The moment is uncomfortable it’s awkward it’s subtle in its cruelty. Like many descendants of enslaved people, they don’t know exactly where their ancestors came from, just that it’s somewhere in Africa. Her social-studies teacher has given all the students an assignment: Draw the national flag of the country where your ancestors came from.Hannah-Jones locks eyes with the only other Black child in the class. The second moment takes place in her classroom, at school. Added to that, she thought his patriotism was misguided, that he’d been lulled into participating in his own degradation. Like many teenagers, Hannah-Jones was mortified by her father’s insistence on flying the flag. So, when the country he’d grown up in had let him down so much, how could he be so patriotic? Why did he insist on flying that red, white, and blue flag? This was a fiercely intelligent man who spent his life working in service jobs that barely allowed him to get by. He’d joined the military, believing it would give him access to the privileges afforded white US citizens, only to be overlooked when it came to promotions, and eventually discharged. It impacted where he was allowed to live, what kind of education he had access to, and what kind of jobs he could get. A descendent of enslaved people who’d been forced to toil in inhumane conditions, this was a man who’d experienced discrimination in every aspect of his life. This was a man born in Mississippi, one of the most violently racist states in the country – someone whose mother hadn’t been allowed to vote or use the library. Hannah-Jones didn’t understand her father’s patriotism at all.

The house might fall into disrepair, but the flag was replaced as soon as it became a little bit frayed.

It was her father’s pride and joy, and he went to great lengths to make sure it was always immaculate. The first takes place in the author’s childhood home.One of the things Hannah-Jones remembers most clearly from her childhood is the American flag that fluttered on the front lawn of their family home. Let’s begin with two powerful moments in Nikole Hannah-Jones’s life.

The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones