Book Study - The 1619 Project

What is the 1619 Project? What happened before the American Civil War? How did Black Lives Matter evolve into a social movement? Where did racism in the United States begin? What happened after the Civil War ended?

In the preface to the book, the author is discussing her experiences in education in the American South. After much searching, she finally found a class that started to fill in the blanks about race history in the U.S.

“I had assumed that Before the Mayflower referred to Black people’s history in Africa before they were enslaved on this land. Tracing my fingers across the words, I realized that the title evoked not a remote African history but an American one. African people had lived here on the land that in 1776 would form the United States, since the White Lion dropped anchor in the year 1619. They’d arrived one year before the iconic ship carrying the English people who got the credit for building it all.”

Join us as we dive a bit deeper into the history of black folks in the United States. We will talk about democracy, race, citizenship, and justice.