Knowledge of the 1619 Mission first piqued my consideration in 2020, after I realized that legislators and residents alike had been pushing to have its content material banned from public training. Created and spearheaded by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, “The 1619 Mission” is a hub of essential info concerning the historical past of Black individuals in America, each as an initiative and its new kind as a 6-part Hulu documentary collection, premiering right this moment.
“We cast a brand new tradition of our personal, giving start to ourselves…It was by advantage of our bondage that we grew to become probably the most American of all.”
What saturates this collection with significance will not be simply the great documentation of our historical past, however the expertly threaded connections to trendy types of the identical systemic oppression in disguise. The episodic format provides every chapter its personal matter, permitting for pinpoint deal with quite a lot of points, allotting every one a full hour seeking readability and exploration.
Whether or not paralleling the origin of gynecology with the continued medical racism affecting Black moms or evaluating cotton-picking logbooks with Amazon’s warehouse protocols, “The 1619 Mission” adheres to the precept that the results of Black historical past influence the tradition of all Americans.
Nonetheless, the collection doesn’t ship its content material with textbook dryness or pure objectivity, and that is the place Hannah-Jones’ journalistic hand is felt. Every episode of “The 1619 Mission” seems like a dialog in addition to a set of non-public essays. It’s an academic memoir of Black America. Interviews with specialists of their fields, on a regular basis residents, and Hannah-Jones’ personal private anecdotes and familial historical past give faces to points which might be usually offered as headlines or papers on the desks of legislators. It brings humanity to the forefront of social issues rendered nameless by statistics or invisible by suppression.
The worth of the collection’ content material is plain, however the visuals that assist the present fall considerably beneath expectation. With a reputation like Oprah Winfrey among the many producers, there ought to’ve been area within the price range to offer imagery past slideshows and easy animated graphics. The collection doesn’t make the most of its visible format, and whereas there isn’t disgrace in a easy approach, the neglect to commit measurable consideration to it’s disappointing.
The overarching thesis of “The 1619 Mission” is that an amalgam of social points affecting all People are the results of establishments born and bred from the enslavement of Black individuals. The antiquated programs and legal guidelines put in place might have modified context, however they didn’t change consequence. The federal government and companies alike are in a position to exploit previous legal guidelines to have an effect on new coverage, and the present proclaims that with out the information of historical past’s origins, we are going to at all times be topic to manipulation.
The six-part collection is constructed each on ideology and emotion, protecting the concepts of capitalism and concern with the identical dexterity and precedence. The collection’ analysis is woven into the current with agility and starkness, unclogging the direct history-to-culture pipeline. By revealing dire and damning histories then thrusting an adjoining circumstance of recent day into our face, “The 1619 Mission” prompts us to comprehend that the shallow pool of how far we’ve come could possibly be lower than ankle deep.
“The 1619 Mission” is each celebratory and searing. There’s adoration for the trajectory of Black individuals in America, the establishments they helped construct, and the hurdles they’re continuously overcoming. There’s additionally criticism for the methods this historical past is ignored, in addition to the dismissal of racism that comes with segregating our identities. By projecting the proof that “Black issues” additionally have an effect on white individuals, Hannah-Jones expands her attain. She will not be rewriting the archives, nor twisting their context; she is dusting off previous documents and framing them in gold, demanding our consideration via hanging the data on a contemporary wall and testifying to the timeless, and generally indiscriminate, affect of white supremacy.