Air Date: 9/25/20

The Root Presents: It’s Lit

Ep. 1 - 401 Years a Slave, With Nikole Hannah-Jones
Danielle ​Hi and welcome to It's Lit! Where all things literary live at The Root. I'm Danielle
Belton, The Root's editor in chief, here with the managing editor of The Glow Up, Maiysha
Kai.

Maiysha ​Hey y'all.

Danielle ​We are so excited to finally bring you this podcast that we've been working on
almost all summer.

Maiysha ​All summer. That is right. We have had such a strong response for our already
existing It's Lit column at The Root. We really thought, hey, this should be a podcast.

Danielle ​Definitely. And it was all Maiysha's idea. She's being modest.

Maiysha ​I mean, I—eh.

Danielle ​She totally took my original idea to create It's Lit as a column for literary fiction
initially on The Root, as we will see short story fiction. And she saw the vision. She had the
wherewithal to make it more of a home for writers, journalists, book authors, all the folks
who take to the page and create the words that are so meaningful to us that we'd love to
read and absorb and be impassioned about.

Maiysha ​I mean, we're out here. That's the point. We out here. And, you know, we already
have had such great conversations. I mean, I'm actually really excited for people to hear
what we've got coming for them because man, we are just, we are beautiful and brilliant
people.

Danielle ​Yes. And also, I love the title. It's Lit.

Maiysha ​It is lit!

Danielle ​It is definitely lit!

Maiysha ​It's lit at The Root y'all.

Danielle ​All the time.

Maiysha ​All the time.

Danielle ​It's always lit. And I hope you will, you know, all you guys listening will bear with
us since, as you know, we're currently dealing with a global pandemic. Thus we're
recording from home. So you might hear a siren, the occasional motorcycle, the people
who like the cuss each other out on the street in front of my building, just general noise
from time to time.

Maiysha ​You might hear Slack alerts.

Danielle ​Yeah, you can you can hear anything, anything and everything at any given time.
So just be warned. And we're gonna make it work.

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Maiysha ​And we are gonna make it work. And so let's get to it. Our first guest for our
inaugural episode. I could not be more excited is none other than the incredible Nikole
Hannah-Jones. She is the journalist behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project, which
commemorates the four hundredth anniversary of the arrival of enslaved people on U.S.
soil and illuminates slavery's modern-day legacy and our contribution as Black Americans,
our contributions to society.

Danielle ​Sixteen nineteen has been a print piece, an audio piece, and it will now be
coming to the screens as it was recently optioned by none other than Oprah Winfrey.

Maiysha ​I mean it don't get no bigger than that, Oprah optioned it. That's the tweet.

Danielle ​Yeah. That's it.

Maiysha ​I think it's also worth reporting that, you know, Nikole Hannah-Jones. She's an
amazing legacy. She co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting,
which is a training and mentorship program that aims to increase the ranks of investigative
journalists of color based upon, obviously, her idol, Ida B. Wells. You know, and I have to
say, when you look at what the 1619 Project has done for us and continues to do for us,
you know, it really has, I think, staked our claim in terms of major contributors to this
country or as Nikole puts it, founding fathers. We are also founding fathers of this country,
our ancestors as well. And what they did with that project was just I mean, it's beyond
words. I my gratitude.

Danielle ​I think it's incredible. The fact that it's going to be taught in schools as curriculum
is so important. The fact that she took the original slaves who arrived in Virginia in 1619
and traced that to really, truly being the founding of America because I mean, let's face it,
America was built by us. It was built on the backs of cheap and free labor. And who was
that labor?

Maiysha ​Stolen labor. Yes.

Danielle ​It was Black people. Forced labor.

Maiysha ​Forced labor.

Danielle ​Still waiting for that check, guys.

Maiysha ​Listen, listen, let's talk about that stimulus check. All right. Well, there's no reason
to delay further. Let's get into our interview with Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Danielle ​Hey, Nikole, welcome back to The Root.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Hey, thank you for having me.

Danielle ​Yeah, it's awesome to have you on It's Lit, and we thank you so much for joining
us today. You know, I don't think we've touched base since I last saw you at The Root 100.
And we definitely haven't talked since you announced that Oprah would be joining you,
The New York Times, and Lionsgate in producing film and TV content around the 1619
Project. Oh, and thank you again for choosing the route to help break that news.

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Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Yeah, absolutely. It was important that we use Black media to
break the news about the 1619 project film and TV expansion. And I am both very excited
and very nervous about this because I don't, you know, TV and film is not my area of
expertise. And the last thing I want is us to produce anything like the Green Book. So I'm
just, I'm just really, you know, I'm excited because it gives us an opportunity to expand to
people like my folks back home who aren't reading 10,000-word essays in The New York
Times and now they'll have a chance to really experience the content. But I'm also nervous
about getting into an area that I don't know as well.

Danielle ​Of course. But I feel like with you and Oprah, y'all will figure this out. I think it will
be good. I don't think it will be the Green Book.

Maiysha ​I almost spit my coffee out when she said that. I was like, "did she say the Green
Book?"

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Yeah. I mean, everyone is clear that we would not be doing that.

Danielle ​OK, good.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​So there's a, you know, a North Star of the Green Book, I guess
would be my south star, it's not going to happen. But it was important. You know, one of
the reasons why I was really excited that Oprah was interested is to have a powerful Black
executive in the room when decisions are being made was really important to me. But I will
say, you know, we spent a lot of time figuring out who would be the best studio to work
with us on this. And Lionsgate, just everyone that I've talked to this entire time really got
what we're trying to do and that nothing is more important to me than maintaining the rigor
and the standards and the honesty of the project. And that means that we can't water it
down. And we're certainly not going to be telling Black stories through white saviors.

Danielle ​I would hope not. Oh, my God. I mean, because I'm like 1619. Like, where?
Where are the white saviors? Like we're talking like 400 years—like who came to save
anybody? I think no one. I think we had to save ourselves.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​We know those stories. That's the whole point. When you're trying
to expand the lens, when you're trying to tell a bigger story or a more unknown story, you
don't have to retread the ground that we've all come up in. I mean, we know that who the
good quote unquote white people have been in history and they have gotten a lot of shine.
But our stories, you know, we don't ever get to be the center of our own narrative. And the
1619 Project was both about centering us in the narrative, but also being honest that the
white saviors were the tiny minority and that that has not been our experience with most of
the history of this country and our decision to always focus on those small minority of
people who were trying to fight for Black equality. I think really obscures the truth of our
history in this country. So we just weren't we weren't gonna do that.

Danielle ​No, I. I applaud you for it. Don't do that. That's amazing. So before we get more
into that, because It's Lit, is a podcast about Black books and writers, we like to kick things
off by asking all of our participants to name at least one book that they've read in their life
that they consider to be life-changing. Like this is the book that blew your mind and made
you go like...made you see all the possibilities that there could be in literature.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Oh, man. You know, that's such a hard question because at
different points in your life, you have different books that change your life. And, you know,

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if I were talking about high school, it would certainly be the autobiography of Malcolm X. If I
were talking about when I was in grad school, it would be The Race Beat which won the
Pulitzer some years ago. If I were talking about as like a full-fledged adult, it would be my
all-time favorite book, which is Isabel Wilkerson's, The Warmth of Other Suns. And, you
know, it wasn't life-altering in that I didn't know about the Great Migration. But one, you
know, it's written by the first Black woman to win a Pulitzer in journalism. It's one of the
most beautifully written books I've ever read. But it's also just an amazing piece of
anthropology. And I think what makes The Warmth of Other Suns so subversive is it
allows. It really posits that Black migration as a classic immigration story of people having
to flee, picking up and leaving everything behind, looking for a better life. Except, of
course, we were fleeing our own country for somewhere else in our own country. But I
think it allowed so many nonblack people to finally see their own experience in the Black
experience where they had been unable to do that before because, of course, their
ancestors were coming to America seeking a better life. And that thought has always
been, well, this the greatest country in the world. Why don't you guys just try hard like we
did and that she's so like beautifully and poignantly and powerfully shows that that's
exactly what we were trying to do. But we were doing it in a country that didn't treat us as
citizens. So that's probably of the book that I've recommended the most of my life and that
I've given out the most as a gift.

Danielle ​Nice. No, that book was a game-changer. Definitely. So it's been just over a year
since the 1619 Project debuted shining a new light on the role slavery played in the
founding of America. Since that time, Nikole, you have not only captured the attention of
Oprah and the world, and were a 2019 Root100 honoree, but you won a well-deserved
2020 Pulitzer Prize on the same day as your idol, Ida B Wells was posthumously honored.
What, if anything, has surprised you about the reaction in the wake of publishing 1619?

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Oh, God. So much, I mean, both good and bad. I did the 1619
Project just because I felt it was a project that needed to be done and that 400th
anniversary, and me being at the New York Times just posed such an opportunity to force
us to reckon with this history and its ongoing legacy. But it's not that I necessarily believed
it would blow up. I mean, it's about slavery. It's about this the whole point that it exists as
we have not wanted to deal with this as a society. So while I was working on the project, I
mean, I had so many moments of panic where I was like, I'm going to have commanded all
these resources and led this project. And when it comes out, you know, nobody might read
it. No one might not. You know, no one will care. And if that happened, of course, not only
would I have failed our ancestors, which is, you know, just a tremendous cosmic burden.
But I also would have made it harder for every other Black or brown person who tried to
pitch something really ambitious who came behind me. So the reaction to the project by
the project selling out people posting like unboxing videos, school districts wanting to
adapt it, just the amount of people I've heard from and how it went into the world.
Complete and utter surprise. I like you, Danielle, I've been doing this a very long time and
you know that you can do amazing journalism and that doesn't mean that you will get the
type of response that the journalism deserves. So that's been a complete surprise to me
and the legs that it's had. It's a year later, and for good or for ill, people are still talking
about the project. There's still some conservative news site writing a piece about the
project every single week, and that really speaks to its power. I also knew the project was
going to foster a lot of critique. Clearly, you don't make arguments like let's consider 1619,
our true founding that Black people are America's true founding fathers, that we actually
are the ones who brought democracy to this country, that our system of capitalism was
based on the Slavocracy. Like you don't make those arguments and not expect they're
going to get pushback. That's the point. It was intended to be evocative, but I didn't expect

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such a concerted effort to actually discredit the project. It's one thing to say we don't like it.
We don't agree with it. It's another thing to have, you know, really esteemed, you know,
that small group of really esteemed historians who aren't even considered conservative
historians who actively have worked to discredit the project. That was clearly surprising to
me. And then that a year later, we would get mentioned by the president, there would be a
bill introduced against the project to try to keep teachers from teaching it. We made it into
Trump's impeachment campaign. Like, all of that shit is, of course, no one expected it. It's
been a crazy year.

Danielle ​I can imagine. I mean, in so many respects, like your project, like it changed
so...like it affected so much change in the world, especially in the United States and
people's reaction to it. I was also surprised at the number of historians who were like, you
know, I'm mad. And kind of went after you on it. But it just told me you were doing the right
thing. It told me that you were you were correct in that it invoked such a strong response.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Yeah. What's so interesting about that is, of course, most of the
historians I've heard from did not react that way. But when you agree with something, you
don't go on a campaign to write multiple pieces, say, actually, we think this is great. So, of
course, those who oppose that, were going to have a platform to do so and also would not
just write one piece and let it go. What I think, though, is ​[00:15:15]​when I pitched the
project, my goal when my editor was like, what? What's your goal for this? And I was like,
"I just want people to know the date 1619." Like, Americans don't know that this date even
exists. And if they're forced to confront that slavery predates the founding of our nation by
one hundred and fifty years, it forces you to think about it as foundation in a way that we
haven't. ​[19.9s] ​And to see the way and I won't say it's only because the 1619 Project. But
certainly we contributed in a major way to the understanding of that date and the invoking
of 400 years in the protest movement. 1619 being sprayed on icons of white supremacy
and seeing everyone from senators to mayors to activists invoking that that date in the 400
years to me, is a powerful legacy of what we were able to help do.

Maiysha ​You know, I actually one of the things I loved about 1619 Project is I felt like, you
know, we hear so often, "I don't want to hear another slavery narrative. I don't want to like I
don't want to delve into that." We hear it from both sides. Right. Like we heard from our
people, too. And I felt like you open this door for us to have a discussion that was really,
really necessary. And that also justified the fact that we do still need to talk about it. We do
still need to see this. This is not a part of our history that any of us should be putting away.
But, you know, when you speak about legacy, you know, you've also been carrying on Ida
B Wells' legacy as a co-founder of the Wells Society for Investigative Reporting. Thank
you. And, you know, I know that the aim there is to arm more black journalists with
investigative reporting skills and those of us in journalism. I think we would all agree that
the groundbreaking work that you did with 1619 brought renewed focus to the work of
Black journalists. And more recent events have kind of demonstrated the necessity just via
this like wide disparity of coverage that we've seen of all these persistent racially charged
issues. You know, in your words, why do you feel that it's vital for us to be represented in
that way?

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Well, it's so critical. I mean, you can look at the reason we named
the organization after Ida B Wells, which is that there's just stories that will never be
covered and will never be covered correctly if we're not investigating them and covering
them. Ida B Wells of course, wrote about lynching at a time when not just white folks, but
Black people also were buying the narrative that Black men were being lynched because
they were raping white women. And through investigative reporting, she was able to show

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the fallacy of that. She was one of the first data reporters in this country. She actually was
the first person to collect data on the amount of lynchings that were occurring. But if she
didn't do that, that story would not have been told. And frankly, the NAACP, which she
helped co-found, would have never taken up lynching as one of the issues that it was
going to fight against. So we can fast forward to a few years ago when Black journalists
started really reporting on police killings. And as we know, Black folks have known that
police don't tell the truth in all the circumstances, that police come in our communities and
violate our rights and brutalize us. That was nothing new. But when it was only white
journalists covering it, they were ignoring that story. And what's changed is social media,
where citizen journalists start recording these interactions and posting them online. And
you could see the difference between the official report they showed up in the newspaper
and the reality of what happened. So that forces then newspapers, mainstream
newspapers to start taking seriously the claims that Black people had long had, which is
that they are not being treated fairly by the police. So we can't cover our democracy in
an—and investigative reporting, as you women both know, is the most important reporting
because investigative reporting is that which holds power accountable. It's that which
un-earths and digs up those facts that powerful people don't want known. And it shows the
way the power is wielded against the vulnerable. It is also the whitest of our profession,
which means there are just entire swaths of the country, entire stories that aren't told when
people are contacting investigative journalism who's determined to be credible or not.
What stories are credible or not? What they decide to dig into or not is influenced by their
race. So we have to be in these positions so that we can actually truly cover our society
and our communities. And the last thing I'll say is that the skills of investigative reporting is
just great reporting skills. Like looking at documents, analyzing data, doing confrontational
interviews. All of these things are skills that any reporter should be doing. But a lot of times
Black reporters are not getting the training that they need in order to do that type of
reporting. So our organization is trying to build a truly democratic press that actually does
its watchdog role in a democracy, not just for powerful white people, but for our
communities as well.

Danielle ​Most definitely, and we greatly admire that work that—

Maiysha ​Absolutely.

–the organization is doing. But I want to pivot a little and talk about another powerful essay
about reparations that you published this summer titled What is Owed. Both the pandemic
and ongoing uprisings have magnified how the various forms of oppression Black people
face are inextricably linked. And you did an incredible job of illustrating that in the piece,
asking, quote, When will this nation pass the stimulus package to finally respond to the
singularity of Black suffering? End quote. Given everything else going on in America,
people will once again say it's not time for that conversation. Why do you think the time is
now?

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​[00:21:38]​So it's never been time for that conversation. And that's
what I really try to show in the essay by tracing the history that Black people during slavery
were asking for reparations. Black people right after slavery were asking for reparations.
Black people have been asking for reparations for 200 years after every race riot. Black
people have asked for reparations. It has literally never been the right time. And a debt
delay does not mean that the debt is no longer owed. You know, you and I can not pay our
bills for 10 years, and it doesn't mean that after 10 years, we no longer owe that debt
because we avoided paying our bills. But that's been really the stance in this country.
[40.4s] ​And I don't think you can read the 1619 Project from cover to cover and not come

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away with the understanding that it ultimately makes an argument for reparations, that you
can't see how foundational slavery is, followed by that one hundred years of racial
apartheid that was visited upon the descendants of the enslaved and see the gaping gaps
in well-being and anything that you can measure for Black people, and not come away
saying, yes, a great debt is owed. There were supposed to actually be an essay on
reparations in the 1619 Project not written by me. It didn't work out, but that was a divine
intervention or something, because then it allowed me to actually write the reparations
essay, which I wanted to do anyway. So we were going to have a reparations essay in the
book. The book projects. So the 1619 Project is also expanding into a series of books. The
adult book will be out next year. And so there was going to be reparations essay in the
book. But as I was watching these protests and seeing in some ways, you know, all of
these symbolic dominos starting to fall, like all of a sudden we got Juneteenth off all across
the country when that was impossible before. Right. And suddenly, you know, NASCAR
decides actually it's probably not in our values to, like, fly the Confederate flag or allow the
Confederate flag to be flown. And the sustained nature of the protests like it did feel, I don't
feel that way anymore. But it did feel for a second like we were in this potentially
transformative moment. And I just kept thinking, like, I can't wait until next year to make
this argument for reparations. Like I have to make it in this period where our country
seems on the brink of a real reckoning. That if we don't deal with the economic
catastrophe that has been visited upon black Americans lives for generations, we'll have
come away with this having solved nothing, because everything that people are marching
in the streets for in terms of policing and all that, these are rights that we already have.
They're just not being enforced as our rights. But transformation means that you have to
deal with that economic rape that Black people have experienced over generations. And I
really wanted in that moment to push that into the national lexicon and say, if you're not
talking about economic justice right now, you can't really be talking about a racial
reckoning. And it's not that asking police not to kill us in the streets is superficial. I'm
clearly not arguing that. But what I am saying is, even if no unarmed Black person or no
Black person period ever gets killed by police again, we're still going to be suffering in
every aspect of our lives. And we have to do a bigger ask than that. So I wanted to really
piggyback on the legacy of folks trying to legitimize this conversation, as you guys know,
even really up until Ta-nehisi's case for reparations. You couldn't even bring up the word
reparations and be taken seriously. And even after Ta-nehisi's piece, you still couldn't see
it in mainstream political conversation. But there's been movement on that. And it seemed
like, you know, my moral obligation to make that argument in the middle of this global and
racial pandemic.

Maiysha ​You know, I'm glad you did because, when you published that essay, I personally
I remember halfway through the essay I broke down crying because you had so clearly
illustrated everything that was at stake. I mean, you know, and like you said earlier, it's like
I know, you know obviously I know all these components that lead to a more profound
racial injustice than we tend to talk about in our typical conversations. But seeing it all
together on the page was deeply emotional for me. And, you know, obviously, you know,
reparations. I think, I think you're right. I think it has become more legitimate in the political
discourse. I think a lot of people saw Barack Obama become elected and they expected all
the sudden we're going to talk about reparations. And that didn't happen. Right. And I can
see why it didn't happen. You know, with Kamala Harris now in the running for the vice
presidency, I personally expect that to start resurfacing. And I actually sat it on a live
taping of her on Jemele Hill's Unbothered last summer. And Jemele asked her, you know,
she was running for president at the time, and she asked her what she thought about
reparations. And Kamala said "it's complicated." And specifically, she said so her quote
was, "the worst thing I think that can happen is that checks get written and then everybody

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says, OK, stop talking about this now without addressing this and systemic inequities that
are deep and require investment. So that's why I say it's complicated." What do you say to
that?

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​I think that that's just deflection. Honestly. Black people hear that
right now without reparations. Right. Like you heard that after Obama was elected. Well,
racism is gone now. You have a Black president. Black people hear...I mean, welfare
apparently was reparations. Affirmative action apparently was reparations. So the notion
that we can't fix this specific economic harm because then Black people won't be able to
complain about our oppression anymore is a deflection. I think Black folks would much
rather not have to be, you know, a week away from poverty and deal with racism, than
being a week away from poverty and dealing with racism. Right. So the idea that you
somehow if you pay reparations, that will stop us from addressing the 400 years of harm
that we have refused to address anyway. I just think it's a way to both deny the necessity
of reparations, but seem like you're doing it for legitimate reasons. When really what she's
saying when she said it's complicated, is that it's politically complicated, that it's not seen
as a political winner and that we can look at the statistics on this. And even white
Democrats, a majority of them, oppose reparations. So that's what she's saying. So just be
honest. Just say there is not the political support among white Americans to do the right
thing here. And don't try to say like, "oh, we can't do this because then Black people can't
ever complain about their oppression anymore." I just, I don't buy it. And you know, what
was important with the reparations essay is, one, I don't use the word reparations until the
very end intentionally, because I really want to force you to go through this entire argument
and then say that you don't think that this is the right thing. But if you start with reparations,
it automatically turns so many people off, because when it comes to Black votes, we have
this gut reaction, very visceral, ugly reaction to the concept of reparations. And the beauty
of having thought about something for 20 years, I've of having seen every argument
against that is I could stack every last one of those arguments up. I know every single
argument that's going to be made and I know the research opposing it. And I set up every
last one of those arguments and then knock them down. That's kind of the beauty of being
able to think about something for a long time. And I think the reason that it works coming
after the 1619 Project was it was important to me what people really responded to in the
1619 Project was that I was taking modern America. I wasn't just doing a project writing
about this is what happened 150 years ago. I said, look at America today and I'm going to
show you the direct link back to slavery. That what we see in our society today has a direct
link, which is, at my pettiest an argument, you know, to what every Black person hears,
which is slavery was a long time ago. Just get over it. But at the most intellectual level, it's
showing we can't get over it because our country has not gotten over it and our country
has not dealt with it. And if you want to claim the Declaration of Independence and say that
those ideals still impact us today, then you have to claim slavery, too, and say that that
institution, which is not ideal but a practice that was supported by ideals, impacts us today.
And I think that is what really helps seed the ground for the argument of reparations is to
show that we are still suffering from that legacy and all of the things that we say Black
people need to do on our own to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps, actually, scientifically,
and in terms of social science and data have been shown that they won't work.

Danielle ​No, I definitely always bristle at the argument that slavery was long ago. And like
my grandmother, who is 92 and still with us, her father was born a slave. So it's just like.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​There was just a Washington Post article about one of the last
known children of an enslaved person. And he's also in his 90s. But the other thing is we
don't even have to go back to slavery. Right. Like, my father was born in apartheid. Right.

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John Lewis was a living victim of racial terrorism and legally sanctioned apartheid. And
what we're going to do, though, is what we've always done is way for all of them to die off
and then make the argument that there's no living victims of that either. So it's not really
that people don't understand that there actually are living victims of these legally
sanctioned systems of oppression against Black people. But they just want to, as
historic—or excuse me. Economist Sandy Darity says delay until death. And that's been
the way that we have handle Black Americans. And our inequality is delay until death.

Maiysha ​You know, when you introduced 1619 Project last August, I remember you
tweeting that and it's still on your page. The lead tweet is that you wanted people to
understand the place that we as Black people had in the building of this democracy.
Obviously, right now, our democracy, as dubious as it is for us, is at serious risk. What at
this pivotal moment, would you hope that Black people understand about our power, if any,
to preserve and hopefully transform our democracy?

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Oh, God. You know. We've all been seeing for months now that
Black people and Black women in particular have to save this democracy, even though
we're about seven percent of the population of this country and one of the most
disenfranchized. So. You know, our role in this country has always been to be the moral
force and the reminder of what this country is supposed to be. And really the reminder of
these founding ideals that have never really been true for most Americans, but that we
have had to believe in. But we, you know, it's not on us. And I think the unfair burden, you
know, I occasionally argue with people on Twitter. And I was just arguing with a woman
yesterday who was basically like, if black people don't control, you know, the fringe
element in these protests, then Trump is going to get elected. And it's not on us. Like we
can't single-handedly save a democracy when we are 13 percent of the population of this
country. And that is we didn't vote for Trump. We're not going to vote for Trump. If Trump
wins, it's going to be because majority white people or enough white people in key states
voted for him. And so while on the one hand, I wanted my essay to really show this
unparalleled role that Black people have played as a democratizing force in this country,
because we are raised to think our main contribution was our brute labor picking cotton,
which was a massive contribution. But it is not our sole contribution. And I really wanted to
reframe our understanding of the role that Black people have played as the perfectors of
democracy. But I don't mean that to be that this is our burden and that somehow we can
fix this white supremacist founded country. We are a tiny minority who, by the way, are
fighting just to be able to exercise our franchise today, just like we've always fought to
exercise our franchise. So I don't want to send that mixed message. We should have a
tremendous amount of pride in our history and the fact that we haven't voted for fascism.
We didn't fall for the okey-doke. You know, when Trump was doing the Muslim ban and
campaigning against Latinos, even though we're the ones fighting for these low wage jobs
with them, we didn't fall for it because we don't have the ability to have some blind view of
America. And we understand that whatever racism that you're trying to implement against
someone else is always going to end up coming back to us. But it's unfair to then ask us to
be the saviors of a democracy that we largely still exist outside of. And to put that burden
on us as if we don't have enough burdens. I just think it's too much.

Danielle ​It's exhausting. Like Black women. Black people were literally the conscience of
this country. And it's just like, what more do you want?

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Right, even as we're being told y'all got to stop protesting or you're
gonna push white people to be racist and vote for Trump. Like, no, you can't. Right. Like,
that's the thing. We're both seen as the conscience, but also told to like, shut up and sit

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down or we're going to force white people to vote for a man with fascist tendencies, like
that's the contradiction. We're not the problem. And if I hope anyone takes anything away
from my opening essay in the 1619 project is when I say after 400 years, we finally realize
that black people have never been the problem, but that we are the solution. And that is
just that is just the truth. So we're not the problem. And I refuse to allow us to be framed. If
I if we don't show up to vote in the right numbers or if we protest and those protests start to
make white people anxious, that somehow we will be blamed for our country becoming a
shithole country. And that's not on us.

Danielle ​Oh, definitely. I would argue we currently are a shithole country.

Maiysha ​I would too!

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​I mean, look, our passports are good, almost nowhere right now.

Danielle ​Well Trump did it, he did it guys.

Maiysha ​We can't even get out!

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​We cannot even get out. I think there's like four countries that we
could travel to.

Danielle ​Exactly. Exactly. Nikole, I want to thank you so much for joining me and Maiysha
in this conversation. It was enlightening to talk to you as always, and affirming. It's always
affirming, hearing from you. You do such amazing work and we wish you all the best with
the future of the 1619 Project, the fact that it is continuing, the fact it's gonna be a book,
the fact you have this project with Oprah, like we are beyond thrilled and fully support you
here at The Root and at It's Lit.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ​Thank you. Thank you both for the work you always do to amplify
our voices and our folks. So I appreciate you.

Maiysha ​Thank you.

Maiysha ​The Root Presents It's Lit is produced by myself, Maiysha Kai, and Micaela Heck.
Our sound engineer is Ryan Allen.

Danielle ​If you liked the show and want to help us out, please give us a rating on Apple
Podcasts. It helps other people find the show, and we really appreciate your help in
spreading the word. If you have any thoughts and feedback, you can find me at Black
Snob on Twitter or at Belton Danielle on Instagram.

Maiysha ​And you can find me at Maiysha. That's M-A-I-Y-S-H-A, on Twitter and Maiysha
Kai on Instagram.

Danielle ​And before we go, you know, this is our first, first podcast of It's Lit. And I want to
start a tradition.

Maiysha ​I love traditions.

Danielle ​Yes. Let's create something new.

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Maiysha ​We've been making 400 years worth of traditions in this country. Why not?

Danielle ​Exactly. Let's continue the tradition of Black people making traditions. And what I
want to do when we close every show is to talk about what you and I are reading.

Maiysha ​Hey, now. It's like our own little book club. I love it.

Danielle ​Exactly. Exactly. And Maiysha and Danielle book club. Get it. Get into it.

Maiysha ​Get into it.

Danielle ​So Maiysha, what are you reading these days?

Maiysha ​You know, I, revisiting our legacy in the United States has always fascinated me.
And I'm a Chicago girl and I've been revisiting my legacy here. One of my favorite books of
all time is the novella Passing, by Nella Larson. And I've been studying this book since I
was in college. It's a book that starts in Chicago. It goes to New York, which is very much
like my own life journey. But it's so beautifully written and it really, I think, reflects on just
the damage that white supremacy has done, just even in the ways that we interact with
each other. So I it's a book I revisit often. And I'm revisiting it again now.

Danielle ​Yeah, I've read Passing. Very beautifully written book. So important. Harlem
Renaissance, correct?

Maiysha ​Absolutely.

Danielle ​Yeah. Harlem Renaissance era novel. So good. What I'm reading right now is
The Black Count. A Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of author Alexandre Dumas' father.
His father is like amazing. Like, you know, this is a Black man. He's a biracial Black man
from what is now present-day known as Haiti. And his father's life was the inspiration for
Dumas' most famous book, The Count of Monte Cristo.

Maiysha ​I mean, that whole family is really incredible, right? I mean like...

Danielle ​Yeah.

Maiysha ​Wasn't he a general or something? I mean, like the first Black general was that
Dumas himself? I mean, it's really.

Danielle ​That was Dumas senior.

Maiysha ​OK.

Danielle ​Was the first Black general.

Maiysha ​I mean, our history is so deep. Like.

Danielle ​Yeah.

Maiysha ​We've been out here doing this forever.

Danielle ​Forever. Since forever.

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Maiysha ​Forever.

Danielle ​Forever ever, you know. And so like Dumas's father, like, sounded amazing. My
favorite story, real quick, a little anecdote. When Napoleon decided to, you know, expand
into Africa there and North Africa and the troops are all there and the natives see the
Napoleon, you know, Napoleon's like a little dude. And so they're just like, oh, who's this
little guy? But when Dumas rolls up on his horse and Dumas is like a six-foot tall, gorgeous
Black man. People were like, oh, he's in charge, right? He's in charge? The guy's in
charge. You know, the little guy, that little white guy's not in charge. Clearly it's this Black
man. So the book is amazing. So.

Maiysha ​I mean, I think you just said a word there. I think you just said a word about the
development of all kinds of Western civilizations. And I'm just gonna leave it at that.

Danielle ​All right. That's it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening. And we'll see
you next week.

Maiysha ​Keep it lit y'all.

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