1776 vs. 1619
Four years ago, the New York Times published The 1619 Project. Focusing on the 400th anniversary of when enslaved Africans were brought to America, the project “reframes American history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative."
I have no problem with talking about the impact of slavery and racism, but it would be a major mistake to diminish the holiday that we will celebrate in three days. As Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon Wood observes, “It’s the American Revolution that makes slavery a problem for the world.” In short, the world has largely done away with slavery because slave-owning Thomas Jefferson, along with other flawed Founding Fathers, made a bold claim about human rights.
After all, slavery has been practiced nearly everywhere. Joseph was sold into slavery in the book of Genesis. There were slaves in ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, Rome, and India. The Moors took slaves from Spain and Portugal. China used slave labor to help build the Great Wall. The Aztecs and Mayans used slaves as well. The Ottomans took slaves from raids into eastern and central Europe. Slave traders from the Barbary Coast raided the Mediterranean coasts of Europe and even the British Isles. In Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800, Robert Davis, a professor of history at Ohio State University, estimated that over a million European Christians were captured and forced to work in North Africa. In Korea and Thailand, slavery was not abolished until the 19th century, and serfdom in Russia only ended in the mid 19th century. I could go on, but the larger point must be made: it is the institution of freedom, not slavery, that is weird and unusual.
While slavery has existed nearly everywhere else in the world, it is important to acknowledge that the American form of slavery was more cruel and, as Dan McLaughlin writes, “created a people uniquely American and uniquely grounded in slavery and with a culture of their own.”
So The 1619 Project is 100% correct to observe that slavery influenced the new American civilization. In this regard, the American experiment was no different than everywhere else in the world. But, as New York Times columnist David French reminds us, “The decisions to sign the Declaration of Independence and ratify the Constitution and Bill of Rights were remarkable, earth shattering events. While only white male property owners could claim these rights at first, over time the notions of justice expanded.” Today, the amount of cooperation and peace among such diverse backgrounds, faiths, and creeds that inhabit the United States is unprecedented in human history.
It’s very weird that people who look different from one another and who practice different religions are able to live and work and pray side-by-side without the threat of physical violence. It takes hard work to keep such an experiment going among such a diverse people.
For American democracy to survive, children should learn the value of the American Project, especially compared with every other project in world governance. The American Project is, indeed, an actual project. It takes work to close the gap between the promise of our ideals and the sad reality we have, time and time again, failed to live up to those ideals.
Instead of denouncing America and the Founding Fathers on the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. demanded that Blacks be a full part of the American dream. As David French writes, “Americans ended slavery and Jim Crow, not through a revolt against the Founding, but rather through a defense of the Founding. It is through appeals to America’s founding promise, that marginalized American communities have muscled their way into more-complete membership in the American family.”
I’ll end with a short story about Brittney Griner, A star basketball player, Griner chose not to stand for the national anthem in 2020. She, like hundreds of other professional athletes, protested, and these protests influenced me. They helped me think more about the challenges that African Americans have faced and continue to face.
But then Griner sat in a Russian jail for ten months. Finally released and back home in America, Brittney is now standing for the Star Spangled Banner. She recently said, “One thing that’s good about this country is our right to protest. It just means a little bit more to me now. So I want to be able to stand. I was literally in a cage and could not stand the way I wanted to….Just being able to hear my national anthem, see my flag, I definitely want to stand.”
Thanks Brittney. It is a reminder that we ought to celebrate America on July 4.