A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.
The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself.
This is a book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation’s founding and construction—and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life.
Author(s): Nikole Hannah-Jones; The New York Times Magazine; Caitlin Roper; Ilena Silverman; Jake Silverstein
Edition: ebook
Publisher: One World (Penguin Random House LLC)
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 624
City: New York
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Author's Note
A Note about This Book
Epigraph
Preface: Origins by Nikole Hannah-Jones
1619
The White Lion, poem by Claudia Rankine
Chapter 1: Democracy by Nikole Hannah-Jones
1662
Daughters of Azimuth, poem by Nikky Finney
1682
Loving Me, poem by Vievee Francis
Chapter 2: Race by Dorothy Roberts
1731
Conjured, poem by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
1740
A Ghazalled Sentence After “My People…Hold on” by Eddie Kendricks and the Negro Act of 1740, poem by Terrance Hayes
Chapter 3: Sugar by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
1770
First to Rise, poem by Yusef Komunyakaa
1773
Proof [dear Phillis], poem by Eve L. Ewing
Chapter 4: Fear by Leslie Alexander and Michelle Alexander
1775
Freedom Is Not for Myself Alone, fiction by Robert Jones, Jr.
1791
Other Persons, poem by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Chapter 5: Dispossession by Tiya Miles
1800
Trouble the Water, fiction by Barry Jenkins
1808
Sold South, fiction by Jesmyn Ward
Chapter 6: Capitalism by Matthew Desmond
1816
Fort Mose, poem by Tyehimba Jess
1822
Before His Execution, poem by Tim Seibles
Chapter 7: Politics by Jamelle Bouie
1830
We as People, poem by Cornelius Eady
1850
A Letter to Harriet Hayden, monologue by Lynn Nottage
Chapter 8: Citizenship by Martha S. Jones
1863
The Camp, fiction by Darryl Pinckney
1866
An Absolute Massacre, fiction by ZZ Packer
Chapter 9: Self-Defense by Carol Anderson
1870
Like to the Rushing of a Mighty Wind, poem by Tracy K. Smith
1883
no car for colored [+] ladies (or, miss wells goes off [on] the rails), poem by Evie Shockley
Chapter 10: Punishment by Bryan Stevenson
1898
Race Riot, poem by Forrest Hamer
1921
Greenwood, poem by Jasmine Mans
Chapter 11: Inheritance by Trymaine Lee
1925
Bad Blood, fiction by Yaa Gyasi
Chapter 12: Medicine by Linda Villarosa
1955
1955, poem by Danez Smith
1960
From Behind the Counter, fiction by Terry McMillan
Chapter 13: Church by Anthea Butler
1963
Youth Sunday, poem by Rita Dove
On “Brevity”, poem by Camille T. Dungy
Chapter 14: Music by Wesley Morris
1965
Quotidian, poem by Natasha Trethewey
1966
The Panther Is a Virtual Animal, poem by Joshua Bennett
Chapter 15: Healthcare by Jeneen Interlandi
1972
Unbought, Unbossed, Unbothered, fiction by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
1974
Crazy When You Smile, poem by Patricia Smith
Chapter 16: Traffic by Kevin M. Kruse
1984
Rainbows Aren’t Real, Are They?, fiction by Kiese Laymon
1985
A Surname to Honor Their Mother, poem by Gregory Pardlo
Chapter 17: Progress by Ibram X. Kendi
2005
At the Superdome After the Storm Has Passed, poem by Clint Smith
2008
Mother and Son, fiction by Jason Reynolds
Chapter 18: Justice by Nikole Hannah-Jones
2020
Progress Report, poem by Sonia Sanchez
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Notes
Contributors
Credits
