss the project in its entirety."

Sorry, New York Times, But America Began in 1776

The United States didn't begin in 1619.
by Wilfred Reilly via Quillette on February 17, 2020 
One of the scholars associated with "1776 Unites" explains what he describes as "a non-partisan black-led response to the New York Times’s 1619 Project."

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

The paper’s series on slavery made avoidable mistakes. But the attacks from its critics are much more dangerous.
by Leslie M. Harris via Politico Magazine on March 6, 2020 
Both the 1619 Project and its prominent critics were guilty of oversimplification, according to historian Leslie Harris. Here, she lays out a more complex picture of the American Revolution that has emerged from recent scholarship.

How the 1619 Project Took Over 2020

It’s a hashtag, a talking point, a Trump rally riff. The inside story of a New York Times project that launched a year-long culture war.
by Sarah Ellison via Washington Post
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on October 13, 2020 
A little more than a year after the 1619 Project hit newsstands, the Washington Post profiled its creators, and some of its most visible critics.

History As End

1619, 1776, and the politics of the past.
by Matthew Karp via Harper’s
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on June 8, 2021 
Historian Matt Karp offers a critique of the project from the left, taking issue with its "origin-obsessed" history. "How can a history grounded in continuity," he writes, "relate to a politics that demands transformational change?"
Photo illustration of two hands pulling New York Times Magazine article

The Historians Are Fighting

Inside the profession, the battle over the 1619 Project continues.
by William Hogeland via Slate
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on October 30, 2021 
The project's central claim about the American Revolution was the subject of a public debate between historians Gordon Wood and Woody Holton. Historian William Hogeland gives a blow-by-blow.
In the preface to a new book version of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter and the leading force behind the endeavor, recalls that it began as a “simple pitch.”

The 1619 Project and the Demands of Public History

The ambitious Times endeavor reveals the difficulties that greet a journalistic project when it aspires to shift a founding narrative of the past.
by Lauren Michele Jackson via The New Yorker
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on December 8, 2021 
This review of the 1619 Project book is underwhelmed by its didacticism. "With few exceptions...the voices of the individual writers are unrecognizable, hewn to flatness by the primacy of the Project’s thesis."
Cracked wall.

The Danger of a Single Origin Story

The 1619 Project and contested foundings.
by Emily Sclafani via Perspectives on History on February 9, 2022 
A high-school history teacher cautions against an emphasis on origins, and explains what's wrong with pitting 1619 against 1776 as the date of the nation's "true founding."
Left: stacks of The 1619 Project books; right: Daryl Michael Scott.

Grievance History

Historian Daryl Scott weighs in on the 1619 Project and the "possibility that we rend ourselves on the question of race."
by Daryl Michael Scott, Kevin Mahnken via The 74 on March 22, 2022 
Historian Daryl Scott worries that the 1619 Project could be a step backward for the teaching of history, arguing that it
"doesn’t talk about Black people so much as it talks about what white people did to Black people."
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