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mckennadowdle 's review for:
The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story
by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Wow, wow, wow. This book!!
This has been on my TBR list, and I finally listened to 1619, read by the complete list of authors with the main narrator being Nikole Hannah-Jones, and it is a MUST-read/listen. I left having gained a new, deeper perspective and with a deeper understanding of how slavery continues to disenfranchise black Americans generations later, as well as how it still impacts very real facets of our society today. Books like this are NEEDED in schools. I thought the authors (who are experts in their fields) did a phenomenal job at compiling all of the information and stories in an interesting and compelling way. While it was academic, it did not feel like a textbook. It was, many times, hard to listen to the horrors and injustices that have faced Black America from the time of its inception — but that is precisely why we should all read it.
1619 is a deeper dive into the 2019 New York Times Magazine under the same name. It is a wonderful eye-opening compilation of essays from the account of journalists, historians and poets telling the story of America’s founding, and how the legacy of slaves lives on today. Each essay explores topics including education, democracy, citizenship, healthcare and medicine, capitalism, church, and music to name a few.
The goal of this book is to reexamine the narratives that we have been taught and to provide a more accurate perspective of those narratives.
In the preface, Nikole writes:
“I was starting to figure out that the histories we learn in school, or more casually through popular culture, monuments and political speeches rarely teach us the facts, but only certain facts. In the United States few examples better reveal this than how we are taught about the foundational American institution of slavery.”
My experience reading/listening to this book and reflecting on my own education was on par with what she states above. In the public education system are taught a watered-down, white-washed version of our nation’s founding. It wasn't until taking specific courses in University that I was able to scratch the surface of a more accurate representation of our nation's history. For example, one thing I didn’t know was that one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from England was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. Again, this book is NEEDED.
I will purchase the physical copy of this book for my library and annotate it on the next re-read! I am eager to read more from Nikole Hannah-Jones.
This has been on my TBR list, and I finally listened to 1619, read by the complete list of authors with the main narrator being Nikole Hannah-Jones, and it is a MUST-read/listen. I left having gained a new, deeper perspective and with a deeper understanding of how slavery continues to disenfranchise black Americans generations later, as well as how it still impacts very real facets of our society today. Books like this are NEEDED in schools. I thought the authors (who are experts in their fields) did a phenomenal job at compiling all of the information and stories in an interesting and compelling way. While it was academic, it did not feel like a textbook. It was, many times, hard to listen to the horrors and injustices that have faced Black America from the time of its inception — but that is precisely why we should all read it.
1619 is a deeper dive into the 2019 New York Times Magazine under the same name. It is a wonderful eye-opening compilation of essays from the account of journalists, historians and poets telling the story of America’s founding, and how the legacy of slaves lives on today. Each essay explores topics including education, democracy, citizenship, healthcare and medicine, capitalism, church, and music to name a few.
The goal of this book is to reexamine the narratives that we have been taught and to provide a more accurate perspective of those narratives.
In the preface, Nikole writes:
“I was starting to figure out that the histories we learn in school, or more casually through popular culture, monuments and political speeches rarely teach us the facts, but only certain facts. In the United States few examples better reveal this than how we are taught about the foundational American institution of slavery.”
My experience reading/listening to this book and reflecting on my own education was on par with what she states above. In the public education system are taught a watered-down, white-washed version of our nation’s founding. It wasn't until taking specific courses in University that I was able to scratch the surface of a more accurate representation of our nation's history. For example, one thing I didn’t know was that one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from England was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery. Again, this book is NEEDED.
I will purchase the physical copy of this book for my library and annotate it on the next re-read! I am eager to read more from Nikole Hannah-Jones.