Recently, my colleague Jacqui Tricarico joined me down in Atlantic City for the New Jersey Education Association.

Jackie did a whole range of important interviews, bit this one you're not gonna wanna miss.

It's with Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones.

She discusses the 1619 Project.

You don't know what 1619 means?

You don't know why the 1619 Project is so important?

This conversation with Jacqui and Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Check it out.

- Hi, I'm Jacqui Tricarico.

On location at the New Jersey Education Association's Annual Convention here in Atlantic City.

And I am so pleased to be joined by Pulitzer prize winning journalist, and creator of the 1619 project, Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Nikole, thanks for so much for taking the time to speak with us today.

- Thank you for talking to me.

- Well, first, can you help us understand the significance of the year 1619 here in America?

- Sure.

So 1619 is the year that the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in the colony of Virginia.

So we really marked 1619 as the advent of American slavery.

- And the 1619 project, the project itself, this beautiful book that you've created with the help of a lot of other people, a lot of other journalists and poets.

Talk about the project, and how it's being incorporated into school curriculums across the United States.

- Sure.

So the 1619 project is a series of essays as well as, as you mentioned, pieces of poetry, and pros that really makes the argument that slavery is foundational to both American history, and the legacy of slavery has shaped so much of our modern society.

So, all of the essays are around something in modern America with its roots in slavery.

And so the way that educators have used it, it's just been in a myriad of ways.

It's been used in social studies to bring a kind of deeper understanding about the legacy of slavery, but also to help students understand why their communities look like they do right now.

It's been taught in English classes, and literature classes where students are learning argumentation, and using it to create their own poetry or fiction.

It's been used in art classes, and we also have an entire education network.

It's called the 1619education.org.

And there you have cohorts of teachers across the country who are engaging in their own big projects in the classroom.

- That's amazing, and of course with so much that is being praised, there is opposition, and it's one of the most banned books I heard throughout the United States.

Banned books, that's a phrase we're hearing a lot of as of recent.

Talk about just the danger of banning books.

- Absolutely.

So if we believe that we are a free society, then we know that free societies don't allow government to prohibit speech, ideas or texts simply because people in government don't like them.

But that's actually a very dangerous thing.

And you're absolutely right.

PEN America, which is a free speech group that tracks these things says we're seeing more challenges to books, more prohibitions on texts than they've seen in at least 50 years.

And so it's a sign of a very, I think, dangerous sentiment in our society.

As of course everyone knows we are very polarized right now, and I think that certain politicians have seen the banning of books as a way to, to ignite opposition, to score points politically, and to really divide Americans from each other.

So I just think we know that if we saw book bans in Cuba, or Saudi Arabia or China, we would understand that that is actually not a sign of a healthy free society.

So we need to be pushing back on those bands here in the United States as well.

- And politically, yes, but we're also seeing a lot of influence coming from parents and caregivers, right.

We're seeing these school board meetings that are becoming viral, a lot of debate about what can and can't be on the bookshelves, and their children's schools.

And you talk about in the beginning of your book being a young girl and not seeing yourself so much represented on,- - That's right.

- On those shelves in the library.

How important or how influential should parents and caregivers really be in terms of what's in schools?

Shouldn't we leave that up to the educators?

- Absolutely.

So, so one, to be clear polling shows that the majority of Americans including the majority of, of parents, oppose book bans.

And I think it is perfectly fine for an individual parent to say "I don't want my child exposed to this text."

I don't think it's okay for parents to say what every other parent child should be exposed to.

And that's where the problem is.

So, we send our children to schools to be educated by professionals for a reason because there are professionals who create curricula, there are professionals who understand what texts are proper and appropriate for students.

And I really do think we should leave that to the professional educators that we charge with educating our children.

But also, as you said, so many of these bans, and books that are being challenged, our books that speak to the experiences of marginalized children, of children of color, of trans-children, of children who might be struggling with identity, and they deserve to see themselves in the texts that are being taught.

But also all of us become more tolerant when we're learning texts about people whose identities are different than ours, and whose histories and stories are different than ours.

- Yeah.

Understanding other people helps us become better people and better human beings.

- A better society.- - Yeah, absolutely right?

- We have to stop taking such a stingy view of our fellow Americans, and actually believe that it is a good thing for our children to learn, and be challenged in their views.

- And I wanna talk about something in the book too that I saw that I know you've talked about the photo of your father from 1960, he served in the US Army.

Talk about him and just how much of an influence he's had on you and your career.

- Absolutely.

So my father was born on cotton plantation, in Greenwood, Mississippi during a time when Black Americans did not have rights of citizenship.

And I think that's important because we tend to think about this as a very distant history, and it's not a distant history.

And so I, I really began the entire book with this story of my dad flying this American flag in our front yard, and me being very conflicted as a black child about why a man who wasn't treated equally by the society would want to show that type of patriotism.

And so the book really grapples with that.

And, and it's a tribute to my dad who said, you know, black people have played a really unparalleled role in shaping our society, and fighting for liberty in our society.

And no one should be able to take that legacy from us.

- And on our programming, we often talk about democracy at our crossroads, and democracy in peril.

In your view, are we in peril?

Because I know during your talk today at the convention and what you, one of your messages to educators is that 1619 isn't just the past, it's the present.

Describe that.- - Absolutely.

Yes.

I think we are in peril.

We have a significant proportion of Americans who are willing to give up on democratic practices, who don't believe in fair elections anymore, who think that if they lose that those elections aren't fair that they don't have to concede.

I think that that's very frightening, and that all of us no matter what our political views, we don't want to be a country where every election result is challenged, where our democratic institutions are being attacked.

Because I do believe that democracy is what guarantees our freedom.

And certainly a journalist- - And you're right.

And you're referencing January 6th, right?

- That's right.

- And, and we're still feeling the repercussions from that.

Are we not as a society?- - Of course.

Right, like what, we have to question a society that leads to January 6th, and then the efforts really by one political party to downplay that we had an insurrection on our capital, and an effort to overturn a fair election in the United States.

This is something that we tend to think of as happening in other countries, but scholars of democracy say that this is a sign that our democracy is in decline.

I will say I was heartened by the results of this election we just had because it seems like, at least the majority of Americans, are saying we actually do believe in democracy.

And so democracy is living to fight another day, but how much democracy we have is ultimately determined by us.

- Right as we're taping in the beginning of November right after the midterm elections, and the results speak for themselves, I think.

And lastly, being the keynote speaker today here at the convention, what was your overall just main message to educators here in New Jersey?

- My overall, I think I had two messages.

One, it's been extremely tough to be a public school educator in the last few years.

Dealing with the pandemic, and then the anti critical race theory, a propaganda campaign, you know, threats against teachers, teachers losing their jobs, teachers being afraid that if they teach the wrong thing, they'll get in trouble.

So I just wanted to really show my appreciation as a public school graduate whose life was deeply influenced by public school educators, that, that we are on their side, and that we're so grateful for the work that they do.

And the second message was really that we have to teach these challenging histories to our students that we are actually robbing our children of necessary information that they need to understand their world, and to create the world that they want if we don't grapple honestly with our history.

And New Jersey is a state that is really through the public schools with the Amistad curriculum and other curricula trying to do that.

So I just wanted to encourage, and say how important that was both to me when I was a student, and to all of the children in the state.

- Education is power.

And if you want to learn more about the significant date year in our history, 1619 pickup Nikole Hannah-Jones book, best seller book, the 1619 project.

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us, Nicole, such a pleasure.

- Thank you.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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