It took The New York Times seven months to admit a problem with its 1619 Project — and even its correction preserves the fundamental lie of its bid to rewrite American history.
The 1619 Project, which puts the nation’s true founding in the year African slaves were first brought here, insists that “out of slavery grew nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional: its economic might, its industrial power, its electoral system.” The Post’s Twisted History series showed earlier this month how wrong this was — in particular, project lead Nikole Hannah-Jones’ claim that the American Revolution was fought primarily to preserve slavery.
Scholars of all political stripes from a variety of disciplines objected to Hannah-Jones’ essay immediately on its publication last August, especially this crucial line: “Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.”
That’s a lie, pure and simple, and the paper still hasn’t corrected it. It “made an important clarification,” in Hannah-Jones’ words. A new “editors’ note” explains, “A passage has been adjusted.” Namely, it added two words: The essay now says protecting slavery was the main reason “some of” the colonists fought to rebel from England.
Sorry: Preserving slavery was not a major motive for declaring independence, and next to no one fought in the war for that reason: The colonists didn’t think slavery was under threat, because it wasn’t.
In fact, the ideas behind the revolution also spurred anti-slavery sentiment. Many delegates condemned the practice on the floor of the Constitutional Convention, with New York’s own Gouverneur Morris calling it “a nefarious institution — It was the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed.”
Tensions over the abomination, so flagrantly at odds with the high phrase “All men are created equal,” put North and South at odds from the start.
After the change, Hannah-Jones tweeted, “In attempting to summarize and streamline, journalists can sometimes lose important context and nuance. I did that here.” No, you rewrote American history — and pushed to indoctrinate children with that lie. And you’re still lying.