1619 Project: New York Times Magazine Publishes Special Edition Dedicated to American Slavery and Its Legacies

Last week, the New York Times Magzine published a special edition entirely dedicated to exploring the history of American slavery and how its ongoing legacies. 

This month is the 400th anniversary of the arrival of over 20 enslaved Africans to Virginia, then a British colony. As the special edition notes:

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

The powerful collection includes essays by historians, poets, columnists, a variety of academics, and more. Below is a list of articles included in the special edition. 

Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true, Nikole Hannah-Jones

In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation, Matthew Desmond

We asked 16 writers to bring consequential moments in African-merican history to life. Here are their poems and stories.

Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery — and are still believed by doctors today, Linda Villarosa

America holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some people deserve more power than others, Jamelle Bouie

For centuries, black music, forged in bondage, has been the sound of complete artistic freedom. No wonder everybody is always stealing it, Wesley Morris

What does a traffic jam in tlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot, Kevin M. Kruse

Why doesn’t the United tates have universal health care? The answer has everything to do with race, Jeneen Interlandi

Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. Both still define our criminal-justice system, Bryan Stevenson

The sugar that saturates the American diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery, Khalil Gibran Muhammad

 A vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions and exclusion, separates black and white America, Trymaine Lee

Their ancestors were enslaved by law. Today, they are graduates of the nation’s preeminent historically black law school, Djeneba Aduayom

Four hundred years after enslaved Africans were first brought to irginia, most Americans still don’t know the full story of slavery, Mary Elliott and Jazmine Hughes

‘We are committing educational malpractice’: Why slavery is mistaught — and worse — in American schools, Nikita Stewart