Michael Wright

“Negro poverty is not white poverty…. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice and present prejudice. They are anguishing to observe. For the Negro they are a constant reminder of oppression. For the white they are a constant reminder of guilt. But they must be faced, and they must be dealt with, and they must be overcome; if we are ever to reach the time when the only difference between Negroes and whites is the color of their skin.”
― Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

“Sovereignty soldiers, Black refugees, self-abolitionists, fighting through America’s history, marooned in a land they made their own, acre after acre, plot after plot, war after war, life after life.”
― Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

“I am the American heartbreak— The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe— The great mistake That Jamestown made Long ago. —Langston Hughes, “American Heartbreak: 1619”
― Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

“This is our national truth: America would not be America without the wealth from Black labor, without Black striving, Black ingenuity, Black resistance.”
― Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project: Born on the Water