shades fills you in

The 1619 Project is a retelling of American history, through the lens of slavery. In 1619, the first ship carrying slaves arrived at a Virginia colony. It was published with the help of The NYT

See The NYT’s page for the 1619 Project here

The project wasn’t universally loved. In The WSJ, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon Wood said the 1619 Project is “so wrong in so many ways” -- first and foremost in how inaccurate it is

The NYT defended itself, saying that its claim of 1619 being “the true founding” year was metaphorical

WaPo: The 1619 Project is more concerned with being political than being historically accurate

The Atlantic admitted the 1619 Project may be pessimistic, but said history is all interpretation, anyway

The NY Post disagreed: It is factually wrong. In fact, it’s slander

Well, writes a historian at Politico, even if the 1619 Project isn’t 100% historically accurate, it’s still valuable to our understanding of American history

But a WSJ Op said we shouldn’t think of this as all or nothing. We should teach the 1619 version of history to our kids, but they should learn the 1776 history, too

By the way, as a direct response to the project, The Federalist published the “1620 Project” -- it celebrates the history of the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth Rock. You can read it here