The founder of The New York Times’ 1619 Project has hit back at President Trump after he downplayed the historical legacy of slavery in the U.S. and called for a ‘patriotic curriculum’ to be taught at public schools. 

During his speech marking the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the Constitution on Thursday, Trump announced he will soon sign an order to promote patriotic education through an initiative dubbed the ‘1776 Commission’. 

The panel, he said, would be tasked with encouraging educators to teach students ‘about the miracle of American history’ and plan for the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

He argued that America’s founding ‘set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery’, but he did not mention how it went on for 246 years, including the 89 years after the 13 colonies declared independence from England.  

The new education initiative appeared to be an attack on The New York Times’ 1619 Project, launched by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones in 2019, highlighting the long-term consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans.

The title of it refers to the year a ship arrived on American soil carrying the first enslaved Africans.   

Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize for her piece in the magazine, which was published on the 400th anniversary of slavery in the United States.

The journalist responded to Trump’s remarks on Thursday night, saying the country’s history of slavery cannot be erased despite the new curriculum. 

‘These are hard days we’re in but I take great satisfaction from knowing that now even Trump’s supporters know the date 1619 and mark it as the beginning American slavery,’ she tweeted. 

‘1619 is part of the national lexicon. That cannot be undone, no matter how hard they try.’  

The tweet received hundreds of mixed responses, with some users criticizing Hannah-Jones’s portrayal of the U.S. as ‘evil’ and her claims that American history should be centered around the beginning of slavery. 

‘I don’t think any reasonable person dismisses the importance of 1619 or the history and legacy of racial slavery in America. The umbrage, I think, is the narrative that the United States is inherently evil, rather than an inherently good nation on a journey of democratization,’ Twitter user Andre Beliveau said in response.

‘Besides the point that nowhere does the project argue about evil, you’re a self-proclaimed history nerd but think arguments about the inherent goodness or evilness of a country embody valid historical critique?’, she fired back. 

‘It’s also so strange to try to compel people whose ancestors were enslaved by this country, then endured 100 years of racial apartheid and only 50 years of full legal citizenship to vouch for the inherent goodness of such country. What,’ she added.

The 1619 Project evolved from Hannah-Jones’s essay last year and, with help from the Pulitzer Center, educational materials were developed to enhance the knowledge about slavery, not rewrite history, according to the Times. 

Hannah-Jones defended her work again on Friday, tweeting that her project does not argue that 1619 is the country’s true founding, as critics claimed.

‘What the #1619Project *does* do is invite the reader/listener to contemplate what it would *mean* to consider 1619 and the beginning of American slavery as our founding, as it argues that 1619 is as foundational to the American story as 1776,’ she added.

Trump however, called current efforts to take revisionist looks at the nation’s founding, ‘toxic propaganda.’ 

‘American parents are not going to accept indoctrination in our schools, cancel culture at work, or the repression of traditional faith, culture and values in the public square,’ he said. ‘Not anymore.’ 

Trump made the comments at what was billed as a Conference on American History at the National Archives, which houses the nation’s most treasured documents. 

He warned attendees that ‘as we gather this afternoon, a radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance.’

The president tore into ‘radicals’ for causing ‘mayhem’ on the nation’s streets, and sought repeatedly to tie them to his political adversaries. 

Earlier, Hannah-Jones had also criticized Trump’s initiative as an attack on the First Amendment to the Constitution which she said abhors government attempts to censor speech and guarantees a free press.

‘The efforts by the president of the United States to use his powers to censor a work of American journalism by dictating what schools can and cannot teach and what American children should and should not learn should be deeply alarming to all Americans who value free speech,’ she said.

President Donald Trump delivered a gloomy speech on race and remembrance after a summer of protest where he sought to tie violence and unrest to left-wing ideology and credited ‘indoctrination’ through schools with causing street rioting.

Trump made the comments at what was billed as a Conference on American History at the National Archives, which houses the nation’s most treasured documents. 

He called for a new ‘1776 Commission’ he said will work to produce ‘patriotic education’ as a solution to ideological currents he cast as a grave threat to the nation. 

He warned attendees that ‘as we gather this afternoon, a radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance.’

The president tore into ‘radicals’ for causing ‘mayhem’ on the nation’s streets, and sought repeatedly to tie them to his political adversaries. 

He didn’t confine his comments to street protesters – bringing in swaths of society that included the media and his political opponents. 

‘These radicals have been aided and abetted by liberal politicians, establishment media and even large corporations,’ Trump said, in remarks that echoed in the marble halls of the Archives, which hold early and original copies of the Declaration as well as the Constitution.

He delivered his social critique slowly from a teleprompter – a device he has mocked Barack Obama and Joe Biden for using. 

Trump ripped ‘cancel’ culture and education that stresses racial sensitivity or points to black marks on the records of the nation’s founders. 

The president did not specifically mention the Black Lives Matter movement, grew in prominence after a spate of police killings of blacks. Nor did he mention NFL players and others who have kneeled during the National Anthem.

‘Whether it is the mob on the street or the cancel culture in the boardroom the goal is the same. To silence dissent. To scare you out of speaking the truth and to bully Americans into abandoning their values, their heritage and their very way of life,’ Trump said.

Trump blasted ‘the left’ and accused it of trying to divide Americans – even seeking to link it to segregation and racism.

‘They want to impose a new segregation and we must not allow that to happen,’ the president said.

The president took long-held attacks on ‘political correctness’ in schools to a new level as he sought to smack down ‘critical race theory’ and efforts to take revisionist looks at the nation’s founding.

‘Teaching this doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the trust sense of those words,’ the president said. 

In a passage that sought to throw an obvious wedge at rival Joe Biden, Trump called for a new addition to his ‘National Garden of American Heroes.’ 

He said the garden, which he called for amid attacks on statues of slaveholders, confederate generals, but also other people honored in the public square – should have a new addition: Delaware signer of the Declaration of Independence Cesar Rodney.  

He unloaded on his political rival while standing just feet from the nation’s most precious treasures of its intellectual history,’ and told of how a centrally located statue of Rodney on horseback was taken down from Rodney Square in Wilmington this summer.

 Although not considered among the top tier of founders who shaped the nation, he cast the deciding vote for the Declaration of Independence.

‘Joe Biden said nothing as to his home state’s history and the fact that it was dismantled dismembered, and a founding father’s statue was removed,’ said Trump.

Joe Biden said nothing as to his home state’s history. Rodney inherited his family’s slaves, keeping them throughout his life but freeing them upon his death. He held multiple political offices, serving in the Continental Congress and serving as president of Delaware during the Revolution.

Trump also took on the New York Times’ 1619 project, which views the founding of the nation not only through the lens of its landmark achievements but also on the moral and economic implications of slave-owning society from the outset. 

Trump chose Constitution Day to issue his denunciation of left-wing ideas he cast as an ‘assault’ on the nation, with Election Day just two months away.

The president launched his ‘law and order’ campaign after protests broke out across the country following the klling of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, during his arrest by Minneapolis police. 

‘The left has launched a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement – the universal symbol of the rule of law in America,’ said Trump, after a spate of physical attacks on police officers.

‘The left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools,’ he continued. 

He said a ‘radical movement’ was ‘attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance.’ 

A White House aide asked for any other events associated with the conference instead provided background material on the president’s remarks. He mentioned only three participants, including Professor Wilfred McClay at the University of Oklahoma.