#517: The Backlash Was Coming
Two conversations with and two articles by Nikole Hannah-Jones
Hi there, Loyal Readers. Thank you very much for being here. This week’s issue focuses on the words of Nikole Hannah-Jones. Ms. Hannah-Jones is a reporter who covers racial injustice and who was the editor of The 1619 Project.
If you’ve subscribed to Article Club for a while, you know that I have deep respect for Ms. Hannah-Jones. Her articles have appeared here since this newsletter’s inception. I’ve attended her lectures, followed her tweetstorms, and defended her beliefs, especially when detractors criticize her as being controversial, cynical, and hopeless.
Over the last couple weeks, I’ve listened to Ms. Hannah-Jones share her perspective on what’s happening now in our country. In today’s issue I’m sharing two conversations: one with Wesley Morris and one with Michael Barbaro. If you’ve read The 1619 Project, I recommend starting with the first one. If you haven’t, I encourage you to start with the second one.
If listening isn’t your thing (don’t we read here, Mark?), then I have two classic articles by Ms. Hannah-Jones that are all-time must-reads:
Hope at least one of the conversations or articles resonates with you. Leave a comment if you want to share your thoughts. As always, thank you for your readership and your support of Article Club. If you appreciate the newsletter, I’d be honored if you shared it with a friend or colleague. Have a great weekend ahead!
1️⃣ Why History Feels Dangerous
In this conversation, Nikole Hannah-Jones talks about The 1619 Project, the racial reckoning of 2020, and the backlash ever since.
[At the time], there is this sense that Black creative culture was the center of the universe. It felt like a Renaissance. I remember us talking about everybody dressed up and went to see “Black Panther.” And it felt like this moment of possibility of creative power. But damn, it was brief.
We all knew the backlash was coming. And most of what happened in 2020 was performative, right? There was no reparations, none of those kind of societal or structural things that people were asking for. We got symbolic victories. And now, we’re being met with structural resistance.
I will end my career writing dissent, that is my future. And you understand that you’re writing for a future society. That dissents are not about today. Dissents are writing for a future society that will take that disssent, that will be ready for that dissent, and enact it.
By Wesley Morris • Cannonball • 71 min • Apple Podcasts • Transcript
2️⃣ Upending Sixty Years Of Civil Rights
In this conversation, Ms. Jones speaks with Michael Barbaro about the nadir of American race relations, the name Prof. Rayford Logan used to describe the time after Reconstruction. If you want a succinct summation of this era, this is it.
Reconstruction was really about ensuring that people who had been enslaved will now be able to access full citizenship in this country.
So we passed the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery, the 14th Amendment, which, for the first time, puts equal protection in the Constitution, no matter your race. The law has to treat you the same. It’s also what gives us birthright citizenship.
And we get the 15th Amendment, which ensures that you cannot be denied the right to vote based on your race. This is a period of time where the nation passes its first civil rights law, the 1866 Civil Rights Act, and that’s followed by the 1875 Civil Rights Act. It’s this remarkable period, because, literally, just a few years out of slavery, you have Black men who had been enslaved who are now serving in Congress. They’re in the Senate. They’re in the House of Representatives.
We have an integrated university in South Carolina. There’s integrated public schools in Louisiana. And you see this broad expansion of Black rights. And it probably seemed, at that moment, that progress was inevitable. But it wasn’t.
There was a tremendous backlash. You start to see efforts to make it harder for Black Americans to vote. So that’s where we get the grandfather clauses and poll taxes and literacy tests. Pretty soon, there are no Black people left in Congress.
Then you see things like Southern states that had integrated transportation and integrated neighborhoods start to pass laws of segregation to tell Black people where they could eat, where they could go to school, where they had to sit on a train. And the Supreme Court upholds that.
So we have this great expanse of rights. And then just as quickly, those rights, one by one by one, are removed. So we know that this country is capable of doing that.
By Michael Barbaro • The Daily • 40 min • Apple Podcasts
3️⃣ Democracy
This essay, which became the first chapter of The 1619 Project, is one I read with my students. Every year, they’re floored — because of the quality of the writing, and because of the clarity of the argument. Here’s my original blurb about the piece. It’s possible you haven’t read it yet! If not, there’s no better day than today.
In this brilliant essay, Nikole Hannah-Jones argues that 1619, not 1776, should mark the beginning of our nation’s history. Slavery, rather than the Declaration of Independence, more accurately explains the foundation of the United States. Despite their centuries-long subjugation, Black Americans have shaped our country’s experience, Ms. Hannah-Jones emphasizes. She writes, “Black Americans have been, and continue to be, foundational to the idea of American freedom. More than any other group in this country’s history, we have served, generation after generation, in an overlooked but vital role: It is we who have been the perfecters of this democracy.”
By Nikole Hannah-Jones • The New York Times Magazine • 29 min • Gift Link
➕ Remember when many of us devoted the better part of 2022 to read and discuss The 1619 Project?
4️⃣ What Is Owed
In December every year, I do a best-of issue where I highlight the four most powerful articles of the year. “Democracy” was named one of the best articles of 2019. “What Is Owed” was named one of the best articles of 2020. In the piece, Ms. Hannah-Jones argues that talk is not enough to heal the harm of slavery and racism. Neither is law, she writes. Reparations is the only path forward that will signify actual progress.
If Black lives are to truly matter in America, this nation must move beyond slogans and symbolism. Citizens don’t inherit just the glory of their nation, but its wrongs too. A truly great country does not ignore or excuse its sins. It confronts them and then works to make them right. If we are to be redeemed, if we are to live up to the magnificent ideals upon which we were founded, we must do what is just. It is time for this country to pay its debt. It is time for reparations.
By Nikole Hannah-Jones • The New York Times Magazine • 33 min • Gift Link
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