‘ slide my ring finger from enegal to outh arolina & feel the ocean separate a million families.’

From a poem on the Middle Passage by Clint Smith. Read more original literary works created for the 1619 Project.

hat does a traffic jam in tlanta have to do with segregation? uite a lot.

Essay by Kevin Kruse

hy doesn’t the nited tates have universal health care? he answer begins with policies enacted after the ivil ar.

Essay by Jeneen Interlandi

lavery gave merica a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. oth still define our prison system.

Essay by Bryan Stevenson

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he sugar that saturates the merican diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery.

Essay by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining, evictions and exclusion, separates black and white merica.

Essay by Trymaine Lee

Their ancestors were enslaved by law.

Today, they are graduates of Howard Law School.

Photo essay by Djeneba Aduayom; text by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Wadzanai Mhute

re-education is necessary.

ost mericans still don’t know the full story of slavery. his is the history you didn’t learn in school.

By Mary Elliott & Jazmine Hughes

‘e are committing educational malpractice’: hy slavery is mistaught — and worse — in merican schools.

By Nikita Stewart