Online Platform and New Media : The 1619 Project of the New York Times Magazine
A film by MediaStorm, executive produced by Harbers Studios
The 1619 Project by the New York Times Magazine commemorates the 400th anniversary of the start of American slavery. It is a multimedia editorial initiative that catalogs the legacy of slavery in contemporary American society, as well as the contributions of black Americans in actualizing this country’s founding ideals of democracy, liberty, and equality. It has sparked an overdue reckoning with how the story of America is told, and has radically reframed how millions of Americans understand their own history. The project includes eleven essays that reveal how slavery has affected key facets of contemporary America, including modern capitalism, health care, the prison system, music, sugar, and even rush-hour traffic. It also includes a special broadsheet section, literary timeline, and multi-episode podcast series. Combined, these works make the case that slavery and its vestiges, as well as the African presence in the United States, account for much that makes this country unique: its economic might, its industrial power, its electoral system, its commitment to equality, its diet and popular music, its astonishing penchant for violence, its income inequality, its slang, its legal system, and the endemic racial fears and hatreds that plague it to this day.
