Nikole Hannah-Jones
An interview with a pragmatic journalist
Nikole Hannah-Jones set the literary and cultural world on fire with the publication of her 2021 book, The 1619 Project, a journalistic masterpiece that reframed the narrative of American slavery not as just a blemish on American history but as the very commodity that created America. There are two things that make it known how impactful this book is: First, it has been banned in several red-leaning school districts in several red states. Second, it has achieved the highest honor that any non-fiction, journalistic literary work can hope to achieve: Trump hates it! The President of the United States called Hannah-Jones ‘ work “warped”, “toxic propaganda”, and “ideological poison.” To prove this book is a must-read, Trump gave it an even higher rating when he threatened to cut federal funding to schools that used it in their curriculum.
During her visit to Denver in early spring, she received the Rachel B. Noel Distinguished Professorship Award at Shorter Community AME Church. I was afforded the opportunity, through my association with the Denver Urban Spectrum, to have a brief discussion with her for the record at a committee lunch at MSU Denver the next day.
I found her to be blunt without being rude. She was straight to the point, but measured and thoughtful in her delivery. Nikole Hannah-Jones, a day earlier, made it clear, in a church bursting with Christians and other people, that she was not a religious person. However, in this brief conversation, I found her honesty refreshing and more heartfelt than that of our political and community leaders who claim to be Christians. I came away from this interview in a state bordering on somberness. Maybe somberness is too strong a word, but let’s say I was not jumping for joy. Maybe that is the point. The words of certain people carry a lot of weight, and that can move people to action. The movement toward significant change is fueled by action and sacrifice.
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How do you respond to critics who challenged your claim that the Revolutionary War was influenced by the preservation of slavery?
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“I say read the revised chapter in the book. I went from one paragraph in the original essay that ran in the magazine, to several pages with many footnotes, and the case is even stronger than it was before. So, I always say, I debate on the page. If you want to know my response to that pushback, it’s in the book. I spent a lot of time revising that section. I spoke to a lot of experts, I read a lot more books, and the case is more solid now than it was before.”
Years from now, what impact do you hope The 1619 Project will have, and how do you think it will shape public understanding of American history?
“I’m a journalist. I try not to ever predict the future. I hope it will, I hope what the project accomplished is that date, 1619, will never again be in obscurity, that we have to grapple with the truth of our origins. I don’t know. I don’t know what to expect 50 years from now, frankly. We won’t even have an America 50 years from now, maybe.”
When people say “we’ve been through hard times before” as reassurance, how do you respond to that idea, and what perspective do you try to bring about struggle and survival?
“And that doesn’t mean anything because we can get through the hard times, but everybody didn’t make it through the hard times. I said people say all the time we’ve been through hard times before to diminish, I think, or they say it as inspiration. But I don’t actually think it’s that inspirational because at one, at some point, we shouldn’t have to keep going through hard times, and the fact that we’ve always had to struggle doesn’t mean that we should continue to have to struggle — even though we know how to struggle. But I also think it is important that when we say we survive worse, to acknowledge many of us didn’t survive, and many of us may not survive this. I’m like, always the voice of that pragmatism.”
Given your concerns about the current trajectory of the country, how do you think history should inform our response, and what kind of commitment might be required moving forward?
“It is going to get worse. I think we have to be very, you know, realistic and honest about where this country is going, that you know we’re seeing the largest attack on our rights that we’ve seen in a century. So that is where I think studying history is useful. We know how to fight this. There are people alive who can tell us how they fought it, but we also have to know that that struggle was a decades long struggle and it was often a violent struggle to maintain our rights. So, I think a lot of us are very comfortable, especially so many of us who were born into a nation where we already had these rights, are not prepared, I think for the battle ahead. I think we need to study history, and then we need to decide. You know, we have to put skin in the game. We have to. We have to be willing to make sacrifice.”
Video: Nikole Hannah-Jones
