The 1619 Project is an initiative by The New York Times that aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of [[slavery]] and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States' national narrative. It was first published in August 2019 as a special issue of The New York Times Magazine, in observance of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia, an event that the project dates as August 1619. The project was developed and led by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. It includes essays on different aspects of contemporary American life, from mass incarceration to rush-hour traffic, and traces them back to slavery and its aftermath. It also includes literary works of fiction and poetry from writers of African descent. The 1619 Project has been influential but also controversial. Supporters praise it for bringing attention to often overlooked aspects of American history and for challenging the dominant narrative about the nation's past. Critics allege that it is historically inaccurate in some respects, and complain that it presents an overly negative view of American history. Educationally, the 1619 Project has been used in some schools as a tool to teach American history, while in other areas, lawmakers have sought to ban it from classrooms. The project has sparked widespread debate about the nature of history, the role of journalism in shaping the understanding of the past, and the state of race relations in the United States. See also: [[Civil War]], [[Jim Crow]], [[segregation]], [[Civil Rights Act]], [[Brown v. Board of Education]]