American Exceptionalism is "Revisionist History," Not the 1619 Project

Tuesday, a Tennessee lawmaker made the claim that the three-fifths compromise was included in the US Constitution to end slavery. For anyone unfamiliar with this portion of the Constitution, the purpose of the three-fifths provision was not to end slavery. To the contrary, the three-fifths compromise helped continue the practice of slavery for another 81 years until it was explicitly superseded by Section Two of the 14th Amendment. Unfortunately, the Tennessee lawmaker is not alone in his push to revise US history. Last week, a Louisiana lawmaker argued that schools must teach the “good” of slavery. Even worse, the bill he introduced to do so received a 7-7 vote, meaning that while it wouldn’t move forward to the full house, it was not officially killed either.

These are all the latest push from conservative Republican law makers to continue in the footsteps of the 1776 commission created last year by former President Trump. Spurred by the 1619 project, Trump and others from the right sought to defund schools that taught the 1619 Project and promote a "patriotic education." The commission was subsequently terminated by President Biden in January, but efforts like the ones in Tennessee and Louisiana show that the fight on the discussion of how history is to be taught in our schools is far from over.

The discussion of what should be taught as part of the core curriculum in our history classes is not one that should be taken lightly. Particularly, with the increased calls for racial justice over the last year, lessons like the 1619 Project, which shows the fundamental role slavery has played in this nation and how many of the current issues our nation faces are linked to it, will be critical in moving forward. We should also note while many from the right have labeled the 1619 Project as “revisionist history,” it is fairly well documented, whereas other "patriotic" concepts they do endorse for the classroom like “American exceptionalism” has no historical basis.

The Desperate Need for More Black History in the History Curriculum

If the amount of attention given is any indication, black lives have not mattered much when it comes to the core history curriculum. If your K-12 experience was anything like mine, your lesson on African Americans lionized Martin Luther King Jr, minimized slavery, and completely omitted characters like Crispus Attucks, who was our nation's first casualty during the American Revolution. The best chance students have of learning about African Americans is to take an African American Studies course, if it is even offered as an elective. This sentiment is probably best captured in a 2015 tweet noting "White privilege is your history being part of the core curriculum and mine being taught as an elective.” This lack of inclusion of the contributions of African Americans is one of the underpinnings of racism in our society and without a frame of reference, our society remains susceptible to misinformation regarding African Americans.

The 1619 Project

The 1619 Project is a work produced by the New York Times, and comprised of a series of essays from veteran journalists, professors, and historians, addressing how slavery and the racial issues that spawned from it, were not just a part of our nations history, but a fundamental component of it, which still impact us today. It covers topics like capitalism, the criminal system, the healthcare industry, the music industry, traffic in major cities, the racial wealth gap, and a variety of others. Since its publication in August 2019, this project has gained both many accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize, and has already been used in more than 4,500 schools nationwide. If the purpose of history is for a society to better understand itself, then works like the 1619 Project does a great job of doing that, by taking the historical system of slavery and showing its impact on the systems of our society today.

American Exceptionalism

American exceptionalism, on the other hand, is the theory that the United States has been from its revolution a nation that is so unique in its creed consisting of liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and lassize-faire that it is to be considered as “exceptional.” This theory, while noble, does not have a foundation as ever being a reality in the nation and the biggest evidence of that is slavery. Particularly, because of slavery and the systems like Jim Crow that spawned from it, the five principles of the creed have not been a reality for African Americans for most of the history of this country. As such, it is no wonder that those who subscribe to American exceptionalism are usually those who are the harshest critics of the 1619 Project, which puts slavery as a focal point. Additionally, moves like the calls to defund schools that emphasize slavery by using the 1619 Project, while moving the curriculum towards the American exceptionalism ideology, does so by revising history in ways like the Tennessee and Louisiana lawmakers, which is exactly what they claim that they are opposed to with the 1619 Project.

Conclusion

If we want to answer continual calls for racial justice going on and truly want phrases like “black lives matter” to become a reality in our society, we need to start by showing that they matter in our core history curriculum. This history must go beyond the mere tokenism, where a couple of names or stories are sprinkled in the curriculum and deemed as better representation. Including the contributions of African Americans and other people of color throughout the core curriculum both gives a societal nod to the value of black life as emphasized by the curriculum itself and as a result makes it more interesting for the students learning the material. The 1619 Project does this by placing slavery at the center of the narrative and showing how the institution still has an impact on all of our lives today. Such projects should not only be considered for educational purposes but be expanded, so that we as a society can begin to have well-informed discussions and solutions on the topic of race, as opposed to trying to revise our history to fit the narrative of American Exceptionalism.