Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist that won a Pulitzer Prize for “The 1619 Project” in The New York Times, produces and narrates the docuseries based on that print series. In The 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones explores the parts of Black history in the U.S. that have been generally unexamined or underreported, especially to the white majority, and how that’s fed into the institutional racism that permeates the nation to this day.
Opening Shot: A picture of the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of Virginia. A graphic explains that in August, 1619, the first enslaved Africans were brought to North America, to be slaves for the British colonies.
The Gist: In the first episode, Hannah-Jones examines the topic of democracy, especially through the lens of her late father, Milton Hannah. He grew up in Jim Crow Mississippi, and went with his family to Waterloo, Iowa as part of The Great Migration of Black families during most of the 20th century. Iowa is where Hannah-Jones grew up, and when she was younger, she thought she had a handle on why her father, an Army vet, put a big U.S. flag outside their home, despite the fact the country’s racist history.
As she’s gotten older and studied Black history in this country, though, the more she’s seen that much of what this country is about, much of our infrastructure, much of our wealth, wouldn’t have been possible without the country’s Black population. Of course, we know that much of the Black population was enslaved for generations, and then after emancipation, subject to Jim Crow laws that segregated them from whites and took steps to suppress their vote.
She connects those efforts to the efforts lawmakers, especially Republicans, are making today to suppress the Black vote. On Election Day 2022, the show’s cameras see this effort in action in Atlanta, as Helen Butler, the head of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, coordinates volunteer efforts to make sure people can vote if they’re being refused for clerical or other reasons.
Hannah-Jones also goes to Colonial Williamsburg and talks to a historian that demonstrates to her that, during the revolution, the governor of the colony was looking to recruit troops to defend it against the independence-minded colonists as the war pushed south. He proposed an offer to free any enslaved person that would have fought for the colonial government, but landowners refused, and Black battalions started fighting on the side of the rebels.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The subject matter of each series is actually somewhat related, but the look and tone of The 1619 Project feels similar to Taste The Nation With Padma Lakshmi.
Our Take: Even though Hannah-Jones isn’t the most polished TV presenter out there, her presence in the docuseries version of The 1619 Project lends the series a sense of continuity. It also lends it a personal touch that transforms her work from a dry historical recounting to a an examination of how pieces of the past are still around in the present.
The way that she and her fellow executive producers break up the topics covered is interesting. In each episode, the past is linked to the present in interesting ways. In the second episode, for instance, she not only discusses race as a political concept, but then links it to how Black women of today battle race issues when it comes to their reproductive rights. Other topics include Justice, Fear, Capitalism and Music. They all discuss how Black contributions to this country have been much more valuable over its history than they’ve ever been given credit for.
We mentioned Hannah-Jones’ lack of polish; at times, that was refreshing. She jokes with the historian about the fact that she has a decent collection of Jordans that she would have never been able to have as a kid. She takes notes like a print journalist as she talks to people, even though she’s on camera during those interviews. During interviews, she is a warm, casual presence, which helps open up her interviewees. And her personal connection to much of the subject matter brings the viewer in.
It’s a change from the detached manner of most docuseries we see; it’s more the “Bourdain style”, if you want to give it a name. Lakshmi handled so well on her show, which links food to this country’s immigrant experience, and Hannah-Jones does a good job with it here.
Sex and Skin: Not that kind of show.
Parting Shot: Scenes from the second episode, with the aforementioned topic of race and how it affects Black women’s reproductive rights today.
Sleeper Star: We were impressed with how Helen Butler was able to clear a clerical error that caused dozens of elderly and disabled voters in an Atlanta affordable housing complex to be sent to a polling place 20 minutes away and/or made them enter provisional ballots that may or may not have been counted.
Most Pilot-y Line: The historian in Williamsburg joked that he wears “Costco Jordans,” whatever that is.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Whether you’ve read Hannah-Jones’ work or are coming to it for the first time, The 1619 Project is a fascinating look at the Black population’s significant contributions to the building of the U.S., with a nuanced approach that was never in our U.S. History books.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
