ZImmerman approvingly quotes James Oakes’ awful analysis about the 1619 Project that “The worst thing about it is that it leads to political paralysis … If it’s the DNA, there’s nothing you can do. The pessimism in that view has been assailed by critics such as City University of New York historian James Oakes. Published in August 2019—400 years after the arrival of African slaves in Virginia—the project‘s essays took up almost the entire New York Times Magazine plus a ‘broadsheet” of African-American history prepared with the Smithsonian Institution. The pessimism in that view has been assailed by critics such as City University of New York historian James Oakes. During the weeks and months after the 1619 Project first appeared, however, historians, publicly and privately, began expressing alarm over serious inaccuracies. Last December, five historians—Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, Sean Wilentz, and James Oakes—took issue with the 1619 Project’s central and most contentious claim: that the nation’s founding date is not 1776 but a century and a half earlier. The fifth signatory, Sean Its stated goal was “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.” What is the 1619 Project? • Not 1619 but 1641: In Fact, the American Revolution of 1776 Sought to Avoid the Excesses of the English Revolution Over a Century Earlier • James Oakes on 1619: "Slavery made the slaveholders rich; But it made the South poor; And it didn’t make the North … The project is intended to offer a … It was a show-stopper. The New York Times’ 1619 Project entered a new phase of historical assessment when the paper published a scathing criticism by five well-known historians of the American Revolution and Civil War eras. The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke to James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, on the New York Times’ 1619 Project.Oakes is the author of two books which have won the prestigious Lincoln Prize: The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and … All this has occurred even as practicing historians expressed skepticism about the relative historical value of the Project. Those attitudes were prominently displayed in late December when five prominent historians – Victoria Bynum, James M. McPherson, James Oakes, Sean Wilentz, and Gordon S. Wood – wrote a letter to the Times to “express our strong reservations about important aspects of The 1619 Project.” [A] point we made in our response to the 1619 Project, is that it dovetails also with the major political thrust of the Democratic Party, identity politics. Seeking to discredit those who wish to explain the persistence of racism, critics of the New York Times’s 1619 Project insist the facts don’t support its proslavery reading of the American Revolution. The project argues that slavery was the defining event of … RE: The 1619 Project We write as historians to express our strong reservations about important aspects of The 1619 Project. Historian James Oakes (CUNY) interviewed about the NYT "1619 Project" Another illuminating interview; an excerpt: Q. The 1619 Project is a controversial collection of revisionist history developed by The New York Times to "reframe" American history exclusively around slavery and racism. One of the most talked about popular history initiatives of 2019 was the “1619” series on the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the “first slaves” at Jamestown, Virginia. They include James McPherson, Gordon Wood, James Oakes and Lincoln Richard Carwardine. James Baldwin makes the 1619 Project sound like Newt Gingrich. The Hidden Stakes of the 1619 Controversy from Boston Review. falsifications upon which the 1619 Project, launched in August, is based. The group included previous critics James McPherson, Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes, along with a new signature from Sean Wilentz. Beginning in October 2019, the World Socialist Web Site published a series of interviews with prominent historians critical of the 1619 Project, including Victoria E. Bynum, James M. McPherson, Gordon S. Wood, James Oakes, Richard Carwardine and Clayborne Carson. One of them, for example, is James Oakes, history professor at City University of New York who has won awards for some of his books on the conflict over American slavery. But they obscure a longstanding debate within the field of U.S. history over that very issue—distorting the full During the weeks and months after the 1619 Project first appeared, however, historians, publicly and privately, began expressing alarm over serious inaccuracies. My last post addressed the New York Times’ 1619 Project. The New York Times’ 1619 Project is currently undergoing a new wave of scrutiny, spurred on – curiously enough – by the political left. All of them specialize in the history of the Revolutionary and Civil War periods. James Oakes on What’s Wrong with The 1619 Project - #46-20200514 Movies Preview University professors James McPherson and Sean Wilentz were two of the five historians who sent a letter to The New York Times in December requesting corrections to its 1619 Project, igniting debates in national media and on Twitter over the role of slavery in American history. The letter acquired four signatories—James McPherson, Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes, all leading scholars in their field. L ast summer, the New York Times Magazine launched The 1619 Project on the 400 th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Jamestown. T he reviews of the 1619 Project are in.. Five distinguished historians of early America, Sean Wilentz and James McPherson of Princeton, Gordon Wood of Brown, Victoria Bynum of Texas State, and James Oakes … In August 2019, the New York Times Magazine launched The 1619 Project on the 400 th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Jamestown. In December, 2019, noted American history scholars Sean Wilentz, Gordon Wood, James Oakes, Victoria Bynum, and James McPherson sent a critique of … €€€This is the Times’ first public response to the interviews of four of the letter’s signatories, Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, James Oakes and Gordon Wood, in the World Socialist Web Site. Its stated goal was “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.” An interview with historian James Oakes on the New York Times’ 1619 Project Historians in the News tags: interviews , historians , James Oakes , 1619 Project The project argues that slavery was the defining event of … The 1619 Project argues that the systemic racism that is slavery's legacy remains deeply rooted in every American institution and is still an ever-present factor in the lives of Black Americans. ‎Steve and Corey talk to James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, about "The 1619 Project" developed by The New York Times Magazine. Over the course of the last month, an obscure socialist website landed interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning historians James McPherson and Gordon Wood, as well as noted Civil War historian James Oakes, to solicit their opinions on the Times’ series. It is “a very unbalanced, one-sided account.” It is “wrong in so many ways.” It is “not only ahistorical,” but “actually anti-historical.” Steve and Corey talk to James Oakes, Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, about "The 1619 Project" developed by The New York Times Magazine. The 1619 Project sought to “reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding,” due to the arrival in that year of 20 African slaves to a Virginia colony. On December 20, the Times Magazine published a letter that I signed with four other historians—Victoria Bynum, James McPherson, James Oakes, and Gordon Wood.