What Happens After You Uncover Buried History? | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic

Foreign. They say our people were born on the water, like nothing had existed before. We were told by virtue of our bondage we could never be American, but it was by virtue of our bondage that we became the most American of all. That's a clip from a documentary about the legacy of slavery in America. It's the latest offering from journalist Nicole Hannah Jones and the groundbreaking project that was published in the New York Times magazine in 2019. Exploding into public consciousness, it has since turned into a series of articles, a book, a podcast, and now this upcoming Hulu series. You cannot tell the story of America without telling the story of Black America. We are the story of America.

This is the 1619 Project, and you can't tell the story of the 1619 Project without telling the story of its creator. I'm Deborah Adam Simmons, vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion at National Geographic, and you're listening to Overheard, the show where we eavesdrop on the wild conversations we have here at Nat Geo and follow them to the edges of our big, weird, beautiful world. Recently, I, along with National Geographic history resident Jordan Solomon, caught up with Nicole Hannah Jones. Her work on the 1619 Project landed her at the center of a cultural moment. She'll tell us what it was like to be the messenger of that moment, the good and the bad. More after the break.

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When the 1619 Project first came out, it got a ton of attention, and then once it went into the world, just the response of so many people who said, “I never knew this history. I’d never been prodded to contemplate the way that slavery is foundational in shaping society today.” Because that's really what the project argues. It's not just saying, “Let's teach you about a history that happened a long time ago,” but let's teach you how that slavery and its legacy shape America today in ways that we don't know.

So, once it published, we got contacted by a lot of publishers who said we should turn this into a book. I really love the idea of that because, as you know, as a journalist, you don't often get a second bite of the apple. Right? You put your best foot forward and then you have to move on to something else. So, to be able to then take everything we’d learned—to think about the stories we wish we had had more space and time to tell—to add more voices, we were able to really do that with the book.

So, you make an interesting point about getting a second bite at the apple, because that really doesn't happen. So what was it about your essay that you wanted to change? Was there something in the response the first time around that made you say, “You know what, I want to revisit this part,” or was it something that you had been stewing on and thinking about that inspired that? Talk about that.

So, my original essay in the project is on democracy, and yes, I was very excited to be able to revise it, mostly because of all the criticism and attacks that that essay received. Particularly the attacks around an argument I make about the American Revolution, which is that in the southern colonies, slavery played a major role in this—in the white colonists in the South deciding they wanted to join the Revolutionary effort.

So, I have been relentlessly attacked for that, as had the entire project, and so this was a great opportunity to show my work—to show that I didn't just sit down one day and say, “Let me make up something about the Revolutionary War and publish it in the New York Times.” That, to me, was the best part of getting the second bite of that apple. It was one to answer critics, but also, I just improved the essay. The essay is just better now; it's better argued.

You know, I see students talking about the history of Black people in America in a way that I hadn't talked about. How is this resonating with students, and your vision for that? I am shocked when students know who I am. Right? I'm just a journalist. Like most students, they have a lot of more, much more famous people to pay attention to. So, that you could produce a text on slavery and its legacy, and students—and I mean at the high school level and the college level—are like, “This book means so much to me. I'm realizing everything I wasn't taught and I want to learn more, because this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

And Black students in particular find themselves affirmed as agents in the American story—not just people who've been acted upon, not just people who've been oppressed, but agents who are driving the American story. That has been transformative for a lot of students. And what's beautiful about it to me is this project allows me to introduce to regular people—whether they be students or, you know, my uncle who works at the John Deere plant in Waterloo—to all of these scholars that I've been reading for years, whose work has shaped mine, to all of this literature—to just reading the endnotes and seeing the wealth of information that can be learned.

Because, as you know, I say in the process, our world is so small when it comes to Black folks—like we don't even know there's all this history that we can learn because we think if it existed, someone would teach it to us, or movies would reflect it, or monuments. And that really is the power for students.

So, I teach a 1619 class, and this semester all the students had to write their own 1619 essays. So they had to pick a subject that wasn't in the book and show how modern America, this modern phenomenon, has been shaped. Oh my God! It was just some of the most fulfilling things I could imagine. And I've thought a lot about my family back home in Waterloo, Iowa, who want this information, but, you know, it's hard to sit through ten thousand-word essays, and this just makes it so much more accessible to the regular folks that I want to reach with this message.

So it's exciting and somewhat intimidating. My hometown a few years ago was named the worst place in America to be Black, and that says a lot for a city no one's ever heard of. It is a very hard place to be Black, and to see the success I've had by telling our stories means so much to my family personally. These are just humble folks who never—none of us expected that anyone from our clan would become what I've been able to become.

What's so important to me is people understand I didn't become this in spite of my community, but my community built me. My community gave me what I needed to be able to succeed. So, I'm just— they’re excited, I’m excited.

You know, part of the work that we're doing is really trying to uncover buried histories—not just for people who are reading it now, but for the generations that come along, because there's so little information that's available now, but there is more than most students know, as you point out.

So, Jordan happens to be the 2022-23 history resident. The history resident before him worked on the Tulsa stories we were doing and learned that he was a descendant of one of the most successful Black men in the Greenwood section of Tulsa, and he had no idea. Wow! So, he knew that he had family that was from Oklahoma, and he knew that he had family who were entrepreneurs, but he didn't know that his great-great-grandfather owned the hotel that was one of the major places that was burnt, you know—the first target of where the fires began.

And so, to the extent that you are opening students up to buried history, we think that's powerful.

The 1619 Project creates a pathway for more media organizations, historians, and others to tell a broader American story. Yes, I think the power of the 1619 Project is it proves what many of us have always known, but that our editors don't often understand: If you put resources behind projects like this, and if you try to tell the truth, unflinchingly, right? Our mandate was—and I said this from day one—if we're going to do this, we're not going to worry about the audience, how they feel, being palatable to them. We're going to produce the project we need to produce, and then what happens, happens.

But I believe that people would come to something that was evocative and not comforting—that wasn't the same narrative. So, I hope it opens doors because it proves that when you do that, people will come to it. People want complexity; they want intelligence; they want something that explains a society and the way our reporting too often doesn't. So that's how I hope it will open doors.

I mean, the same way I understood if this project wasn't successful, it would close doors because as Black journalists, we carry our community with us. It's never just about our own personal failings; it's always reflecting somehow on a broader community. But I also understood if it succeeded, it should have the opposite effect—which is, you know, I would love to see a similar project done around Indigenous people. Right? There are many ways we can tell these truths and broaden this understanding of America, where we've all gotten such a narrow understanding that's so narrow it's to be a lie.

What this project does, and what I hope it inspires other news organizations and other journalistic organizations, magazines, to do, is explore those projects that are at the margins. This project speaks to the silences we have—this lens. But if you turn that lens just a little bit, there’s so much going on that helps you see the bigger picture.

So, how did you sell the project? And how do you think timing has impacted the growth?

Yeah, so people always assume it must have been a fight, but it really wasn't. I really am very lucky—I would say lucky, but also at work to get here. So I don’t want to say it’s just luck, but I work for amazing bosses. I really do. I think the timing helped the initial project. Frankly, I've thought a lot about had this had the 400th anniversary fallen under the Obama administration, for instance, would people have been drawn to the project in the same way? I don't think so.

I mean, I still think it's a great project, but you know, that was when everyone wanted to believe we were post-racial, right? We had banished the legacy of slavery finally with the ascension of a Black man to the presidency. So why are we looking back and excavating that stuff? But then we follow the first Black president with the white nationalist president, and everyone has whiplash—not Black people. I don't mean—we already, we always knew what was up, right? But a lot of people, white people, and not just white people, but non-Black people had this whiplash that they thought we had reached this post-racial mountaintop, and now we clearly aren't here.

And so the project comes in during the Trump administration, and despite my critics, I didn't plan the 400th anniversary under Trump. That's just the president who was in when we did the project. And so people who were trying to grapple with how does the same country produce these two things within that short period of time, I think were looking for something, and the 1619 Project was helping to explain this country.

And then, of course, we get the protests of 2020—the so-called racial reckoning—which has now spawned another racial reckoning in the opposite direction. And that, yes, that kept it alive. And frankly, Republicans have kept it alive. I’m saying they should probably get a percentage of our book royalties because the fact that they can't stop talking about the project—I mean, Mike Pompeo is still talking about the project, right? That has helped a lot too because people don't like being told what they can't read, what they shouldn't read.

And if people who don't believe in democracy much are saying that this is a danger to the hierarchy that has allowed them to be where they are, I think a lot of people want to understand that history and why people in power are so afraid of it. Any society that power feels under attack, they target the storytellers. You would not see the most powerful people in this country—senators, presidents, secretaries of state, governors—targeting a work of journalism if they weren't worried that it was having an impact.

If it wasn't having an impact, they wouldn't care. So it is extremely affirming. The project is just getting bigger and bigger, and now with the documentary series, even more people are going to be able to start to make connections with the world they've built or that they live in and what built it. And I think the scariest part of that is the unequal country we have that is being misshapen by the legacy of slavery doesn't just hurt Black people, and it never has.

And our arguments are that our entire society suffers. Black people suffer the most, Indigenous people suffer the most, but our entire society suffers by this legacy. But we just don't know why, and this helps us understand why.

What do you think your father would say if he could see where you are now, man, and the impact of the work?

Yes, my father and my Uncle Eddie, who I also talk about, was my dad's brother—my closest uncle—both passed years ago. They would be so astounded by everything that's come. One of my proudest moments in this is that when you open the book, the first image you see is of my dad. That picture of my dad—he's in Germany; he was 17, 18 years old, had joined the military. He always said he felt freest when he was abroad because that was the only time he really felt he got treated like an American.

And I just was on the phone yesterday with reporters in Germany because the book has been translated now into German. My dad spoke German fluently from his time over there, and I was just thinking, man, he would not be able to believe this. I always say America killed my dad. I really think, and my uncle—my uncle died at 50 years old from a cancer that went undiagnosed because he didn't have health insurance, even though he worked every day.

My dad was a man of stunted ambitions his entire life. He was one of the smartest people I knew—he was an avid reader—but never was able to get ahead. And I just had terrible health outcomes, died before he could get Social Security, like so many Black people in this country. And so just to think that everything, every ambition he had to swallow could produce me, you know...sorry, I apologize. I just think about—I carry that with me all the time. Who am I doing this for?

So interestingly enough, part of the power of the docu-series is that so many Black children and Black families and Black aunts and uncles see themselves in your story. Yes, and that has to be gratifying for you. Talk about that.

Yes, absolutely. You know, people haven't seen the documentary, but they talk about this—even with the opening essay on democracy. It's like, “Oh, that's my dad.” I never understood why my dad, who served in the military, was so patriotic. And that all of these stories, or even the podcast when I tell the story of my uncle Ed who, you know, dies from cancer that went undiagnosed, and Black folks are like, “You're just—this is the American story.”

And it's a story of so many people, but that never gets told in this way. And that's who I did this project for. Of course, I invite everyone to learn this history and see these stories, but this is for the descendants of American slavery. It is for, you know- one of the things when we were doing the series, the producers would be like, “You know, we want you to bring us on the journey, so do you have a story for this episode?” And I'm like, “Every Black person has a story for every one of these episodes.” Because it doesn't matter if you personally have achieved success; most of our families don't live like us.

So, I'm exceptional in that I have made it out, but the stories we tell are the stories of nearly every single Black person, no matter what wealth or status they have.

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I was with a group of women who just were amazed that we were having this interview today because when they talk about you, they talk about you the way they talk about Kamala Harris. And so the question for you is, what's it like being in that rarified air and holding this important place?

You know, someone in the conversation was like, “You know, yes, she has reframed the way we think about journalism and about journalists,” and even though you don't see yourself as a celebrity, certainly in the African-American community, you are perceived that way. And so how are you navigating this space?

Uh, no disrespect, but I'm just—I'm not. I'm not up there. I’m just—I'm not. I don't really know how to deal with that. I'm really just a regular person—a girl from Waterloo who wanted to write. And while I'm deeply honored, I'm still amazed every day if somebody sees me and knows who I am. I'm not a TV reporter; I didn't intend to have any of this. I really just wanted to tell our stories.

But I take that—that people might see me in that way. I take that with a great sense of responsibility. I do know what I mean to certain people, and so I don't want to let people down.

And do you carry that as a burden, even as you're sort of celebrating?

It's not a burden to me. I feel like it is a blessing—not even— I just feel tremendously lucky. You know, I read books and I write our stories for a living, and they mean something to our people. So I never feel burdened by that. Now, sometimes when I'm just trying to, you know, sit in the café and have a coffee by myself or a cocktail, do I feel like taking a picture or having a conversation? Not always. Am I ever going to let you know that? No, I won't, because I never want someone to admire me and that my work means something to them and I made them feel badly about that. I just feel lucky.

So interestingly enough, I was on Martha's Vineyard this summer—about the second week in August—sitting on a balcony in a condo that was directly across the street from The Inkwell. I came out to the balcony and I was like, “Why is everybody swarming over in this corner?” And then I saw your red hair poking.

That's the problem, right? People like you— you must not mind it that bad because your hair is the brightest thing in any setting. And you know, you were very gracious in this crowd, as you know, because you were there—got bigger and bigger. And then you sort of moved on, and the crowd moved on, and then the next morning, you were out there again. It seemed like you had this sort of, at least this sort of five or ten-minute moment of solace, watching the yoga people over here.

And did you get in the water with them?

Okay, so it looked like you might have been watching the polar bears. And, you know, you had this moment, and then the crowd showed up again and I was like, “So much for being on vacation!” Even if it wasn't vacation, even if you were giving a talk or what have you, and those moments in the more—those quiet moments seem like they became the community's moments.

And in that instance, it seemed like you belong to the community. And so, how do you—this is my last question—how do you sort of maintain self when you have become such a public figure and such a representative of not just yourself and your family, but really generations of African Americans who are trying to sort of reconnect with their history?

I really like the way you put that. That's a beautiful way of putting it. I belong to the community because I can't think of a greater honor than that, really. And, to be clear, that's not a normal experience. Martha's Vineyard is a particular type of Black folk, so they're much more apt to know me than just—I live in Black communities. I could walk down the street in my neighborhood any day; most people don't have any idea who I am, which really keeps you grounded.

But how does it feel? You know, I most of the time I'm able to go about my life like a regular person, and it almost always catches me off guard when people know who I am, and then I just feel really grateful because that means that the work means something to them. So, I’m Nicole; anybody who knows me, I’m Nicole no matter where I am, and I also do belong to the community.

I think we all do. It's just what do we do with that belonging?

If you like what you hear and you want to support more content like this, please rate and review us in your podcast app and consider a National Geographic subscription. That's the best way to support Overheard. Go to natgeo.com backslash Explore More to subscribe. Be sure to watch the 1619 Project, premiering January 26th on Hulu from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicole Hannah Jones and Academy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams. The six-part documentary series is based on the groundbreaking New York Times magazine issue, podcast, and award-winning book.

It examines the legacy of slavery in America and explores how it has shaped nearly all aspects of our society today—from policing to music to capitalism and our democracy. The original New York Times magazine 1619 Project is so worth checking out. It features articles, photo essays, and more asserting that Black Americans created democracy in this country, and if you're an audio listener, which we know you are, you're in luck! The New York Times created a whole audio mini-series on the subject, exploring topics like Black land ownership and health disparities. National Geographic also has coverage of these issues. You can find links to all that and more right there in your show notes.

This week's Overheard episode is produced by Alana Strauss. Our producers include Kari Douglas. Our other senior producers are Jacob Pinter and Brian Gutierrez. Our senior editor is Eli Chen. Our manager of audio is Carla Wills, who edited this episode. Our executive producer of audio is Deborah Artalin. Our photo editor is Julie Howe. Ted Woods, sound designist, episode, and Hansdale Sue composed our theme music.

Special thanks to National Geographic history resident Jordan Solomon. This podcast is a production of National Geographic Partners. Michael Tribble is the director of integrated storytelling. Nathan Lumpis is National Geographic's editor-in-chief, and I'm your host, Deborah Adam Simmons. Thanks for listening, and I'll see y'all next time.

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Foreign.

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