Avarice poem yusef komunyakaa meaning

Global Politics Project

In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the British colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is fi nally time to tell our story truthfully.

4

161 Editor’s Note by Jake Silverstein

It is not a year that most Americans know as a notable date in our

country’s history. Those who do are at most a tiny fraction of those who

can tell you that 1776 is the year of our nation’s birth. What if, however,

we were to tell you that this fact, which is taught in our schools and

unanimously celebrated every Fourth of July, is wrong, and that the

country’s true birth date, the moment that its defining contradictions

first came into the world, was in late August of 1619? Though the exact

date has been lost to history (it has come to be observed on Aug. 20),

that was when a ship arrived at Point Comfort in the British colony of

Virginia, bearing a cargo of 20 to 30 enslaved Africans. Their arrival

inaugurated a barbaric system of chattel slavery that would last for

the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s

original sin, but it is more than that: It is the country’s very origin.

Out of slavery — and the anti-black racism it required — grew

nearly everything that has truly made America exceptional: its eco-

nomic might, its industrial power, its electoral system, diet and

popular music, the inequities of its public health and education, its

astonishing penchant for violence, its income inequality, the exam-

ple it sets for the world as a land of freedom and equality, its slang,

its legal system and the endemic racial fears and hatreds that

continue to plague it to this day. The seeds of all that were planted

long before our official birth date, in 1776, when the men known as

our founders formally declared independence from Britain.

The goal of The 1619 Project, a major initiative from The New

York Times that this issue of the magazine inaugurates, is to

reframe American history by considering what it would mean to

5

regard 1619 as our nation’s birth year. Doing so requires us to

place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black

Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about

who we are as a country.

Perhaps you need some persuading. The issue contains essays on

different aspects of contemporary American life, from mass incar-

ceration to rush-hour traffic, that have their roots in slavery and its

aftermath. Each essay takes up a modern phenomenon, familiar to

all, and reveals its history. The first, by the staff writer Nikole Hannah-

Jones (from whose mind this project sprang), provides the intellectual

framework for the project and can be read as an introduction.

Alongside the essays, you will find 17 literary works that bring

to life key moments in African-American history. These works are

all original compositions by contemporary black writers who were

asked to choose events on a timeline of the past 400 years. The

poetry and fiction they created is arranged chronologically through-

out the issue, and each work is introduced by the history to which

the author is responding.

A word of warning: There is gruesome material in these pages,

material that readers will find disturbing. That is, unfortunately, as

it must be. American history cannot be told truthfully without a clear

vision of how inhuman and immoral the treatment of black Americans

has been. By acknowledging this shameful history, by trying hard to

understand its powerful influence on the present, perhaps we can

prepare ourselves for a more just future.

That is the hope of this project.

19.

6

Page 28 . . . . . . . Clint Smith on the Middle Passage

Page 29 . . . . . . . Yusef Komunyakaa on Crispus Attucks

Page 42 . . . . . . . Eve L. Ewing on Phillis Wheatley

Page 43 . . . . . . . Reginald Dwayne Betts on the Fugitive

Slave Act of 1793

Page 46 . . . . . . . Barry Jenkins on Gabriel's Rebellion

Page 47 . . . . . . . Jesmyn Ward on the Act Prohibiting

Importation of Slaves

Page 58 . . . . . . . Tyehimba Jess on Black Seminoles

Page 59 . . . . . . . Darryl Pinckney on the Emancipation

Proclamation of 1863

400 Years: A Literary Timeline

Index

Page 59 . . . . . . . ZZ Packer on the New Orleans massacre of 1866

Page 68 . . . . . . . Yaa Gyasi on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment

Page 69 . . . . . . . Jacqueline Woodson on Sgt. Isaac Woodard

Page 78 . . . . . . . Rita Dove and Camille T. Dungy on the 16th Street

Baptist Church bombing

Page 79 . . . . . . . Joshua Bennett on the Black Panther Party

Page 84 . . . . . . . Lynn Nottage on the birth of hip-hop

Page 84 . . . . . . . Kiese Laymon on the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s

“rainbow coalition” speech

Page 85 . . . . . . . Clint Smith on the Superdome after

Hurricane Katrina

T he 1619 Project / Introduction, Pag by N kole Hannah-Jones, Page 14 / Ca Page 30 / A Broken Health Care Sys Page 44 / raffi c, by Kevin M. Kruse, P by Jamelle Bouie, Page 50 / Medical I Page 56 / American Popular Music, b by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Page 7 Stevenson, Page 80 / he Wealth Gap a photo essay, by Djeneba Aduayom,

7

Behind the Cover

We commissioned the photographer Dannielle Bowman to

photograph the water off the coast of Hampton, Va., at the

site where the first enslaved Africans were recorded being

brought to Britain’s North American colonies. So many of our

national narratives feature the arrival of ships to the New World

(Christopher Columbus, Plymouth Rock), and yet this arrival,

of these “twenty and odd Negroes” in 1619, has generally been

left out of our founding myths. Rarely is the disembarking of

these people treated with grandeur. We wanted to change that.

Photograph by Dannielle Bowman for The New York Times.

Beyond this issue, you’ll also find a special section in today’s

newspaper on the history of slavery, made in partnership with the

Smithsonian, and an article in the Sports section considering

the legacy of slavery in professional sports; on Aug. 20, ‘‘The Daily’’

begins a multipart 1619 audio series; and starting this week,

in partnership with the Pulitzer Center, The Times is introducing

a curriculum and educational outreach effort to bring this

material to students (for information, see the inside back cover).

Look for more #1619project updates in the weeks ahead.

The 1619 Project Continues

age 4 / he Idea of America, Capitalism, by Matthew Desmond, ystem, by Jeneen Interlandi, , Page 48 / Undemocratic Democracy, l Inequality, by L nda Villarosa, , by Wesley Morris, Page 60 / Sugar,

e 70 / Mass Incarceration, by Bryan ap, by rymaine Lee, Page 82 / Hope, , Page 86 / Contributors 10 / Puzzles 94, 96, 97 / Puzzles Answers 97 / Endpaper 98

InternX The Fund II team learned quickly that mentorships, scholarships

and internships opened the widest doors to prosperity. To that

end, Fund II created internX, a platform to connect students

studying science, technology, engineering or math with companies

searching for STEM talent. internX disproves the notion that quali-

fied black and brown tech interns donít exist, while helping interns

learn skills, find mentors and gather the experience crucial for

developing careers and building wealth.

Changing Lives, One Grant at a Time

B usiness leader and philanthropist Robert F. Smith

inspired the world with his 2019 commencement pledge

to pay off the student debt for nearly 400 graduates at

Morehouse College in Atlanta. Smithís pledge was a personal

one, on behalf of his family, which has been part of the American

fabric for eight generations. The gift also focused a public spot-

light on Fund II Foundation, a private charitable organization

founded in 2014 to grant to public charities the assets of a

reserve established when Smithís Vista Equity Partners raised its

first private equity fund in 2000.

Fund II Foundation, which Smith leads as President and Found-

ing Director, has awarded nearly $250 million in grants in nine

disciplines: education, social justice, environment, digitization,

career readiness, health, music and arts appreciation, cultural

preservation and veteransí affairs. Its grantees include non-profits

that train veterans and young adults for technology careers,

promote youth environmental service and teach young people

how to preserve historic and culturally significant landmarks.

Through grants and signature in-house programs, Fund II has

touched more than 1.2 million people nationwide.

Cradle to Greatness The foundationís signature philosophy, Cradle to Greatness, offers

a framework to measure the success of grantees, determine those

in need of additional help and accelerate access to that help. This

enables Fund II to go deeper, investing in overlooked and underes-

timated communities, considering many pathways to success,

from birth to a career, and even promoting business ownership.

ìOur Cradle to Greatness framework rekindles hope and pros-

perity in communities often besieged by neglect and violence,î says

Smith. ìWhat we want our kids to know in every domain of their

lives ó on this earth, in the home, on the job, at school, everywhere

they turn ó is that they are worthy.î

PHOTOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY FUND II FOUNDATION

PAID FOR AND POSTED BY

FUND II FOUNDATION

$39.5 million The amount Fund II has spent on

cultural preservation

$24 million The amount Fund II has awarded in music

& arts appreciation grants

$16.52 million The amount Fund II has spent on career

readiness

$89.81 million The amount Fund II has awarded in grants

on education and scholarships

1.2 million The number of people in the U.S.

touched by Fund II grants and programs

$241 million The amount of grants awarded by Fund II

PAID FOR AND POSTED BY

FUND II FOUNDATION

This is not only the right thing to do but also smart, says Linda

Wilson, the executive director of Fund II Foundation. A recent

national economics poll determined that black and brown Ameri-

cans hold a combined buying power of $2.8 trillion, and of those

spenders, half in each group are under 35. ìThey are the future and

the most untapped talent force of our nation,î says Ivana Jackson,

the internX program manager.

Started in 2018, internX has a goal of placing 1,000 interns this

year and 10,000 in 2020. But Fund IIís commitment to young people

of color doesnít stop with STEM careers; its attention to music, art

and environmental education is every bit as strong. ìMusic and art

provide balance to young people,î Wilson says, ìinstilling a sense of

peace while increasing aptitude.î

Restoration Retreat In 2018, Fund II developed yet another signature program, one that

allows young people to commune with nature, while also ìproviding

much needed respite to heal and inspire,î Wilson says. For its inau-

gural event, Restoration Retreat hosted 35 boys of color from tough

circumstances on a retreat to the Colorado Rocky Mountains. They

received life-skills coaching, financial literacy and entrepreneurial

training, as well as instruction in mentorship, yoga and meditation.

They also pursued outdoor adventures like archery, fly fishing,

hiking and horseback riding.

This yearís event included a separate retreat for girls. They each

Programs like Restoration Retreat create inspiring scenes that Fund

II leaders intend to replicate nationwide: children of color participating

and excelling in careers, stewardship and life. ìWe at Fund II are

committed to ensuring African Americans prosper through scientific,

political, cultural and social capital. We are proud of our grantees and

collaborators because their work pays tribute to our ancestors who are

Contributors

With creative works from:

Trymaine Lee, 82

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, 70Wesley Morris, 60

Jesmyn Ward Rita Dove Reginald Dwayne Betts Yusef Komunyakaa

Kiese Laymon Clint Smith ZZ Packer

Camille T. Dungy Yaa Gyasi Eve L. Ewing Darryl Pinckney

L ynn Nottage, 84

Jamelle Bouie, 50

Dannielle Bowman, 98 Jeneen Interlandi, 44

L inda Villarosa, 58

Nikole Hannah-Jones, Page 14

is a staff writer for the magazine.

A 2017 MacArthur fellow, she has won a National Magazine Award, a Peabody Award and a George Polk Award.

Lynn Nottage, Page 84

is a playwright and screenwriter. She has received two Pulitzer Prizes and a MacArthur fellowship, and she is currently an associate professor at Columbia School of the Arts.

Trymaine Lee, Page 82

is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning journalist and a correspondent for MSNBC. He covers social-justice issues and the role of race in politics and law enforcement.

Dannielle Bowman, Page 98

is a visual artist working with photography. She is an artist in residence at Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, where she will have a solo show in January.

Jeneen Interlandi, Page 44

is a member of The Times’s editorial board and a staff writer for the magazine. Her last article for the magazine was about teaching in the age of school shootings.

Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Page 70

is a Suzanne Young Murray professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and author of ‘‘The Condemnation of Blackness.’’

Wesley Morris, Page 60

is a staff writer for the magazine, a critic at large for The New York Times and a co-host of the podcast ‘‘Still Processing.’’ He was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

Linda Villarosa, Page 58

directs the journalism program at the City College of New York and is a contributing writer for the magazine. Her feature on black infant and maternal mortality was a finalist for a National Magazine Award.

10

N kole Hannah-Jones, Page 14

Barry Jenkins Jacqueline Woodson

Adam Pendleton, 14

Joshua Bennett, 79 Kevin M. Kruse, 48

Bryan Stevenson, 80 Djeneba duayom, 86

Jamelle Bouie, Page 50

is a Washington-based New York Times opinion columnist and a political analyst for CBS News. He covers campaigns, elections, national affairs and culture.

Djeneba Aduayom, Page 86

is a photographer in Los Angeles known for her portraiture inspired by her career as a dancer.

Tyehimba Jess, Page 58

is a poet from Detroit who teaches at the College of Staten Island. He is the author of two books of poetry, ‘‘Leadbelly’’ and ‘‘Olio,’’ for which he received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize.

Kevin M. Kruse, Page 48

is a professor of history at Princeton University and the author of ‘‘White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism.’’

Contributors’ bios continue on Page 95.

Bryan Stevenson, Page 80

is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and the author of ‘‘Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.’’

Adam Pendleton, Page 14

is an artist known for conceptually rigorous and formally inventive paintings, collages, videos and installations that address history and contemporary culture.

Joshua Bennett, Page 79

is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College and the author of ‘‘The Sobbing School.’’ His poetry book ‘‘Owed’’ will be published in 2020.

Tyehimba Jess, 58

11Photographs by Kathy Ryan

Special thanks: To bring The 1619 Project to non-Times subscribers, we have printed hundreds of thousands of additional copies of this issue, as well as of today’s special newspaper section, for distribution at libraries, schools and museums. This would not have been possible without the generous support of donors: Wilson Chandler, John Legend on behalf of the Show Me Campaign, Ekpe Udoh, Gabrielle Union, Fund II Foundation and the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Our founding ideals of liberty and equality were false when they were written. Black Americans fought to make them true. Without this struggle, America would have no democracy at all.

By Nikole Hannah-Jones

Artwork by Adam Pendleton

August 18, 2019

15

The 1619 Project

16

My dad always fl ew an American fl ag in our front yard. The blue paint on our two- story house was perennially chipping; the fence, or the rail by the stairs, or the front door, existed in a perpetual state of disrepair, but that fl ag always fl ew pristine. Our corner lot, which had been redlined by the federal gov- ernment, was along the river that divided the black side from the white side of our Iowa town. At the edge of our lawn, high on an alu- minum pole, soared the fl ag, which my dad would replace as soon as it showed the slightest tatter.

My dad was born into a family of sharecroppers on a white plan- tation in Greenwood, Miss., where black people bent over cotton from can’t- see- in- the- morning to can’t- see- at- night, just as their enslaved ancestors had done not long before. The Mississippi of my dad’s youth was an apartheid state that subju- gated its near- majority black pop- ulation through breathtaking acts of violence. White residents in Mis- sissippi lynched more black people than those in any other state in the country, and the white people in my dad’s home county lynched more black residents than those in any other county in Mississippi, often for such ‘‘crimes’’ as entering a room occupied by white women, bumping into a white girl or trying to start a sharecroppers union. My dad’s mother, like all the black peo- ple in Greenwood, could not vote, use the public library or fi nd work other than toiling in the cotton fi elds or toiling in white people’s houses. So in the 1940s, she packed up her few belongings and her three small children and joined the fl ood of black Southerners fl eeing North. She got off the Illinois Central Rail- road in Waterloo, Iowa, only to have her hopes of the mythical Promised Land shattered when she learned that Jim Crow did not end at the Mason- Dixon line.

Grandmama, as we called her, found a house in a segregated black neighborhood on the city’s east side and then found the work that was considered black women’s work no matter where black women lived — cleaning white people’s houses. Dad, too, struggled to fi nd promise in this land. In 1962, at age 17, he

signed up for the Army. Like many young men, he joined in hopes of escaping poverty. But he went into the military for another reason as well, a reason common to black men: Dad hoped that if he served his country, his country might fi nal- ly treat him as an American.

The Army did not end up being his way out. He was passed over for opportunities, his ambition stunt- ed. He would be discharged under murky circumstances and then labor in a series of service jobs for the rest of his life. Like all the black men and women in my family, he believed in hard work, but like all the black men and women in my family, no matter how hard he worked, he never got ahead.

So when I was young, that fl ag outside our home never made sense to me. How could this black man, having seen fi rsthand the way his country abused black Americans, how it refused to treat us as full citi- zens, proudly fl y its banner? I didn’t understand his patriotism. It deeply embarrassed me.

I had been taught, in school, through cultural osmosis, that the fl ag wasn’t really ours, that our his- tory as a people began with enslave- ment and that we had contributed little to this great nation. It seemed that the closest thing black Amer- icans could have to cultural pride was to be found in our vague con- nection to Africa, a place we had never been. That my dad felt so much honor in being an American felt like a marker of his degradation, his acceptance of our subordination.

Like most young people, I thought I understood so much, when in fact I understood so little. My father knew exactly what he was doing when he raised that fl ag. He knew that our people’s contributions to build- ing the richest and most powerful nation in the world were indelible, that the United States simply would not exist without us.

In August 1619, just 12 years after the English settled Jamestown, Va., one year before the Puritans land- ed at Plymouth Rock and some 157 years before the English colonists even decided they wanted to form their own country, the Jamestown colonists bought 20 to 30 enslaved Africans from English pirates. The

pirates had stolen them from a Por- tuguese slave ship that had forcibly taken them from what is now the country of Angola. Those men and women who came ashore on that August day were the beginning of American slavery. They were among the 12.5 million Africans who would be kidnapped from their homes and brought in chains across the Atlantic Ocean in the largest forced migra- tion in human history until the Sec- ond World War. Almost two million did not survive the grueling journey, known as the Middle Passage.

Before the abolishment of the international slave trade, 400,000 enslaved Africans would be sold into America. Those individuals and their descendants transformed the lands to which they’d been brought into some of the most successful colonies in the British Empire. Through back- breaking labor, they cleared the land across the Southeast. They taught the colonists to grow rice. They grew and picked the cotton that at the height of slavery was the nation’s most valuable commodity, account- ing for half of all American exports and 66 percent of the world’s supply. They built the plantations of George Washington, Thomas Jeff erson and James Madison, sprawling proper- ties that today attract thousands of visitors from across the globe cap- tivated by the history of the world’s greatest democracy. They laid the foundations of the White House and the Capitol, even placing with their unfree hands the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol dome. They lugged the heavy wooden tracks of the rail- roads that crisscrossed the South and that helped take the cotton they picked to the Northern textile mills, fueling the Industrial Revo- lution. They built vast fortunes for white people North and South — at one time, the second- richest man in the nation was a Rhode Island ‘‘slave trader.’’ Profi ts from black people’s stolen labor helped the young nation pay off its war debts and fi nanced some of our most prestigious uni- versities. It was the relentless buy- ing, selling, insuring and fi nancing of their bodies and the products of their labor that made Wall Street a thriving banking, insurance and trading sector and New York City the fi nancial capital of the world.

But it would be historically inac- curate to reduce the contributions of black people to the vast materi- al wealth created by our bondage. Black Americans have also been, and continue to be, foundational to the idea of American freedom. More than any other group in this country’s history, we have served, generation after generation, in an overlooked but vital role: It is we who have been the perfecters of this democracy.

The United States is a nation founded on both an ideal and a lie. Our Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776, proclaims that ‘‘all men are created equal’’ and ‘‘endowed by their Creator with cer- tain unalienable rights.’’ But the white men who drafted those words did not believe them to be true for the hun- dreds of thousands of black people in their midst. ‘‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’’ did not apply to fully one-fi fth of the country. Yet despite being violently denied the freedom and justice promised to all, black Americans believed fervently in the American creed. Through cen- turies of black resistance and protest, we have helped the country live up to its founding ideals. And not only for ourselves — black rights strug- gles paved the way for every other rights struggle, including women’s and gay rights, immigrant and dis- ability rights.

Without the idealistic, strenuous and patriotic eff orts of black Amer- icans, our democracy today would most likely look very diff erent — it might not be a democracy at all.

The very fi rst person to die for this country in the American Revo- lution was a black man who himself was not free. Crispus Attucks was a fugitive from slavery, yet he gave his life for a new nation in which his own people would not enjoy the liberties laid out in the Declaration for another century. In every war this nation has waged since that fi rst one, black Americans have fought — today we are the most likely of all racial groups to serve in the United States military.

My father, one of those many black Americans who answered the call, knew what it would take me years to understand: that the year 1619 is as important to the American

C u

rr ie

r &

I v e

s , v

ia t

h e

L ib

ra ry

o f

C o

n g

re s s

August 18, 2019

17

story as 1776. That black Americans, as much as those men cast in alabas- ter in the nation’s capital, are this nation’s true ‘‘founding fathers.’’ And that no people has a greater claim to that fl ag than us.

In June 1776, Thomas Jeff erson sat at his portable writing desk in a rented room in Philadelphia and penned these words: ‘‘We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’’ For the last 243 years, this fi erce assertion of the fundamental and natural rights of humankind to freedom and self- governance has defi ned

our global reputation as a land of liberty. As Jeff erson composed his inspiring words, however, a teenage boy who would enjoy none of those rights and liberties waited nearby to serve at his master’s beck and call. His name was Robert Hemings, and he was the half brother of Jeff erson’s wife, born to Martha Jeff erson’s father and a woman he owned. It was common for white enslavers to keep their half-black children in slavery. Jeff erson had chosen Hemings, from among about 130 enslaved people that worked on the forced- labor camp he called Monti- cello, to accompany him to Philadel- phia and ensure his every comfort as he drafted the text making the case for a new democratic republic based on the individual rights of men.

At the time, one-fi fth of the pop- ulation within the 13 colonies strug- gled under a brutal system of slavery unlike anything that had existed in the world before. Chattel slavery was not conditional but racial. It was heritable and permanent, not temporary, meaning generations of black people were born into it and passed their enslaved status onto their children. Enslaved peo- ple were not recognized as human beings but as property that could be mortgaged, traded, bought, sold, used as collateral, given as a gift and disposed of violently. Jeff erson’s fel- low white colonists knew that black people were human beings, but they created a network of laws and customs, astounding for both their precision and cruelty, that ensured

that enslaved people would never be treated as such. As the abolition- ist William Goodell wrote in 1853, ‘‘If any thing founded on falsehood might be called a science, we might add the system of American slavery to the list of the strict sciences.’’

Enslaved people could not legal- ly marry. They were barred from learning to read and restricted from meeting privately in groups. They had no claim to their own chil- dren, who could be bought, sold and traded away from them on auction blocks alongside furniture and cattle or behind storefronts that advertised ‘‘Negroes for Sale.’’ Enslavers and the courts did not honor kinship ties to mothers, siblings, cousins. In most courts, they had no legal standing. Enslavers could rape or murder their

An 1872 portrait of African-Americans serving in Congress (from left): Hiram Revels, the first black man elected to the Senate; Benjamin S. Turner; Robert C. De Large; Josiah T. Walls; Jefferson H. Long; Joseph H. Rainy; and R. Brown Elliot.

The 1619 Project

18

property without legal consequence. Enslaved people could own nothing, will nothing and inherit nothing. They were legally tortured, includ- ing by those working for Jeff erson himself. They could be worked to death, and often were, in order to produce the highest profi ts for the white people who owned them.

Yet in making the argument against Britain’s tyranny, one of the colonists’ favorite rhetorical devic- es was to claim that they were the slaves — to Britain. For this duplic- ity, they faced burning criticism both at home and abroad. As Sam- uel Johnson, an English writer and Tory opposed to American inde- pendence, quipped, ‘‘How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?’’