1619 Project - the Essays
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Our founding ideals of liberty and equality were false when they were written. For generations, black Americans have fought to make them true.
Whether they know it or not, today’s obstructionists are using a playbook developed long ago by the plantation elite.
In some of America’s most congested cities, roadways were designed to keep people “in their place.”
Slavery helped turn America into a financial colossus. And our economy is still shaped by management practices invented by enslavers and overseers.
Because it’s the sound of complete artistic freedom.
The nation’s first federal health care program served freedmen after the Civil War. From the beginning, white legislators argued it would breed dependence.
Our criminal justice system is still shaped by a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment born on the plantation.
How sugar became the “white gold” that fueled slavery — and an industry that continues to exploit black lives to this day.
It wasn’t just slavery but segregation, redlining, evictions, exclusion — and outright theft.
These Howard Law School graduates represent nothing less than their forebears’ wildest dreams.
In the N.B.A., the very term “owner” has come under fire, as players, most of whom are black, assert self-determination.