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The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story Paperback – 8 October 2024
by Nikole Hannah-Jones (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 14,425
A dramatic expansion of one of the definitive journalistic events of recent years- The 1619 Project, The New York Times Magazine's award-winning reframing of the American founding and its contemporary echoes, placing slavery and resistance at the centre of the American story.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project- A New American Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR- The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, Marie Claire, Electric Lit, Ms. magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country's original sin, but it is more than that- It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.
The New York Times Magazine's award-winning "1619 Project" issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself.
This is a book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation's founding and construction-and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life.
Featuring contributions from- Leslie Alexander Michelle Alexander Carol Anderson Joshua Bennett Reginald Dwayne Betts Jamelle Bouie Anthea Butler Matthew Desmond Rita Dove Camille Dungy Cornelius Eady Eve L. Ewing Nikky Finney Vievee Francis Yaa Gyasi Forrest Hamer Terrance Hayes Kimberly Annece Henderson Jeneen Interlandi Honoree Fanonne Jeffers Barry Jenkins Tyehimba Jess Martha S. Jones Robert Jones, Jr. A. Van Jordan Ibram X. Kendi Eddie Kendricks Yusef Komunyakaa Kevin Kruse Kiese Laymon Trymaine Lee Jasmine Mans Terry McMillan Tiya Miles Wesley Morris Khalil Gibran Muhammad Lynn Nottage ZZ Packer Gregory Pardlo Darryl Pinckney Claudia Rankine Jason Reynolds Dorothy Roberts Sonia Sanchez Tim Seibles Evie Shockley Clint Smith Danez Smith Patricia Smith Tracy K. Smith Bryan Stevenson Nafissa Thompson-Spires Natasha Trethewey Linda Villarosa Jesmyn Ward
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Nikole Hannah-Jones
NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. She has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius grant, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times. Hannah-Jones also earned the John Chancellor Award for Distinguished Journalism and was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists and the Newswomen's Club of New York. In 2020 she was inducted into the Society of American Historians and in 2021, into the North Carolina Media Hall of Fame. She was also named a member of the prestigious Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2016, Hannah-Jones co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of reporters and editors of color. She holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina and earned her BA in History and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame.
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From Australia
Lamiya Bata
5.0 out of 5 stars Important | heartbreaking | A must readReviewed in Australia on 13 January 2022
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This is a phenomenal book- coming from someone who predominantly reads fiction. It provides a critical analysis of North American history and answers a lot of questions about why the USA is the way it is in present day.
It is heartbreaking to read at times. But it would be a disservice to the enslaved people to look away from their story, a story that isn’t often told or given its due respect.
P.s. the 1619 podcast is exceptional too!
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From other countries
John
5.0 out of 5 stars The book explains how thing have come to be.Reviewed in Canada on 16 September 2024
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Full of history about slavery in America and how this influences all of us to this day. A must read for every citizen.
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Liv
5.0 out of 5 stars BOOK: The 1619 ProjectReviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 June 2024
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Great, book. Very insightful!
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Patrick C. K.
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best I have read.Reviewed in Italy on 30 October 2023
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This is one of the best books I have read. Full of history, compassion, suffering, hope and triumphs. As many already stated in the reviews, this should be required reading for students (rather than banned as it is in some schools that were forced to do so by their state governments).
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Andreas
5.0 out of 5 stars Wichtiger Beitrag zum Verständnis der US-amerikanischen Geschichte und GegenwartReviewed in Germany on 28 December 2021
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Viele setzen den Beginn der US-amerikanischen Geschichte auf das Jahr 1776, den Sieg über die Kolonialmächte, die Verfassung. Das 1619-Projekt datiert den Ursprung der USA zurück auf die Ankunft des ersten Schiffes, gefüllt mit afrikanischen Sklav*innen zur Ausbeutung im beginnenden amerikanischen Wirtschaftssystem. Was Nikole Hannah-Jones im NY Times Magazin begann, liegt nun ausgearbeitet als Buch vor. Wie brisant das Projekt ist, zeigt sich auch an den heftigen Gegenreaktionen des konservativen Lagers in den USA, das mit Macht versucht, den Einsatz des 1619-Projekts in Schulen zu unterbinden.
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matthew a. barrett
5.0 out of 5 stars If it's BANNED, it must be DAMN GOOD!Reviewed in the United States on 8 April 2022
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"Would America have been America without her Negro people?"
–W.E.B. Dubois
In exposing our nation’s troubled roots, the 1619 Project challenges us to think about American exceptionalism that we treat as the unquestioned truth. It asks us to consider who sets and shapes our shared national memory and what and particularly who gets left out.
Ana Lucia Araujo writes in Slavery in the Age of Memory, “despite its ambitions of objectivity,” public history is molded by the perspectives of the most powerful members of society. And in the United States, public history has often been “racialized, gendered and interwoven in the fabric of white supremacy." Yet it is still posed as objective.
This critique is not to imply that this generation of America's white citizens are personally responsible for slavery, or to suggest that the current generation of whites are ALL racist. Instead, this serves as a historical analysis of legal violence, subjugation, legal discrimination, and terrorism performed on behalf of white supremacist ideology. The 1619 Project provides a diagnosis and proposes a cure to the chronic illness of anti-black racism that continues to plague this country through hostile policy and hostile institutions.
Academically crafted, the text unpacks America's history in accordance with American law with the addition of statements from a number of the country’s leaders, and other relevant documentation to make its case. In addition, Nikole Hannah Jones has assured that the data is present to match her argument as further evidence of a prolonged intentional injustice that has evolved into modern day abstractions designed with similar malicious intentions. She and an all-star cast of writers layout the causes and effects of policy that has placed us at this current racial reckoning moment in the US, in which many had claimed to be post-racial after the election of Barack Obama.
The very fact that numerous Republican states have made united efforts to ban this book is a testament to censoring voices that offer productive solutions that sincerely attempt to lead to a more perfect union. A union that is unapologetically braggadocious about its freedom of speech. That is until it's time to deconstruct what is implied to "Make America Great Again?"
For who?
When was it great?
Why was it great?
... Are just a few of the questions that entangles mythology with reality for the sake of political aims. The 1619 Project disrupts that line of thinking by arguing on behalf of so much human potential made to unreasonably suffer because of primitive debunked logic that has not improved the lot of the country as a whole.
Included are poems, photographs, and essays that argue, humanize, question and romanticize moments in Black American history. Also included, is relentless pain, suffering and ridicule, yet Black Americans continue believing in the idea of democracy truly fulfilled one day for all Americans. And it will require an authentic moment of truth and reconciliation from us all to get there.
A truly monumental book!
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diemg
5.0 out of 5 stars Now I understand the origins of Black Lives MatterReviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 June 2022
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I thought I understood the history of slavery and emancipation in USA - I do now. From the first Africans landing in 1619 who worked on the land and created the first houses to the 21st century when their descendants continue to live in the poorest areas and have less prospects than white kids with less academic achievements Project 1619 describes the continuing shame of Black discrimination. Black discrimination that means reparation for indigenous people, Japanese interned during WW2, and Holocaust survivors, but not for the descendents of Black slaves who provided the free labour that generated wealth. A must read for anyone that truly wants to understand the fight for equality, that has precipitated the Black Lives Matter movement.
(If reading on kindle, Don't be put off by "time to read" as half of this book is acknowledgements and references)
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Aalah
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye Opening ReadReviewed in Canada on 22 July 2023
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A pivotal piece of American history that explores slavery at its core and the long-term repercussions that are still prevalent today. It is gritty, truthful and well researched. An eye opening lesson in Black history.
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Marketa M Harvey
5.0 out of 5 stars goodReviewed in the United States on 31 December 2024
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It is a good book about history in America
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Andrew Parr
5.0 out of 5 stars Important for eveyone!Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 December 2021
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This is probably one of the most important books of the Century so far. It shines a new light and perspective on the origins of America by weaving separate works of fact, fiction and art to place slavery at the centre of the narrative that is American history.
It uses additional material to that first published in the New York Times magazine to create a document that anyone wishing to better understand America and American history needs to include on their list of "must read" information.
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Angie
5.0 out of 5 stars Arrived as promised
Reviewed in Canada on 4 March 2022
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Satisfied with my purchase
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Fr. Ronald Lemmert
5.0 out of 5 stars A true conscience pricker
Reviewed in the United States on 29 July 2024
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I just finished reading Nikole Hannah-Jones' outstanding book THE 1619 PROJECT. As a white male who grew up in a small Midwestern town in the 1950's, I was spared from the horrors of racism, but my awareness has gradually evolved over the years. I still remember my mother reading Uncle Tom's Cabin to me when I was recovering from mumps in Kindergarten, and we cried over the way people were treated -- back then. A few years later, I became aware of segregation, but that was Down South. We didn't have any of that up here, or so I thought. When I was older, we moved to a city, where black people lived on the North side and the rest of us lived on the South side. My only contact with them was when their high school's football team slaughtered ours. But then Martin Luther King came to town and showed how housing and school boundaries were manipulated in order to keep the races separate, not just Down South but up here. As an adult, I have heard about attempts at restitution for the gross injustices caused by slavery and the immense damages to their descendants that have persisted to the present time, but I was not convinced that such a thing would be feasible after all of these years. Even after reading this book, I still cannot see how that could be done, but I am now convinced that if we truly believe in justice, we have a moral obligation to find a way to make this happen. Thank you, Nikole Hannah-Jones for helping my mind to continue to evolve, and I hope many more people allow this well documented book to prick their consciences enough to do something to right this wrong. Rev. Ronald D. Lemmert
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Ricardo Mio
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it and weep
Reviewed in the United States on 31 May 2023
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His name was Thomas Dartmouth Rice, a New York entertainer who performed under the stage name of T. D. Rice. In 1828, Rice had been a nobody actor in his early twenties, touring with a theater company in Cincinnati, when he saw a decrepit, disfigured old Black man singing while grooming a horse on the property of a white man whose last name was Crow. "On went the light bulb," writes Wesley Morris, one of several authors who composed essays for "The 1619 Project". "Rice took in the tune and the movements but failed, it seems, to take down the old man's name. So in his song, the horse groomer became who Rice needed him to be."
"Weel about and turn about jus so," went his tune, "ebery time I weel about, I jump Jim Crow."
With that, this white man invented the character who would become the mascot for two centuries of legalized racism in America.
Morris continues: "That night, Rice made himself up to look like the old Black Man, or some such thing like him, because for this getup, Rice most likely concocted skin blacker than any actual black person's; he invented a gibberish dialect meant to imply Black speech, and he turned the old man's melody and hobbled movements into a song-and-dance routine that no white audience had ever experienced before. What they saw caused a sensation. The crowd demanded twenty encores.
"Rice had a hit on his hands," continues Morris. "He repeated the act again, night after night, for audiences so profoundly jolted that he was frequently mobbed during performances. Across the Ohio River, a short distance from all that adulation, was Boone County Kentucky, which was largely populated by enslaved Africans. As they were being worked, sometimes to death, white people, desperate with anticipation, were paying to see a terrible distortion of the enslaved depicted at play."
With that, a new form of entertainment was born, involving hundreds of white actors who, like T. D. Rice, night after night, on stages across America, would blacken their faces and perform song-and-dance routines, skits, and gender parodies. Writes Morris; "Its stars were the nineteenth-century versions of Elvis, the Beatles, and 'N Sync."
Film critic Wesley Morris is among the ten writers who wrote an essay for "The 1619 Project". All of these writers are graduates of mostly Ivy League universities; many are professors, and journalists who contribute regularly to a number of big-city newspapers, notably the New York Times. Under the creative leadership of journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New Times helped developed "The 1619 Project", beginning with an article it ran in an August 2019 issue. With help from ten contributors, "The 1619 Project" was compiled into a book. On May 4, 2020, the Pulitzer Prize was awarded to Ms. Hannah-Jones for her introductory essay.
The book is considered by some to be controversial because it challenges conventional U.S. history, beginning with the year 1619 when the first enslaved Africans were brought to America and sold into slavery. Indeed, the book has been banned in some state schools, notably in Florida. According to Florida governor, Ron Desantis, the book was banned because it made students "uncomfortable." Without question, the book will make you uncomfortable, as the slavery story--of African Americans working from sun-up to sun-down in the stifling heat of the southern states, without pay and with no chance of escape--is painful to read. On top of that it doesn't speak well of the Europeans who settled this land, and employed slave labor to work the fields of their southern plantations, which made them rich.
Today, those of European descent are called "whites" and those of African descent are called "blacks". Neither term existed when the first Africans were brought here. The labels were later applied to differentiate between the two races, making the ruling whites out to be good God-fearing Christians, and the blacks as little more than beasts of burden, deserving of their fate. People still use these labels, not realizing they are artificial and have no bases in anthropology.
It should be noted that "white" slavery existed in the American colonies before Africans arrived. For "white" workers, it was enslavement that lasted only for seven years. At the end of seven years, the enslaved worker would be set free. It was how many Europeans got here; they were mostly impoverished people who could not afford to pay for passage to America. To get here they agreed to serve their benefactor for seven years as payment for the ocean journey.
On the other hand, Africans were bound and brought here against their will, were then whipped into submission, and destined for a life-time of slavery. If they managed to escape (as some did), when caught, they would be put to death. For the unfortunate African slave, it was a life without hope.
However uncomfortable this makes readers feel, it's important to learn about this particularly ugly part of American history, rather than to downplay it, as some have, by deny its veracity.
And there's more. After reading about the inhumane treatment of African-American slaves, you'll learn about things you thought you knew of the inhumane treatment of indigenous Americans, which will make you equally uncomfortable.
As bad as this is, it's how American enslavers, who called themselves Christians, justified their actions based on a few selected passages in the Old Testament. They did this while conveniently ignoring the New Testament, in particular Christ Jesus' precepts in the Sermon on the Mount, the Apostle Paul's "Ode to love", or John's revelation, that "God is Love", not to mention Moses and the Ten Commandments (every commandment of which slave masters repeatedly broke). If nothing else, had enslavers only followed Christ Jesus' Golden Rule, they never could have lived with themselves, nor enjoyed the ill-gotten fruits they were enjoying from the sweat of African-American slaves.
You'll also learn how the Founding Father's justified slavery, while waging a war to free themselves from the perceived tyranny of England's King George III. Several of the more enlightened Southern Founders, relieved their guilt by believing that slavery would eventually die out on its own, as it had in the Northern states. Take for example Thomas Jefferson, who brilliantly crafted The Declaration of Independence.
Like other plantation owners he wasn't prepared to release his slaves from bondage. He was counting on gradual emancipation to somehow solve the problem for him. What no one seemed to have considered at the time, was the vastly greater number of slaves living in the south as opposed to the few slaves who lived in the north, and that the south--particularly the Deep South--was still importing African slaves while the northern workforce was filling its depleted ranks with immigrant European free labor.
Years later, when it was clear that southern slavery was not fading away but spreading into the western territories, Jefferson grew alarmed. In his final years, it awoke him, as he put it, "like a fire bell in the night," filling him with terror. He believed the two races could not live together in harmony. Once freed, Jefferson believed the former slaves would take revenge on their former captors. "We have the wolf by the ears," he lamented, "and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go."
The good news in this book, is that they could free them without fear of reprisal, as witness the horrific violence that struck the A.M.E. Church in South Carolina, in 2015, by a white supremacist named Dylann Roof. Roof entered the Black church and opened fire on a Bible study group. The group included Clement Pinckney, both pastor of the church and a state legislator.
What was striking to many observers was the speed with which some of the families were willing to forgive Roof. They told him so at his bond hearing just days later. "I forgive you," said Anthony Thompson, whose wife was killed. "My family forgives you." The daughter of Ethel Lance, who was also killed, told Roof, "May God forgive you. And I forgive you." That Sunday, Reverend Norvel Golf, Sr., told the congregation, "We still believe that prayer can change things . . . prayer not only changes things, it changes us."
When the slaves were freed after the Civil War, it was not African Americans who attacked their former enslavers (as Jefferson had feared), but the former enslavers who attacked African Americans. Often they would hide their true identity cloaked in white gowns and white hoods (as the Ku Klux Klan) and wait until the cover of night to attack: burning down homes, businesses, and churches, and from their farms stealing livestock, wagons, plows, and other valuables.
These white marauders reserved their worst punishment for any black man suspected of looking on a white woman. The authors point out that this fear was in fact projection on the part of white men, who, as enslavers had a long history of raping back women.
The good news in this book is how African-Americans embraced Christianity, despite having never been taught to read (learning to read and write was outlawed in most southern states). How did this happen? Learning to understand and love the Bible, was a long process that had begun when some unknown enslaver decided his slaves needed to learn Scripture to save their souls, and began reading tracts from the Bible (but not stories from Exodus that told of Moses leading the Hebrews out of slavery and into freedom.) From this meek beginning, African-Americans learned Bible stories by heart, and put the words into songs, which they would sing in the cotton fields all day long, which would give them a certain amount of relief. These songs evolved into what would become known as Gospel Music, and eventually Blues and Jazz, and in our century, Rock 'N' Roll, Soul, and Hip Hop.
Also discussed is their influence on American cuisine, cuisine that tended to be bland. They enlivened it with an imaginative use of herbs, spices, and peppers. They did it by making use of pigs feet, knuckles, rib meet, and other cuts of pork and beef that their white enslavers deemed as unfit to eat.
As much as Black Americans strived to be accepted, and to participate in American democracy by simply voting, they struggled to achieve this goal through much of the twentieth century, despite faithfully fighting in two world wars, only to return home to find nothing of substance had changed. It wasn't until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, that meaningful change began to take place. It was evident, first by the success of a number of black entertainers, college professors, and black businessmen, and culminated in the election of the first Black man to he elected president in 2008.
Still the struggle is not over, as Obama was succeeded by a white supremacist in 2016. Also Black Americans find themselves still targeted by white police officers, and being stopped for DWB (driving while black), that continues to be a real problem if your skin is black.
Fittingly, Ms Hannah-Jones concludes her book with a chapter entitled "Justice", from which I have excerpted the following paragraph:
"The efforts of Black Americans to seek freedom through resistance and rebellion against violations of their rights have always been one of this nation's defining traditions. But the country had rarely seen it this way, because for Black Americans, the freedom struggle has been a centuries-long fight against their own fellow Americans and against the very government intended to uphold the rights of its citizens. Though we are seldom taught this fact, time and time throughout our history, the most ardent, courageous, and consistent freedom fighters have been Black Americans."
- END -
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LenZen
3.0 out of 5 stars Better than the Magazine; Some Good Essays; Analysis Could be Better
Reviewed in the United States on 12 December 2021
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This collection of essays is definitely an improvement over the magazine edition. Nikole Hannah-Jones (NHJ) seems to be responding to criticism of the original by taking more reasonable stances on many issues and, as such, this book is likely to find broader acceptance. The essays are of variable quality. Some are merely okay with others going all the way up to excellent. There is definitely some interesting history to be learned here, for example the history of music starting with slaves songs and up to the present day.
Unfortunately, however, there are some persistent problems throughout the book:
- Anecdotes are often presented without much discussion of how typical they were and if they can really be said to have had a major impact on black people's relative status today. For example the effects of a lynching on one highly successful black businessman and his descendants are described in detail. The intent of the chapter seems to be to imply that lynchings had a great affect on present day black inequality overall. At the same time it is mentioned that from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Era there were about 6500 lynchings. As horrific as the crimes were is that really enough to have had a big impact on economic inequality overall?
- Statistics are often presented which show disparities between black and white people with what seems to be an implicit assumption that the cause must be the legacy of slavery leading to ongoing racism to this day but with no real evidence that racism is really the cause. For example it is mentioned that white people who shoot black people are 20 times more likely to be found to be acting in self defense than black people who shoot white people. Is this a consequence of racist stand your ground laws and prejudicial juries? That is possible but it would take a deeper analysis than merely stating the inequality, that juries were prejudicial in the past and hence that must be what is still going on today.
- The book often mentions things occurring today that seem to have only things slightly in common with the slave era. The traces of commonality are assumed to be evidence that no real progress has been made. There is often no discussion of different orders of magnitude of the underlying problems. An example of this is "voter suppression" which is a common topic in the book. Since black people were, indeed, subject to real voter suppression during the Jim Crow era does that mean that any voting restriction now, even as basic as requiring id, is evidence that we are sliding back into the Jim Crow era? Actual data needs to be presented and the orders of magnitude compared. Recent studies, have, in fact shown that the problem was exaggerated and at that point Democrats slowed down on the issue.
Three of the main criticisms of the original magazine edition were
- it incorrectly stated that a major motivation for the American Revolution was the colonist's fearing that Britain would take away their right to own slaves;
- the portrayal of Lincoln was not balanced; and
- there was a statement that black people in the US generally had to fight their struggles alone.
Regarding motivations for the Revolution NHJ does not admit she was wrong but rather proposes a convoluted explanation that the colonist really did fear losing their right to own slaves. The explanation makes no real sense but she may succeed in obfuscating sufficiently that new readers do not care and merely skip over thinking "yeah, I guess she just means the Dunmore Proclamation". Citing the Proclamation makes no sense since the Proclamation was issued after the colonies were already in rebellion and the slave provisions could have been negotiated away if the colonists had wished to reconcile and cease hostilities with Britain.
Regarding Lincoln things are better: NHJ genuinely succeeds in her goal of presenting a more nuanced view of the man.
Regarding black people standing alone, NHJ mostly side steps the issue. It seems to still be her feeling that the struggle was mostly alone: for example the book discusses the role of the black AME church in black people's struggles but not how white evangelicals were key players in the rise of abolitionism. Her final view is left in little doubt when she describes the 2020 George Floyd protests as atypical since, this time, many white people stood alongside black protesters.
Also along the lines of taking a more reconciliatory tone NHJ seems to make a special emphasis on showing that black people love Americans ideals. Indeed this is her final and one of the most powerful sentences in the book. She mentions her father proudly flying the American flag despite racial prejudice he had endured throughout his life and she admits it took her some time to understand why someone who had endured that could still love the country.
NHJ mentions high enlistment rates among black people in various wars as displaying love for the country despite all the wrongs doled out to black people. Although quite moving some further analysis is needed here for NHJ to solidify her case that black people are the most patriotic and American of all Americans. For example, were the higher enlistment rate due merely to lower relative wealth? It is a sad fact of American history that the draft has been corrupt all the way from the Revolution through to Vietnam with poor people ending up being less likely to avoid service. Were black people all revved up and eager fight due to being more patriotic or were they just victims of the corruption? More data is required to decide and NHJ does not get into the discussion.
NHJ also states that black people are the greatest believers in American ideals. By this she seems to mean equality. One thing she does not discuss is to what extent capitalism is an American ideal and what black people's attitudes toward it are. It's possible that capitalism is, in fact, not a core American ideal. Jefferson, in particular, seems to have dreaded the day when yeoman farmers would inevitably turn into factory workers as "free land" ran out. It would be nice if NHJ had written more about black people's attitudes toward capitalism and whether this brings their patriotism into question rather than side stepping the issue.
One nice thing to see in this book was Michelle Alexander joining NHJ in seeing the 2020 George Floyd protests as something different and a cause for hope. In her book The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander had joined the likes of Derek Bell (father of CRT) in thinking things would never get better for black people in America. Now she has some hope.
NHJ ends the book on the subject of reparations and argues that economically things have not gotten better for black people. She cites statistics showing the same income and wealth disparities now as in the 1950s. This is certainly interesting but something I wished she had dove into more. Have the disparities been constant since the 1950s? She implies that black people were hit particularly hard by the subprime crisis. I am guessing the money printing in the aftermath has also been a big factor in growing inequality. It would be nice to see the details of economic inequality overtime so solutions can be discussed rather than just seeming to say "nothing ever gets better except that maybe these George Floyd protests will lead to a move toward reparations".
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Ann T
5.0 out of 5 stars Book
Reviewed in the United States on 25 December 2024
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This was a Christmas gift and the person loved it and want more book
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BJR
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read
Reviewed in the United States on 28 December 2024
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Tell the truth
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Jason Galbraith
5.0 out of 5 stars A Sledgehammer of a Book
Reviewed in the United States on 27 August 2022
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Four months after acquiring it I have finally finished "The 1619 Project." In 18 chapters this book makes obvious that "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Leguin was explicitly based on our own society in that the wealth and comfort of the majority is made possible by the suffering and degradation of African-Americans (rather than a single individual as in that story).
I read this book as part of a (mostly Unitarian Universalist) book group. As the book emphasizes, capitalism came out of racism and is sustained (at least in America) by racism. I am thus an anti-racist first and a socialist second (as the necessary logical consequence of the first).
Probably the most devastating part of the book is the fiction and/or poetry written from a Black perspective that separates each chapter from the next. The earlier examples from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries illuminate the fact that the revolting slaves of those centuries were indeed the first anti-fascists as white supremacy is the cornerstone of fascism. Without white supremacy private property would have taken a completely different form at least in the English-speaking world and might not be considered properly an unlimited right by our legal system.
The last 2 chapters (by Ibram X. Kendi and Nicole Hannah-Jones) are probably the best. Chapter 17 by Kendi is entitled "Progress." It is important to note here that Kendi is not denying that progress is real, or that the people who made it possible should be celebrated, but rather that incremental progress will ever be enough. Indeed, to focus on the progress we have made is to bolster the overarching racism of society generally through complacency.
Chapter 18 by Hannah-Jones is entitled "Justice," which is what the rest of the book leaves one longing for. There have been many different proposals for reparations for slavery and Jim Crow, some more meritorious than others. I look forward to discussing in particular Bernie Sanders' 10-20-30 plan with the book group; but Hannah-Jones, who was denied tenure at an elite majority white university because of her contributions to the 1619 Project even before it became a book, is more specific than most about what form reparations should take. If they take the form of black-only UBI, the right response is not to resent black people, but their enslavers and other oppressors throughout American history (who incidentally made most other Americans at least during the 20th century rich by global standards).
Sadly, few people not predisposed to be critical of American society will finish this book and many existing critics (like the boycotting members of the book group) will suspect that it attacks the wrong problem and refuse to read it on those grounds. Read this book if only to prove that you are afraid of nothing. Five and a half stars.
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David W. Drake
3.0 out of 5 stars The Good, The Bad and the Alternatives
Reviewed in the United States on 11 March 2023
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The GOOD: If nothing else, this book reminds us European-Americans that African-Americans have as much or more right to call America home than we do. African-Americans have been here since the beginning; the US abolished importation of enslaved Africans in 1808, well before immigration of most Europeans to the US began. So if anyone should go “back to where you came from” it’s European-Americans, not African-Americans.
This book has lots of good information about the African-American experience with European-Americans and the US government and if you read it you will learn a lot.
The BAD: 1. Professor Hannah-Jones, the lead author and creator, wants to persuade the government to grant reparations to the families of the formerly enslaved. Unfortunately, her style aggravates rather than persuades. I found myself pausing at just about every assertion she makes to check her citations. She’s not going to catch many flies with her vinegar. 2. The discussion of capitalism by Matthew Desmond, a European-American sociologist and proponent of “the New History of Capitalism” widely misses the mark. But you cannot accuse him of being a Marxist because if he’d read Marx he’d know that slavery is a species of feudalism, a pre-capitalistic mode of production. Phillip Magness addressed this in his short book “The 1619 Project: a Critique” which by and large supports the’ take on history in this book while refuting Professor Desmond’s treatment of capitalism. 3. The book fails adequately to address the role of the US Democratic Party in the shameful treatment of African-Americans by the government of the US. Over and over, certain actions were said to be taken by “white men”, a “group of white men”,etc. On page 424, Professor Ibram X Kendi credits Republicans with abolishing Black Codes, reconstructing southern states and extending civil and voting rights to Black men; but “in another step toward inequity, lynchings and Jim Crow reconstructed white supremacy and rescinded some civil and voting rights by the 1890s.” Democratic lynchers and politicians assisted by their paramilitaries the KuKlux Klan and Red Shirts reconstructed white supremacy by “redeeming the south” from Republican—largely African-American—governments. Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D Roosevelt—the post-Civil War Presidents who did the most harm to African-American aspirations (the latter by signing legislation written by southern Democrats requiring red-lining in home loans and denial of federal benefits to African-Americans in new federal government programs leading directly to the structural racism we have today) are rarely or never described as Democrats in this book. I am not a Republican—“neither party is mine, not the jackass nor the elephant”. But a history that denies the role of the Democratic Party in the history of the US is like Milton’s Paradise Lost without Satan.
The Alternatives: one of the reviews above asked what would be an alternative to this book. The best is The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, the last and best of the autobiographies of this former slave and newspaper publisher, writer and speaker. He lived this history and describes it more eloquently than a person of the 21st century can. A supplement would be the PBS series and books by Doctor Henry Louis Gates,Jr., particularly “The African-Americans: Many Rivers to Cross”. I agree that reparations should be made to African-Americans not only for slavery but for their shameful treatment following the Emancipation Proclamation and continuing today. But reparations cannot just take the form of writing checks. W. E. B. Du Bois said in “Black Reconstruction” that following Emancipation, the Freed People wanted two things above all: land and education. Adequate forms of both those were denied them. Are we creative enough to figure out how to provide them?
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Bman
5.0 out of 5 stars Came on time. Was in great shape.Book took alot of heat when it came out but the truth does that.
Reviewed in the United States on 6 November 2024
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Can't wait to start reading this.The truth is always more interesting!
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Bahamamama
5.0 out of 5 stars History has consequences
Reviewed in the United States on 1 November 2024
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This book outlines the truth even if it hurts.
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From other countries
R. E. Conary
5.0 out of 5 stars The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story is a worthy augment of American HistoryReviewed in the United States on 20 April 2022
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"The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story" is a well-researched and well-written eye-opener that should be part of any American History curriculum at least from fourth grade on if not earlier.
In her opening preface, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes “I was maybe fifteen or sixteen when I first came across the date 1619” and learned that on August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia and were bought by the English colonists.
Sadly, and somewhat embarrassingly, I didn’t learn that either until the New York Times Magazine first published “The 1619 Project” in 2019. It definitely wasn’t taught during my school years in the 1950s and 60s in Southern California. In fact, Jamestown wasn’t very prominent in my history classes as I recall, nor was black enslavement before the Civil War deeply covered.
Back then, I learned more about how Blacks were treated in American history as a latchkey kid watching TV afternoon movies like “Slave Ship” (1937), “Pinky” (1949), “Home Of The Brave” (1949) and “Edge Of The City” (1957) than I did in school.
Those same afternoon movies also taught me that America wasn’t always great nor did it always live up to its ideals. “Bad Day At Black Rock” (1955) showed me that the families of the two Japanese-American girls I knew from 1st through 8th grades had been interred in American concentration camps simply for their race and denied their rights as citizens. “Northwest Passage” (1940) taught that the British during the French and Indian wars (we were British America then) committed biological warfare by giving Native Americans smallpox infested blankets.
American history is fraught with injustice to minorities or those standing in the way of so-called “American progress”: near genocide of Native Americans; enslavement of Blacks; anti-Mormon violence (Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State.”); anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, anti-Chinese, anti-Jew, anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim, anti-labor, anti-anybody but “we red-blooded, right-thinking, god-fearin’, true ’mericans. Yowzah!”
The ideals expressed in the "Declaration of Independence" and guaranteed by the "Constitution of the United States" can never come to full fruition without American History telling the complete story, warts and all. "The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story" is a good first step.
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Samuel H. Burr Jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a very good book that a lot of negative energy has been pointed at, hoping it won't be read.Reviewed in the United States on 21 August 2023
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I just finished the book "The 1619 Project" which was excellent. It is my hope that people who have heard nothing but negative things about the book and project would be adventurous and read it. I think the vast majority would be surprised and wonder about all the negativity surrounding the book. Hopefully, it might open minds to see how people will try to inflame passions and divide us by creating "bogey" men in order to preserve cruel mythologies that continue to harm people. All this to say that near the end of the book is a great quote: "We can't change the hypocrisy upon which we were founded. We cannot change all the times in the past when this nation had the opportunity to do the right thing and chose to return to its basest inclinations. We cannot make up for all the lives lost and dreams snatched, for all the suffering endured. But we can atone for it. We can acknowledge the crime. And we can do something to try to set things right, to ease the hardship and hurt of so many of our fellow Americans. It is one thing to say you do not support reparations because you did not know the history, that you did not understand how things done long ago helped create the conditions in which millions of Black Americans [and Native Americans and other people of color] live today. But you now have reached the end of this book, and nationalized amnesia can no longer provide the excuse. None of us can be held responsible for the wrongs of our ancestors. But if today we choose not to do the right and necessary thing, that burden is on us....If we are to be redeemed, we must do what is just: we must finally live up to the magnificent ideals upon which we were founded."
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Michael Haas
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent compendium of information.Reviewed in the United States on 16 October 2024
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Well written chapters on many important topics.
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Martha S. Cohen
5.0 out of 5 stars Mixed Feelings,Mixed ThoughtsReviewed in the United States on 27 March 2022
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I chose this rating because the book changed the way I think about American history and the way I feel about it. This is the first time I have ever written a review of any book I have read, and I read all the time. I am a white-skinned American Jewish woman, a retired psychologist who is facing poverty in a few years because of decisions I made in ignorance and because of thousands of dollars I was conned out of or robbed of by people I considered family-by-choice. I may get some of it back. I live in a senior community that was all white until recently, and I greeted the new black resident saying, “I’m so glad you are here; this place has been too white.” My grandparents immigrated from Poland and Russia. I have many identities .White is the one I was mostly holding as I read this book, but I don’t consider it a major identity. Other identities that got activated were: female (I had the thought that women could claim reparations for all their unpaid labor in building this country), Jewish (white nationalists do not consider Jews to be white, but black people consider me white), American (the more history I learn the more I have mixed feelings. I ask myself “Are there any major nations that have not committed atrocities in their pasts?” “Are the European countries who profited from the slave trade also morally obligated to pay reparations “), a New Yorker (one of the first questions I am asked in the senior community where I now live is about where I am from) a Minnesotan (I was born and raised in Brooklyn, but I have lived in Minnesota since 1980), a clinical psychologist, an intellectual, a senior. I could go on.
The book is well written and its arguments are backed by research. There were chapters that were painful to read, but had to be read and understood. There were chapters that were illuminating. I think it is a major contribution to our understanding of American history and what it means to be an American.
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karen bond
5.0 out of 5 stars ExcellentReviewed in the United States on 7 October 2024
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Excellent book i found alot of things I didn't know
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Michael Scott JP MP
5.0 out of 5 stars Our HistoryReviewed in the United States on 16 August 2024
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Professor Hannah-Jones Book is a vital and important document review and insight into the history of our time and the black peoples lived experience especially the underpinning of the American economic miracle born of 18 century Black energy innovation and creativity and the lived experience of the Baldwinesq "after times"
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Michael Gryboski
3.0 out of 5 stars Mostly accurate history, questionable narrativeReviewed in the United States on 12 November 2022
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Ever since it was first launched by The New York Times Magazine in 2019, "The 1619 Project" has been a controversial endeavor. As someone with a master's in American history, I just had to see what the book version would be like.
The lengthy series of essays and other writings from several authors vary in quality and validity. Some of the works read just like the peer-reviewed and (mostly) objective works I read for my college education.
To that point, the "Dispossession" chapter was written by Tiya Miles, who actually wrote one of the books I was required to read for my master's.
Others are more partisan in their interpretations. The "Fear" chapter was laden with one-sided descriptions of recent high-profile self-defense killings, while the "Healthcare" chapter did a poor job trying to link Jim Crow era opposition to government healthcare to more recent anti-Obamacare activism.
A few chapters spoke of the Three/Fifths Compromise as being pro-slavery, even though Frederick Douglass himself supported the measure, viewing it as weakening slave states' influence on Congress.
The "Music" chapter claimed that blackface minstrelsy was the first truly American form of entertainment, ignoring the many examples that predated such performances, among them the literary works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, and James Fenimore Cooper.
The book also could have been better organized. The chapters "Healthcare" and "Medicine" should have either been consecutive or combined into one, but instead they were 60 pages apart. "Dispossession" and "Inheritance" should have been adjacent, but instead were chapters 5 and 11. This created an awkward flow for the overall narrative, making it at times feel directionless and redundant.
Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote the final chapter (titled "Justice"), which argued for slavery reparations. As with other pro-reparations arguments, it failed to address the fact that past instances of the U.S. government issuing reparations went to people who actually suffered injustice, not their descendants. It also omitted any mention of the large amounts of public money that have gone to economic assistance programs designed to bolster predominantly / historically African-American communities. Granted, they're not overtly reparations, but aren't they basically the same idea?
Errors and partisan biases notwithstanding, most of "The 1619 Project" has decent historical value, as it exhaustively details the many ways that racism has shaped American culture, from the Antebellum Era into the late 20th century. Many of the arguments about modern influence are too plausible to be outright ignored.
Ultimately, the debate still remains as to what extent America is defined by its well-documented history of white supremacist racism. Is it our "original sin", a mere "thorn in the flesh," or is it something more fundamental to our identity? All cities have crime, but only some cities get the dubious distinction of being "crime-ridden." Is the USA a racist country or just a country that has racists?
It is obvious from the onset what stance the authors of this book take on the question. Whatever shortcomings may exist in their arguments, they are nevertheless arguments worth reading.
31 people found this helpfulReport
Richard Middleton
5.0 out of 5 stars This will change the way you think!Reviewed in the United States on 20 January 2024
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It's hard for people like me, not born in the US, to really comprehend how deeply the country has been affected by its tumultuous past, and how much of that history is still very influential today. In fact, even many people born here seem oblivious to a degree. So this collection of essays is an essential corrective. Some critics say that the essays are not invariably historically accurate - but that is not the point! If the person you are talking to believes them to be accurate, then that is an attitude you need to comprehend if your conversation is to be in any way productive. Healing the present appalling divisiveness cannot be achieved by suppressing thought, shouting down people you disgree with, or by banning books from libraries. It can only be done by struggling to understand where the other person is coming from, and accepting that as a basic foundation (whether accurate or misconceived, it doesn't matter) for opening more constructive channels of communication. I think this book is vital background reading for all of us in the patronising majority.
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R. Trosper
5.0 out of 5 stars Required ReadingReviewed in the United States on 14 May 2022
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There is no way to really understand American history without understanding the foundational role of Black Americans and their enslavement by White Americans. Things to learn include the shift in thinking that can come simply by a change in vocabulary. One wouldn’t think that changing from slaveholder and slave to enslaver and enslaved person would be that big a deal … but it is. One is passive, the other active. Washington, slaveholder doesn’t convey the same thing as Washington, enslaver. Enslaved person continually reminds you that someone, the enslaver, is holding that person in bondage. They are not some lesser being or other kind of human, they are a person with human rights who is being forcibly enslaved. Forced labor camp, not plantation. Other things I didn’t know : they had to change the law to make being enslaved hereditary through the mother so the enslaved could be created by forced breeding including rape by the white enslaver. If status came from the white father you’d be breeding free people. The 2nd amendment was created so Southern states could keep their militias to put down slave rebellions, not to arm the citizenry to repel foreign invasion. Militias were a threat to the new Federal government, not a help. Slave trading increased after importing slaves was outlawed; it became internal trading. Sugar was as big a deal as cotton. There is much , much more. One note: because the book is a collection of essays there’s a good deal of repetition. If you already know at least some full history of the US , including Indigenous as well as Black, you may be slightly annoyed by it. It’s a trade off between coherence of each essay and repetition. I would hope a future edition might coalesce things and both shorten and make the book more seamless and be one good thing, not a bunch of good things.
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Bill
5.0 out of 5 stars Timely deliveryReviewed in the United States on 18 September 2024
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Easy reading
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JerWinners
5.0 out of 5 stars InformativeReviewed in the United States on 18 September 2024
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Very Informative
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Susan L. Stone
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read Book for All AmericansReviewed in the United States on 8 August 2022
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A huge thank you to Nikole Hannah-Jones and all of her collaborators for what may be the best book I’ve ever read. It is THE BEST history book for sure. With all of the awful, distressing events that have made the news in the last few years (and probably lots more that didn’t), it is good to finally know the truth of our country’s history. It’s only taken 61 years after my last high school history class to find out that what we were taught in Southern California schools was fairy tale propaganda that looked through lenses that did not include black or native American in their color spectrum. This is a scholarly work that does a very effective job of presenting the truth of both our history and our present. The book has made me understand why it is that so many white Americans don’t want their children to learn about slavery - anyone who reads this book will feel bad, if they have even half a heart. But I think that at least starting in middle school that the information in this book should be included in history classes - I believe that not only can the children handle the information when it is presented well, it will help them to see our country differently and to be okay with making the changes we need. In my opinion, this is a book that every American should read.
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Rachel
5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth the time and money.Reviewed in the United States on 23 August 2024
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I purchased this book as a gift.To see the person's face light up was well worth the search and money.
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Ardy
5.0 out of 5 stars An essential American history book for all to read and understand.Reviewed in the United States on 8 December 2021
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Humanity, empathy, compassion and America's historical short-comings as she struggles through democracy and the institution of slavery is overall a subject that is near and dear to me. THIS BOOK should be on everyone's bookshelf, honored and read! I wished the publisher sent a copy to every single U.S. Senator, Representative, member of the Supreme Court, state Governors and election protectors, school committee members, and schools across this nation. Defying that this is factual, historical and essential to read and internalize, process and understand, is tragic. I regret that there are people that do these things, and sadly some are our own political and governmental leaders and of course their followers. For that, I am worn out, exhausted and overwhelmed. I know someone is going to read my review and some will say that I am some "wanna be" WOKE person. Really? Is that what Americans are thinking of their neighbors? Reading this is not a social media faux pas. I don't use Facebook or Twitter anymore. I want to drink all history within this brilliant author's findings and the publisher's commitment and passion, and research the research. That is what we all should do. I have waited to buy this for a couple of years. Happy to have this book. I ask myself why isn't this sold out? Shouldn't it be? DEMOCRACY MATTERS/FACTS MATTER/HISTORY MATTERS. It came fast from the seller, once I bought it and it is in brand new condition, just as described with a protection jacket. My Christmas present to my husband and me for 2021.
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Better than anticipated!!
5.0 out of 5 stars History is Essential for the development and growth of this country and history.Reviewed in the United States on 4 July 2024
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There is nothing more important and essential than knowing history. As a country we must be open to the lessons of the past in order for us to move on and become what the founding fathers believed we could be.
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Lexi Lawrence
5.0 out of 5 stars History catch upReviewed in the United States on 7 August 2023
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Being a 23 year old black indigenous woman in America I learned a lot, cried a lot, and found the truth that resonated with me because the book helps black people understand the realities and reasons for why the country is the way it is and even though we came a long ways, the justification for it is knowing the truth. I’m thankful for the truth and our ancestors who fought and tried to go after their legacies in this cruel America because for that it let’s me know exactly what we as black people are up against, in the banking system, racial system and life in America as black people. It tells it all and it’s a must read. I recommend to brace yourself for the worst and find hope in the best of the wins you will find in this book. Brace yourself because it took me two weeks to heal from the atrocities that took place. Brace yourself and protect yourself and learn from these ways because you will definitely need it as you discover the truths. It’s painful but necessary and I recommend it to everyone.
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Miss M
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent ReadReviewed in the United States on 26 May 2024
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I purchased the book because this speaks to our current moment In this country. It is thought provoking. This book was received on 1 May 2024, If I am not mistaken. Delivery was great. I discovered after I rated the book cover upper right was torn. If I wanted a used book or whatever, would have purchased one.
God help me.
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KATHY BROWN
5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE IT!Reviewed in the United States on 30 August 2024
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My mother loved it
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Cori W.
5.0 out of 5 stars I feel late to the partyReviewed in the United States on 15 August 2024
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But late is better than never! Absolute must-read for all Americans.
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