What is The 1619 Project? Trump threatens funding for schools if they use it

President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to defund schools if the U.S. Department of Education finds they’re using The 1619 Project in their curriculum.

Trump’s threats were in response to a tweet from an unverified account claiming California implemented the project, an initiative from The New York Times Magazine to tell the country’s history through the experience of Black Americans, in its public schools. It’s unclear if that’s the case or who runs the account.

“Department of Education is looking at this,” the president tweeted in response. “If so, they will not be funded!”

Trump’s tweet comes days after he ordered federal agencies to halt racial sensitivity trainings that involved critical race theory or discussions of white privilege — deeming them “un-American propaganda.”

It also follows Trump’s previous denial that systemic racism exists in the United States, per CNN, his calling a Black Lives Matter sign in New York a “symbol of hate” and threats, per Politico, to withhold funding from jurisdictions that “disempower” or “defund” police departments.

What is The 1619 Project?

The initiative seeks to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative,” according to the New York Times Magazine.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the staff writer who the magazine credits with coming up with the idea for the project, won a Pulitzer Prize for her work in May.

The project started in August 2019, which marked 400 years since the first slave ships arrived in America.

“In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists,” reads a description of the project. “No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.”

It started as a New York Times Magazine special issue that contained essays about aspects of American life today that stem from slavery and its aftermath — including mass incarceration and rush-hour traffic, according to the NYT Magazine’s explanation of the project. It also included 17 “literary works that bring to life key moments in American history” created by “contemporary” Black writers who chose events on a timeline of the last 400 years.

The Pulitzer Center later partnered with the project to develop education materials based on the project for teachers and schools. Lessons are available online.

Pushback from conservatives, historians

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, in July introduced a bill to ”prohibit the use of federal funds” to teach the curriculum in schools. The bill would also make schools that teach it ineligible for federal professional-development grants. It’s unlikely, however, to “gain any significant traction,” CNN reports. <added any to hyperlink

The project has also faced criticism from a few historians, who in November sent the Times a letter, which was later rebutted by the editor, arguing there were factual inaccuracies, The Atlantic reported.

But other historians who refused to sign onto the letter debated whether it was “intended less to resolve factual disputes than to discredit laymen who had challenged an interpretation of American national identity that is cherished by liberals and conservatives alike,” per The Atlantic.