It all started when “The 1619 Project” creator, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones shared a "historically accurate diss track" exposing "how numbers and data, though technically true, can also be lies."
Hannah-Jones compared today's white, wealthy men who own social media companies to enslavers. Although these men are a tiny percentage of the population, they have an outsized impact on U.S. politics and culture. And so did slavery.
The real conversation isn't about the percentage of enslavers but rather the number of those who empowered slavery. Sixty-three percent of U.S. presidents and more than 1800 members of Congress were enslavers. By the start of the Civil War, the South was producing 75% of the world's cotton. Today, nearly all of the people on U.S. currency engaged in slavery.
Enslavers financed their operations through banks and insured enslaved property using companies in states like New York; New York City was built on slavery. Companies like Brooks Brothers, profited from clothing enslaved people. The value of the enslaved once exceeded the value of all U.S. factories, railroads, and banks combined.
Slavery built the United States. Without the labor of our enslaved ancestors, this country would not be what it is today. White supremacists continue to try to erase our history, but we must all commit to knowing and sharing the truth.