The New York Times’ 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones said her free after-school literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, will teach black history, not critical race theory (CRT), the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported.
“We’re not teaching critical race theory,” Hannah-Jones told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, saying she’s “completely unconcerned” about what critics might say about the program.
CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit and objective truth, and the adoption of race-based policies.
“Parents will opt into the program if they believe in what we’re doing,” Hannah-Jones told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. “And if they don’t, they won’t. I don’t understand how one can criticize an effort to help children to become more literate and excel academically.”
Hannah-Jones told the Courier that the program “has nothing to do with the 1619 Project at all.”
The 1619 Project was created by Hannah-Jones and promotes the idea that America’s “true founding” occurred in 1619, when slaves arrived in the colonies, and frames the history of the country around race and slavery.
“We’re intentional with everything that we’re doing with this … to teach children to fight for their own liberation and to show them that they have a deep, storied past that they can be proud of,” Hannah-Jones told the Register. “The literature on this is very clear that when Black students are exposed to Black history, they excel—they do better, academically.”
