The 1619 Project—The New York Times Magazine's much vaunted series of essays about the introduction of African slavery to the Americas—will now be taught in K-12 schools around the country.
...
Many historians, though, have questioned The 1619 Project's accuracy. Five of them penned a letter to The New York Times expressing dismay "at some of the factual errors in the project and the closed process behind it." These historians said the project's contention that the American Revolution was launched "in order to ensure slavery would continue" was flat-out wrong.
Another historian, Phil Magness of the American Institute for Economic Research, has criticized Matthew Desmond's 1619 Project essay, which claimed that modern American capitalism has its roots in plantation slavery. Magness has persuasively argued that this claim lacks verification, and that Desmond relied on bad data about cotton-picking rates in the pre-Civil War south.
...
Some conservative critics have overreached: Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called The 1619 Project "propaganda" and suggested that the Times was trying to brainwash readers. That line of attack goes too far, but there are valid criticisms of the project's ideological slant.
...
"Mandating the use of The 1619 Project in K-12 curricula is at best
premature until these issues are resolved and the Times makes a good faith effort to answer its critics," Magness tells Reason. "While there is merit to some of the themes raised by The 1619 Project, it continues to be marred by its empirically debunked and explicitly anti-capitalist assessment of the economics of slavery."
...
More:
https://reason.com/2020/01/28/1619-p...ublic-schools/
Connect With Us