<p class="p1"><span class="s1">President Trump this week threatened to withhold funding from public schools that implement the “1619 Project,” an alternative narrative of US history that portrays the slave trade as the dominant factor in the founding of America rather than ideals like freedom of speech and freedom of religion. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The project begins with the arrival of African slaves in Virginia in 1619 and teaches the entirety of US history through that lens. The project portrays the American Revolution as a war to preserve slavery, not to achieve independence from Britain. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">“Far from being fought to preserve slavery, the Revolutionary War became a primary disrupter of slavery in the North American Colonies,” argues Leslie Harris, a professor at Northwestern University. “Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation…propelled hundreds of enslaved people off plantations and turned some Southerners to the patriot side. It also led most of the 13 Colonies to arm and employ free and enslaved black people, with the promise of freedom to those who served in their armies.”</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The 1619 Project is a “racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom and equality on which our nation was founded,” argues Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), who in July introduced a bill to withhold funding from schools using the project. “Not a single cent of federal funding should go to indoctrinate young Americans with this left-wing garbage.” </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">As it stands, the Department of Education is conducting an investigation to determine which schools have adopted the controversial teaching method. </span><span class="s1">According to an unverified Twitter account, the state of California has already modified its history curricula to include the project’s messages. Several schools in Chicago and Washington, DC also plan to implement the project. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><em><span class="s1">The 1619 Project was launched by the </span></em><span class="s1">New York Times Magazine</span><em><span class="s1"> in 2019 and created by Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the idea. The 1619 Project curriculum is available online for free through the Pulitzer Center. </span></em></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><strong>Author’s Note:</strong> Kids should not be subject to political propaganda from either side. But thanks to the liberal-dominated university system, the next generation of teachers will have a severe liberal bias and will pass that perspective to our children. </span></p>
<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s Note:</strong> It&#8217;s amazing how supposedly college-educated teachers are comfortable ignoring the incredible successful founding of the greatest country that has ever existed, in favor of an emotional false narrative of what was essentially background noise compared to the magnitude of the important events. Slavery was common throughout the world at that time. It is even more incredible that such a fair system grew out of such an environment.</p>