Page 4
Decemeber 22, 2021
Black Author’s Warning on Democracy
Nickole Hannah
Jones of 1619
Project; a force of
reckoning on race
(AP) — Following a year of professional
milestones born of her work on America’s
history of slavery, Pulitzer Prize-winning
Black journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, a
former reporter in Portland, is clear-eyed
about her mission to force a reckoning
around the nation’s self-image.
The New York Times Magazine writ-
er who worked for the Oregonian for six
years starting in 2006, began this year in a
protracted tenure fight with her alma ma-
ter in North Carolina — the dispute end-
ed when she announced in July that she’d
take her talents to a historically Black uni-
versity — and is closing it as a national
best-selling author.
“I’ve gone from being just a journalist
to becoming some sort of symbol for peo-
ple who either love me and my work or
revile me and my work,” she said.
Hannah-Jones recently spoke to The
Associated Press in an exclusive inter-
view about the ongoing controversy over
The 1619 Project, a groundbreaking col-
lection of essays on race that first ap-
peared in a special issue of The New York
Times Magazine in 2019. Now in book
form, the project has become a touchstone
Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, a former reporter in Portland and author of the
“1619 Project,’ poses for a recent portrait at the headquarters of The Associated
Press in New York. (AP photo)
for America’s reckoning over slavery and
the reverberations for Black Americans.
“The 1619 Project: A New Origin Sto-
ry,” and “Born on the Water,” a picture
storybook collaboration with co-writer
Renée Watson and illustrator Nikkolas
Smith, each have spent consecutive weeks
atop the Times bestseller list since their
Nov. 16 release. A TV documentary on the
work is due out later in 2022.
Still, Hannah-Jones said the backlash
to her work is evidence that the U.S. is
approaching a make-or-break crossroads
on its global standing as a democracy.
Providing Insurance and Financial Services
Home Office, Bloomington, Illinois 61710
Ernest J. Hill, Jr. Agent
311 NE Killingsworth St,
Portland, OR 97211
503 286 1103
Fax 503 286 1146
ernie.hill.h5mb@statefarm.com
24 Hour Good Neighbor Service R
State Farm R
Avalon Flowers
520 SW 3rd Ave., Portland,
OR 97204 • 503-796-9250
A full service flower experience
Cori Stewart--
Owner, Operator
• Birthdays • Anniversaries
• Funerals • Weddings
Open: Mon.-Fri. 7:30am til 5:30pm
Saturday 9am til 2pm.
Website: avalonflowerspdx.com
email: avalonflowers@msn.com
We Offer Wire Services
“I think that we are in a very fright-
ening time,” she said in the interview at
AP’s New York City headquarters.
“People who are much, much smart-
er than me, who have studied this much,
much longer than I have are ringing the
alarm,” Hannah-Jones said. “I think we
have to ask ourselves … the narrators,
the storytellers, the journalists: Are we
ringing the alarm in the right way? Are
we doing our jobs to try to uphold our
democracy?”
The interview has been edited for
length and clarity.
AP: If anything, what did this year
teach you about where we are in our coun-
try currently, when it comes to racial jus-
tice and our reckoning with history?
HANNAH-JONES: This year, to me, is
just reflective of what I’ve always under-
stood about this country. And that is that
steps forward, steps towards racial prog-
ress, are always met with an intensive
backlash. That we are a society that will-
fully does not want to deal with the an-
ti-Blackness that is at the core of so many
of our institutions and really our society
itself.
AP: Can you point to any progress
in how the discourse has developed or
evolved?
HANNAH-JONES: Certainly the fact
that very powerful people are so concerned
about a work of journalism called The
1619 Project that they would seek to dis-
credit it, that they would seek to censor it,
that they would seek to ban it from being
taught, does speak to the fact that there are
millions of Americans who want a more
honest accounting of our history, who want
to better understand the country that we’re
in, who are open to new narratives.
AP: Do you think this country is poised
to make any progress on issues of racial
justice, and especially around education?
HANNAH-JONES: Many in main-
stream media got caught up in the Repub-
lican propaganda campaign, which tried to
conflate the teaching of a more accurate
Continued on Page 7