On October 6, 2020, the National Association of Scholars called on the Pulitzer Prize Board to rescind the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Nikole Hannah-Jones for her essay, “The 1619 Project.”
Hannah-Jones claimed that a primary motive for the American
Revolution was to protect the institution of slavery. (Good for capitalism.) The National Association
of Scholars points out this is “a claim for which there is simply no evidence.”
Hannah-Jones asserted that the “true founding” of the United States was in 1619, when the first ship arrived at Jamestown with about 20 slaves from Africa. She maintained that “our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written,” since at the center of our founding was slavery.
Historians have called out the falsehoods of "The 1619 Project" since its publication. Even the World Socialist Web Site denounced “The 1619 Project” early on as a “racialist falsification of American and world history.”
The National Association of Scholars, in their October 6
letter to the Pulitzer Prize Board, declared the essay is “disfigured by unfounded conjectures and
patently false assertions.”
Why should this fabricated "new version" of history concern us? Because "The 1619 Project" is used in public schools.
Newsweek magazine reported September 7 that “every high school in the [Chicago] district will receive 200–400 copies” of “The 1619 Project” as a "resource to help reframe the institution of slavery, and how we're still influenced by it today." Other public schools share Chicago’s enthusiasm. Click here.
Are public schools in your area using “The 1619 Project?”
Check it out. If the answer is, “yes,” let the Superintendent and School Board know about the action of the National Association of Scholars. Send them this link to the NAS letter:
https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/pulitzer-board-must-revoke-nikole-hannah-jones-prize#_ftn3
Urge them to pull "The 1619 Project" from the curriculum, so our public schools are not passing on false information to unsuspecting, trusting students. It leaves lasting bad impressions when teachers present false "history" as truth.
Passing on a knowingly apocryphal story to students as legitimate history is, frankly, immoral.
Another re-write of U.S. history used in public schools and universities is Howard Zinn's, A People’s History of the United States. It’s the “bible” of U.S. revisionist history. It’s a Critical Theory "gem" that helps explain why so many young people hate the United States and see it an evil empire needing to be brought down.
It explains a lot.
More next week.
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