Slavery's Legacy

Amid a tense moment in racial relations, an ambitious — and controversial — journalistic endeavor known as The 1619 Project places slavery at the center of U.S. history. The goal, wrote the editors at The New York Times Magazine, which commissioned and published the project, is to chronicle slavery's impact on capitalism, education, health care and many other American institutions. Defenders of the project say it will help heal long-festering wounds by educating Americans about systemic racism and the true role of slavery in the nation's founding and development. But conservative critics deride the effort as left-wing propaganda and say the project threatens an origin story told for generations. Many historians, meanwhile, praise The 1619 Project but say it excludes other historical factors and contains some errors, such as stating that the colonists fought the American Revolution to preserve slavery. They hope the controversy over the project will raise public consciousness about slavery's legacy and evoke fresh questions about how to teach history.