By Ron McWhirter

In a December 15, 2021 media release, the Oklahoma Democratic Party denounced a bill being filed in the Oklahoma Legislature which would ban the “1619 Project” curriculum in Oklahoma schools receiving state funding. “House Bill 2988 is another attempt to silence and rewrite our history. The Oklahoma Democratic Party denounces this harmful bill that shuts down discussions on slavery and those who have been impacted by its history.” Alicia Andrews, the Chair of the Oklahoma Democratic Party went on to say: “True history is complicated but necessary. I’m not sure which idea is worse; the idea that Jim Olsen is sincere in his quest to rewrite and whitewash history OR that he is chasing the headlines that such a ridiculous bill will certainly garner. This bill, unfortunately, would set Oklahoma back several decades and make it more difficult to eradicate systemic racism and discrimination.”

House Bill 2988, authored by state Representative Jim Olsen (R-Roland)and co-sponsored by Representatives David Hardin (R-Stilwell) and Jim Grego (R-Wilburton), would restrict the use of content extracted from the controversial “1619 project” which is being taught in many classrooms across the country. Schools found in violation of the bill could lose part of their state funding.

So, what is the “1619 Project” that the Oklahoma Democratic Party went out of its way to defend?

The 1619 Project is a collection of essays on race that first appeared in a special issue of The New York Times Magazine in 2019. Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones led the project and wrote the opening essay. It won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism and the essays were later published as a book, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, which spent many weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. The New York Times education division partnered with The Pulitzer Center to turn the endeavor into a school curriculum. A TV documentary is scheduled to be released in 2022.

So, why is this Pulitzer Prize-winning endeavor controversial and why should it be banned from schools?

The 1619 Project presents a narrative which has taken hold among many in the liberal media, politics, and education circles. It links the foundational origins of the birth of America, not to the American Revolution of 1776, but instead to 1619, the year that the first enslaved Africans arrived on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia. It postulates that the patriots fought the American Revolution to preserve slavery in North America. It alleges that the American founders were not striving for freedom, nor to end “taxation without representation,” but to preserve slavery. Hannah-Jones even portrays president Abraham Lincoln as a closet racist. She makes the assertion that “America’s entire uniqueness, its economic and industrial power, and even its method of elections, are the fruit of slavery, i.e., the result of enslavement of Black Americans.”

In the media release, Andrews continued in her opposition to the bill. “I would like to remind Representative Olsen that more than 24% of Oklahomans do not have affordable access to reliable high-speed internet, and that Oklahoma continues to face a teacher shortage, partially driven by the constant interference of non-educators in their profession,” said Andrews. “Students deserve to learn without ill-informed interference from lawmakers on a quest to infringe upon academic freedom and shut down discussion on our history,” concluded Andrews.

This theme of interference by non-educators was echoed by Hannah-Jones herself during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, December 26, 2021. Hannah-Jones argued that it shouldn’t be left to lawmakers or parents to decide what can be taught in schools. “And I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what’s being taught. I’m not a professional educator. I don’t have a degree in social studies or science, we send our children to school because we want them to be taught by people who have expertise in the subject area.”

Olsen says that contrary to what critics say, the bill does not prohibit teaching that slavery existed in America. He said the important thing is to teach slavery in context. America was guilty of slavery, but other nations and cultures were guilty, too. It was not unique to America. He notes that of all the slave trade from Africa, just 3 percent were sent to America. And, while mostly Black people were slaves in America and owned by whites, there were African American and Native American slave owners, as well. “That’s not to excuse America or the evil of American slavery, but some of the folks behind this type of curriculum, they really hate America. And if you teach America with only its faults and flaws out of context, then young people grow up hating America,” says Olsen.

The 1619 Project is Fake History masquerading as a school curriculum. Hopefully, Oklahoma legislators will not buckle under to attacks from the leftist radicals in the Democratic Party who will try to label those opposed to the 1619 Project curriculum as racists.

Ron McWhirter is one of the founders of the Oklahoma Constitution newspaper and serves as the General Manager. He may be contacted at the newspaper email: okconsti@aol.com