PDF Summary:The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah-Jones

The 1619 Project is an anthology of essays edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones and co-created with the New York Times that seeks to reframe American history with the institution of slavery at its core. The book asserts that American history began in 1619 with the arrival of the first ship of enslaved Africans, one year before the Mayflower arrived. It also argues that, American democracy and the prosperous nation we know today were largely built by enslaved Black Americans but that this demographic is almost entirely excluded from America’s founding stories and remains suppressed today due to racist institutions that persist from slavery.

This guide will reframe America’s founding story by exploring how the institution of slavery has impacted our economy, laws, society, and the livelihoods of Black Americans. We’ll conclude by discussing Hannah-Jones’s recommendations for how the government can make reparations for these injustices. Throughout the guide, we’ll provide a broader perspective by discussing accounts from other historians, economists, and researchers.

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American Laws and Justice

The authors add that another impact of slavery on modern America is the enforcement of laws, which often favors white people and is unjust toward Black people. This is due to persisting attitudes and beliefs from slavery. This section will discuss a few American laws and practices that fail to provide liberty and justice for Black Americans.

(Shortform note: In 2013 the injustices against Black people in the legal and judicial systems sparked the creation of Black Lives Matter, a prominent social justice movement that combats the long-standing racial injustices in the US.)

Rape Laws

The authors explain that for Black women, laws regarding rape rarely result in justice due to stereotypes developed during slavery. A study conducted in Kansas City and Philadelphia found that prosecutors are 4.5 times more likely to file charges in rapes when the victims are white than Black. And, if the victim is Black, the accused are more likely to be acquitted or receive a light sentence if convicted.

(Shortform note: Recent research reiterates the authors’ claim that prosecutors are much more likely to file rape charges when the victim is white than Black. And experts add that this fact both discourages Black women from reporting rape and puts them at a disproportionate risk of sexual assault. They elaborate that 25% of Black girls are sexually assaulted before turning 18, and for every Black female that reports a rape, at least 15 go unreported. On top of this, Black women are the most likely of all races to be raped in their lifetime.)

The authors argue that these injustices are due to persisting stereotypes from slave times that make Black women and girls out to be hypersexual, or “Jezebels.” These stereotypes developed to justify and encourage the rape of Black women by their white enslavers—the belief claimed that Black women and little girls were promiscuous and always consenting, and therefore couldn’t be “raped.” The stereotype was publicly endorsed by newspapers so that American enslavers would produce more slaves—the children of these rapes became the property of their mothers’ rapists.

Endorsements of the Jezebel Stereotype

According to experts, there’s another component of the Jezebel stereotype that encouraged white men to prey on Black women: White men mistakenly believed that the women weren’t satisfied during sex with Black men and that they desired white men instead. White men mistook this stereotype for consent, and therefore didn’t consider forced sex with these women rape.

Further, the Jezebel stereotype was endorsed not only through newspapers but also by the institution of slavery itself. Enslavers “encouraged” young girls to have sex as practice to become “breeders.” If they resisted, they were often either raped, beaten, or both. And when they complied, it confirmed what enslavers saw as their inherent promiscuity. So the ways that society treated Black women also endorsed the Jezebel stereotype—they couldn’t fight against their mistreatment for fear of violence, but because they didn’t resist, the Jezebel stereotype was confirmed for white society.

Self-Defense Laws

The authors argue that because of stereotypes and cultural mindsets that persist from slavery, the right to self-defense is leniently granted to white people while often being withheld from Black people.

When a Black person commits a violent act against a white person in defense of their life, they’re much more likely to be persecuted and denied their right to self-defense than if they were white. Similarly, white people have a much higher chance of being acquitted for a violent act against a Black person by claiming self-defense, whether or not the act was justified. The authors point to the case of Breonna Taylor to highlight this point, who was in bed when she was shot six times and killed by police officers during a raid on her Louisville, Kentucky home. The officers involved were acquitted because they were considered to be acting in self-defense.

Acquittal Rates of Blacks and Whites in Acts of Self-Defense

Studies confirm the authors’ point that whites are much more likely to be granted the right to self-defense compared to Black people. Experts explain that in 17% of cases where a Black man was killed by a non-Hispanic white person, the killing was officially justified as self-defense. However, in general killings of one person by another, regardless of race, only 2% were officially justified as self-defense. Overall, white-on-Black killings are roughly 230% more likely to be deemed justifiable than white-on-white killings. And researchers explain that whether or not the defender truly believes he’s in danger is a major factor that leads these killings to be justified as self-defense—even if the perceived danger is based on a racial stereotype.

Breonna Taylor’s case highlights this point. Since the officers did not knock and announce before entering like they were ordered to, Taylor’s boyfriend feared intruders and fired a single shot that wounded an officer's leg. In response, the officers blindly fired 32 shots in the dark, striking Taylor six times. Despite Taylor’s killers being armed and trained police officers, they were acquitted under “self-defense.” However, massive public outcry (like #SayHerName on social media) led officials to pass a law in Louisville that requires officers to announce themselves before entering a home. And Taylor’s family was paid $12 million by the city for her wrongful death.

The authors claim that the reason for these injustices is what they call white fear—the white cultural mindset that Black people are inherently dangerous and uncivil. This belief originated during and after slavery because whites feared that Black people would violently retaliate against the injustices inflicted upon them. Because of white fear, Blacks were intensely monitored and harshly punished through “slave codes.”

(Shortform note: In Biased, Jennifer Eberhardt adds that racial bias causes people to view Black people’s movements as more threatening by default. She elaborates that a pioneering study in 1976 found that when college students saw a white stranger shove a black stranger in a staged scenario, 17% classified the behavior as “violent,” but when a Black stranger shoved a white stranger, 75% reported the behavior to be violent. The students, by default, classified the Black person's actions as more violent than the same actions performed by a white person—this is an example of what the authors refer to as white fear.)

“Slave codes” were a set of rules that prevented Black people from gaining any power or equality. For example, these codes prevented Black people from testifying in court or carrying weapons but allowed enslavers to freely kill any of their slaves as they deemed necessary. When slavery was abolished, “Black Codes” were enforced in the south to patrol and monitor Blacks, mirroring the laws of slave codes. Soon after came Jim Crow—a set of laws that segregated Black people, enforced white supremacy, and established Blacks as second-class citizens.

(Shortform note: Experts second that Jim Crow laws were specifically designed to maintain the effects of slave codes and Black Codes—to enforce white supremacy and “keep Black people in their place.” For example, under Jim Crow, a Black man couldn’t reach out for a handshake to a white man because it implied equality. Punishment for this could be as severe as death; however, it was extremely uncommon for whites to be punished for murdering a Black person, as long as they could cite some way in which the Black person crossed the line of the social hierarchy—in these situations, murder was considered “corrective justice.”)

So while Black Americans have been “free and equal” on paper since Jim Crow was abolished in 1964, the white fear that developed these forms of oppression remains ingrained into American culture and the justice system today.

Punishment Laws

The authors assert that in the justice system, Black individuals are punished more severely than white individuals who’ve committed the same offenses. The authors argue that these racist decisions stem from white fear and the legal and judicial precedents that remain from slavery.

For example, Black prisoners convicted of killings are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites facing the same conviction—a study from the 1980s found that in Georgia, Black prisoners were 22 times more likely to be sentenced to death.

Racialized Punishment in America

In Biased, Jennifer Eberhardt adds to the case that Black prisoners are more severely punished than whites. Jurors are much more likely to impose the death penalty on Black murderers of white victims than vice versa. And Black men who possess “stereotypically Black” features are more than twice as likely to receive the death penalty as Black men with less stereotypical features.

Eberhardt explains that this is largely due to the logic underlying death penalty decisions. Death penalties are usually only given when the crime is deemed so heinous that execution is the only way to bring justice to the victim—if the victim’s life is more valuable than the murderer’s, the only way to balance the scales is to kill the murderer as well. This logic is inherently biased because, in the US, social, political, and economic institutions have traditionally considered white lives to be more valuable than Black lives. And statistics prove this case: When a murder victim is white, the murderer is significantly more likely to receive a death sentence than if the victim is Black.

Healthcare and Black Well-Being

The authors add that another impact of slavery on modern America is the poor health and well-being of Black people. Black Americans are more prone to illness due to segregated living conditions, and they receive poor treatment in hospitals due to misinformation and racist beliefs that exist in the healthcare industry. These issues are all remnants of the eras of slavery and Jim Crow.

Racist Systems Make Black Americans More Prone to Illness

The authors explain that Black Americans are more prone to illness than white Americans because of segregated neighborhoods and poor living conditions that remain from Jim Crow and the early 20th century.

Segregation remains today because of intentional government policies developed during and after Jim Crow. Whites didn’t want to have Black neighbors, so elected officials, city planners, and mortgage bankers decided to force Black Americans into ghettos. Elected officials made sure that these segregated neighborhoods were the only places Blacks could afford and denied them mortgages elsewhere.

(Shortform note: While “ghetto” has come to be a derogatory term used to describe undesirable neighborhoods, this isn’t the original definition. The original definition, and the one referred to in The 1619 Project, is a specific neighborhood that’s inhabited by members of a minority group, usually for social, economic, or legal reasons. These neighborhoods are often isolated or segregated from the living quarters of the majority. The term “ghetto” was originally the name for Jewish quarters in cities throughout Europe.)

Modern American Segregation

In The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein concurs that modern segregation is the product of explicit government policy, not personal choice. He elaborates that one of the most significant government methods to institute racial segregation was through public housing, or “projects.” When public housing was eventually extended to Black people, building populations had to match the racial composition of the neighborhoods they were in due to the “neighborhood composition rule.” So Black projects were only built in Black neighborhoods. Many of these projects still exist today and remain segregated.

Rothstein adds that officials also used economic zoning laws to racially segregate neighborhoods by limiting certain neighborhoods to single-family only homes. This prevented Black citizens from moving in because, since they were historically discriminated against in the job market, they couldn’t afford them. Most could only afford to live in apartment buildings, which were banned from areas that were intended to be white only.

Further, planners targeted Black neighborhoods for highway construction, which caused overcrowding, pollution, and health issues for residents. Homes and buildings were destroyed to make room for highway construction—so while the populations in Black neighborhoods increased, the living spaces decreased. The combination of overcrowding, a lack of clean outdoor places (like parks), and poor air quality from passing traffic greatly increased residents’ risk of diseases, especially respiratory illness. So even today, Black Americans are at a higher risk of respiratory illness and are more likely to live in crowded, polluted neighborhoods.

(Shortform note: In The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein adds that another component that caused overcrowded and polluted Black neighborhoods was industrial zoning laws. These laws specifically zoned areas in or near Black neighborhoods for industrial plants and factories. Not only are chemicals from these plants believed to cause major health issues, but Rothstein explains that the plants also lowered property values in surrounding areas. This both decreased the wealth of current residents and attracted more low-income Black residents to move in, which increased segregation.)

Segregation also puts Blacks at higher risk for diseases like diabetes. The authors say that this is because healthy food is harder to find in Black neighborhoods while mini markets selling junk food are abundant. Stores that carry healthy food tend to be in white neighborhoods which can be inaccessible to Black people who don’t have personal transportation.

(Shortform note: A 2013 study supports this claim, explaining that the more impoverished a neighborhood was, the fewer supermarkets and fresh, nutritious, and low-fat meal and snack options were available. And these findings hold true for all predominantly Black areas, regardless of economic status, compared to predominantly white or Hispanic areas.)

Mistreatment of Black Americans in the Healthcare Industry

In addition to racist systems making Black Americans more prone to illness, the authors claim that the American healthcare industry fails to provide adequate care and treatment to Blacks due to slavery-era beliefs—particularly that Black bodies are biologically and physiologically different than white bodies.

(Shortform note: In Biased, Jennifer Eberhardt calls this scientific racism—the false theory that different racial groups have fundamentally different physical and mental traits. She explains that this is a centuries-old phenomenon that was developed to prove the racial superiority of whites and that it’s been so deeply ingrained into Western culture that some beliefs persist today.)

The authors explain that academic articles claimed that Black people have thicker skin, a higher pain tolerance, and different emotional and intellectual capabilities. In 2016, a study on medical students found that half of white participants believed at least one of these claims—the most common belief was that Black people felt less pain. The authors say that this belief would make the students less likely to prescribe appropriate treatment to Black patients.

(Shortform note: The 2016 article referenced by the authors also uncovers that only the white participants showed a correlation between false beliefs and their perception of pain and treatment recommendations for Black patients. False beliefs held by non-white participants didn’t impact their perception of Black patients’ pain nor the treatments they recommended. So while both white and non-white practitioners may hold false beliefs, misdiagnosis and lack of adequate treatment is a much bigger risk for Black people when the practitioner is white.)

Statistics show that these racist beliefs impact the treatment of Black people in the field—for example, Black Americans are 2.8 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than white Americans and are less likely to be treated for pain. The authors link these statistics to medical practitioners’ racist beliefs that can cause them to underestimate Black illness and not provide necessary treatments.

The Dangers of Stereotypes in Modern Medicine

Experts add that these stereotypes have not only lived on in the minds of medical students but also in medical equipment like spirometers. As the authors point out, this can lead to dangerous misdiagnoses and a lack of adequate treatment, especially for Black people who contract Covid-19.

The first spirometer, a tool to measure lung capacity, was developed in 1851 by a physician intent on proving that Blacks have inferior lung capacity which could be improved through hard labor. He determined that the “lung deficiency” of Black people was at about 20%. And even today, modern spirometers assume a 10-15% smaller lung capacity for Blacks and a 4-6% smaller lung capacity for Asians compared to the lung capacity of whites.

Experts add that this race-correction software could cause physicians to miss important diagnoses during the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, they could fail to diagnose restrictive ventilatory dysfunction, an emerging problem in Covid-19 patients, if they read a lower lung capacity in Blacks to be normal. Further, they could be led to misdiagnose the severity of respiratory issues like pulmonary fibrosis, letting the issues linger by not prescribing an aggressive enough treatment.

Financial Reparations for American Slavery

Hannah-Jones states that most of the injustices Black Americans face are either caused or perpetuated by economic inequality. She argues that to eliminate this economic inequality and the injustices that follow, the government must provide Black Americans with financial aid and enhance funding for low-income and majority-Black communities.

She elaborates that Black Americans generationally lack wealth, and wealth is the factor that grants opportunities and safety in America. Wealth ensures a safe house in a good neighborhood, access to good schools, higher education, medical facilities and adequate treatment, diverse job opportunities, and more. (Hannah-Jones defines wealth more specifically than the typical definition, explaining that it not only means having assets, like money and possessions, but also investments and a lack of major debts.)

(Shortform note: Experts second this claim, citing that the higher a family's income is, the less at risk they are for diseases or illnesses like heart disease, emphysema, vision and hearing trouble, and kidney and liver disease. Additionally, wealth serves as a “private safety net,” allowing families access to funds for adequate healthcare and healthy food, and emergency situations like divorce or disability.)

Because of slavery, Black Americans have struggled to gain assets since abolition. Many still remain trapped in low economic states without the means to break free. This section will discuss how the modern financial injustices Black Americans face are the result of slavery and Jim Crow and what these reparations entail.

Black Finances in America

The authors explain that for the majority of Americans, wealth is something that’s accumulated across generations through inheritance—when one generation dies, it passes on money and goods to the next generation. But Black Americans have historically been left with little to no inheritance, making it much harder for them to gain success and wealth compared to white Americans.

(Shortform note: Recent studies show that while inheriting wealth isn’t quite as common as the authors frame it to be, there’s still a huge gap between the inheritance expected and received by Black and white Americans. In 2019, only 10% of Black households received inheritance compared to 30% of white households. And the average sum inherited by Black households was $100,000 compared to $200,000 inherited by white households. Researchers add, like the authors, that these inheritances play a large role in perpetuating the generational Black-white wealth gap.)

Black Americans generationally lack wealth because, due to slavery, they were the first race to begin life in America with zero capital—no houses, food, clothes, or money to buy them. After being freed, the only option for the majority of former slaves was to sharecrop on their former enslavers’ land. This system continued to exploit their labor and provided barely enough money for them to feed themselves. Consequently, they were never able to accumulate wealth and pass an inheritance on to later generations.

(Shortform note: Other experts add that the sharecropping system was specifically designed to keep Black Americans dependent on their former enslavers. Once freed, Black sharecroppers were given a small plot of land, living quarters, and farming equipment from their former enslavers. In exchange, sharecroppers raised a cash crop and were required to give at least 50% of it to the landowner each year. Landowners also required the sharecroppers to pay fees out of their crop earnings, leaving them with as little as a quarter of the profit.)

And when Black people did find wealth and success in rare situations, they often faced brutality and robbery from jealous whites. In the South especially, being successful and Black was dangerous—it was seen as “stealing business” from whites and was met with destruction and even murder. Law enforcement encouraged this violence—they refused to punish white terrorists and fined Blacks exorbitant amounts for made-up crimes to put them out of business. This stripped Black people of any wealth they had.

The authors explain that white oppression of and violence toward free Black Americans was once again a result of white fear—whites were terrified that they’d be stripped of their superiority if Blacks continued to gain wealth and success.

White Policing of Black Americans

In Caste, Isabel Wilkerson discusses white supremacy, white fear, and the violent reactions to Black success during Jim Crow. She explains white people had a sense of alpha entitlement due to the racial hierarchy that dominated America since its founding. This entitlement gave them the perceived authority to police the actions of Black Americans as they deemed fit. So when Black people gained their freedom, whites felt that it was their duty and right to maintain the racial caste system.

Wilkerson notes that a prime example of this is the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. More than a thousand white men gathered to storm a police office and lynch a young black boy who was accused of assaulting a white female. But enacting their justice on the boy wasn’t enough—the mob then entered a nearby affluent Black community and leveled it to assert their dominance. The mob shot hundreds of citizens and burned numerous homes and buildings to the ground.

Financial Reparations

Hannah-Jones argues that the government must provide Black Americans with financial reparations to right the social and economic injustices they face because of slavery.

She explains that this compensation should be available for any American who (1) has identified as Black for more than 10 years before the reparation process begins and (2) can trace at least one ancestor back to American slavery. Black identification can be traced through historical censuses and responses to race-based questions on documents such as job and college applications. (More information on the details of these reparations can be found in Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century by William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen.)

(Shortform note: While some claim that paying reparations for slavery isn’t feasible, the American government has paid reparations before. In 1989, Japanese Americans protested for reparations to be paid for their unfair internment during World War II. In response, the American government paid tax-free restitution of $20,000 over 10 years to surviving victims.)

Reparations should include:

1. A commitment to strongly enforce civil rights prohibitions against housing, educational, and employment discrimination
2. Targeted investments in Black communities that have been segregated through government policies
3. Individual cash payments to descendants of enslaved people that will close the wealth gap between Blacks and whites

Hannah-Jones argues that these reparations will alleviate the systemic injustices that Black people face (like high incarceration rates and poor education, job prospects, and housing opportunities) while closing the wealth gap that feeds these injustices.

Enforcing Civil Rights and Investments in Black Communities

The authors explain that in addition to making direct payments to Black American descendants of enslaved people, the government should also enforce civil rights prohibitions and invest in Black communities. Experts provide a few recommendations for how the government can do this:

1. Cover college tuition and forgive student loans. This will ensure the highest level of opportunity and quality of education while minimizing the financial burden that prevents many from accumulating wealth.

2. Provide down payment and housing revitalization grants. Down payment grants will increase the equity of Black homes relative to mortgage insurance loans, and revitalization grants will help raise the quality of living and wealth in formerly neglected Black neighborhoods.

3. Provide grants for business startups, business expansion, and purchasing property. This’ll make it easier for Black Americans to start their own businesses, hire more employees to expand, and reach a wider demographic to bring in more capital.

4. Pass more legislation like the 2021 For the People Act. This act prevented partisan gerrymandering, expanded voting rights, changed campaign finance laws to prevent big money from impacting elections, and formed new ethics rules for federal officials. Ultimately, the act is meant to ensure that Black and minority communities in the US get equal voice and representation in politics.

Implementing Financial Reparations

In Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen provide more specific details about the plan for financial reparations, like how much each person would receive and where the funds would come from. The authors explain that based on past government actions, like making an overnight transfer of one trillion dollars in funds from the Federal Reserve to investment banks during the Great Recession, the government shouldn’t have an issue accessing the same funds to pay out reparations.

They continue to explain that trust funds and endowments should be set up for those eligible for the program. They present two options here: Either the funds should be inaccessible until a later date (especially for younger recipients), or recipients should be given full discretion over the annual interest on their accounts. Darity and Mullen propose that if each recipient was given a trust account of $250,000, each one would receive an average annual fund of about $12,000.