Iowa native Nikole Hannah-Jones speaks about democracy, the '1619 Project' and what's next
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Waterloo native and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones is scared about next week's elections, but she said her fears as well as hopes for the future are rooted in more than 400 years of history.
Hannah-Jones spoke Wednesday evening with two Iowa State University faculty members at a crowded Stephens Auditorium in Ames about "The 1619 Project" she created in collaboration with essayists, academics, artists, journalists and historians.
The 1619 Project — which first published in 2019 in The New York Times Magazine and last year was released as an expanded book and children's book companion — argues for the centrality of the institution of slavery and Black Americans' contributions in shaping American life and being foundational to American democracy, from when the first known enslaved Africans were brought to what would become the U.S. in 1619 to the present.
"This is a time when courage is in short supply," Hannah-Jones said of the present, with states such as Iowa having passed legislation that restricts the teaching of certain concepts in public schools and voters in many states next week having options on their ballots that include candidates who have either questioned or renounced the outcome of the 2020 election without providing evidence.
"I'm extremely scared about what's going to happen next week," Hannah-Jones said, as she encouraged people to "vote for the America of our highest ideals."
The 1619 Project itself has become a source of political contention since its release. Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Orange City, last year introduced a bill to ban curriculum that grew out of the project.
The bill did not pass, but another bill did that targets critical race theory, a decades-old legal theory that examines how slavery's legacy continues to influence American society. That's not specifically named in the law, but the law bans teaching certain concepts such as that the U.S. or Iowa is systemically racist.
Republican critics have characterized the 1619 Project and critical race theory more broadly as divisive, distorting of facts and indoctrinating.
Iowa State is hosting at 6 p.m. next Wednesday a lecture by James Lindsay, sponsored by the university's chapter of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom organization, titled "Critical Race Theory is Marxism" at Memorial Union's South Ballroom.
Hannah-Jones said Wednesday readers of the 1619 Project buy its argument or they don't, but it challenges their world view. She said the project is a work of journalism that was not intended to be comprehensive, does not mean to be a replacement for the origin story of America focused on the ideals embodied in the nation's founding documents or any other American origin story, and seeks to grapple with harsh truths that a 1776-focused narrative does not.
She said she doesn't know that origin stories can be unifying, but "origin stories have to be inclusive" and help us understand the society we live in today.
More:What you need to know about the 1619 Project and its creator, native Iowan Nikole Hannah-Jones
"The truth cannot destroy us," Hannah-Jones said. "We have the ability to be a freer society."
There are no easy, personal-level fixes for structural problems in society, she said of inequities in incarceration, health care access, education and poverty. She advocated for people to call their elected representatives about support for legislation to fix those issues, including race-specific investments such as reparations for slavery that aim to address past race-specific investments in hurting people and communities.
Hannah-Jones has found many people, no matter their political identity, do not have an interest in supporting those kinds of solutions, but she said she is encouraged by so many Americans showing willingness to learn about and grapple with the nation's history.
She told educators to "do what you are in the classroom to do," adding: "You have to be free to do the work you are charged to do in the classroom," but that can only be done with a community's vocal support.
Hannah-Jones said it's "always good to be home." She's frequently in Iowa, with the second semester of an afterschool "1619 Freedom School" literacy program in Waterloo having started this fall — a program she launched with four other Black women, all natives of Waterloo.
Her future also includes the ongoing production of a six-part 1619 Project documentary series that she said will air next year on Hulu and ABC, as well as a read-along that is providing six chapters of the project for free online at 1619books.com.
Phillip Sitter covers education for the Ames Tribune, including Iowa State University and PreK-12 schools in Ames and elsewhere in Story County. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com. He is on Twitter @pslifeisabeauty.
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones talks democracy in Ames
