1619 Project 'Read Along' hosted with Nikole Hannah-Jones at Howard Law
Howard Law School recently hosted a '1619 Project Read Along' with Nikole Hannah-Jones on November 20.
'I do believe [America] was founded as a white supremacist, settler colonialist nation,' Hannah-Jones asserted.
Howard University School of Law in Washington D.C. recently hosted a “1619 Project Read Along” with Nikole Hannah-Jones on November 20.
The event’s purpose was to discuss the first chapter of “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story,” according to a Howard University News Release.
It was the first of six events in a series titled “The 1619 Project Read Along: A Classroom Without Walls.”
The event page invited attendees to join “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones...to explore democracy through the lens of The 1619 Project, the award-winning reframing of American history that placed slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative.”
Jones states on her website that “[i]n a country built on racial caste, we must confront the fact that our schools are not broken. They are operating as designed.”
[RELATED: NYT’s 1619 Project will ‘set the tone’ for the school year at Massachusetts college]
In the lecture, Jones presented her idea that rather than our country being a democracy it was instead an “ethnocracy” until 1965, “a democracy for white people.”
Later in the lecture Jones further elaborated on her ideas that America was founded with racists roots, stating, “I do believe [America] was founded as a white supremacist, settler colonialist nation.”
[RELATED: Professors tweet about how they are using the ‘1619 Project’ in class]
For the alleged problem of America’s anti-democratic character, Jones’ proposed solution is to “make voting easy.”
She further criticized the electoral college, arguing that anything that prevents easier voting is problematic.
Questioning the concept of patriotism, Hannah-Jones went on to state that “clearly Black people have a very conflicted relationship with our country.”
“For too long we have allowed white conservatives to define what patriotism looks like,” she added.
Campus Reform reached out to Nikole Hannah Jones and Howard Law School for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
