Acton Line

Since debuting in the New York Times Magazine on August 14, 2019, the 1619 Project has ignited a debate about American history, the founding of the country, and the legacy emanating from the nation’s history with chattel slavery. The project’s creator and editor, Nikole Hannah-Jones, has described the project as seeking to place “the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.” Components of a related school curriculum have been adopted in major cities like Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Buffalo, New York. For her work on the project, Hannah-Jones was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. A book collecting all the essays debuted at number one on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in November 2021. Now, the 1619 Project has been reimagined as a television docuseries from Lionsgate and Hulu. But the project has also come in for heavy criticism from historians and economists of all political and philosophical persuasions for