MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump is criticizing museums in general and the Smithsonian Institution in particular, complaining on social media that, quote, "everything discussed is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been," unquote. He's already issued orders to review the Smithsonian's offerings. So how should those who write America's history respond? Let's bring in author and New York Times investigative reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones. In 2020, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work on The 1619 Project, an initiative that The Times says, quote, "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative." And she's with us now.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, welcome back. Thanks so much for joining us once again.
NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: Let me just start with the president's social media post. What do you make of his criticisms of how the Smithsonian handles American history and the history of slavery?
HANNAH-JONES: Well, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that that criticism is baseless - that if we look at the entire history of the United States, beginning with the very first settlements in Jamestown, slavery endured in this nation longer than freedom. So to say that any museum, but particularly the National Museum of African American History and Culture, spends too much time focusing on slavery means that you don't actually want a real, authentic depiction of the American past, which is - just the factual reality is this is a nation that, from 1619 until 1865, allowed slavery.
MARTIN: So recognizing that you don't speak for the Smithsonian, he complained that the presentation of the Smithsonian is too negative. He said he sees, quote, "nothing about success, nothing about brightness." How do you respond to that?
HANNAH-JONES: My first response would be to invite your listeners to actually go to the museum and check it out for themselves. I think what Donald Trump is relying on is a form of propaganda where people don't know. They just take his word for it. This is one of the most visited and most successful museums in the nation. Anyone can go and see that, yes, it does spend a great deal of time on the history of slavery and Jim Crow. But also, as you rise up in the museum, it also begins to talk about how Black Americans overcame. And in fact, at the very top, it is all about pop culture and Black Americans' impacts on American culture. So, one, that's just not true.
But I also think it's really important to look at, how did he speak about the museum the first time he visited? And what he said is it was truly incredible - that he wished he could stay there longer, that the museum made him deeply proud to have a museum that now honors millions of Black Americans and women who built our national heritage. So the main thing we should be asking is, what changed? The museum hasn't changed, so what has changed? And what has changed is, I would argue, that Donald Trump is engaging in what Jason Stanley, in his book "How Fascism Works," calls trying to create this mythic past. And this mythic past is a past that was racially pure, and one that is being used to really distract us as our democratic norms are being eroded.
MARTIN: So back in 2020, I mean, President Trump took aim at The 1619 Project. He said that, quote, "by viewing every issue through the lens of race, they want to impose a new segregation." He called it toxic propaganda and ideological poison. I have to point out that The 1619 Project began as a newspaper article that nobody's required to read. It has now become a book. Again, it's people's choice whether they read it or not. Perhaps, you know, some schools may assign it as reading material. But you're not a public official requiring - you have no authority to require people to absorb this information. I just wonder why you think it is so upsetting to the president and to other people who seem to share his view.
HANNAH-JONES: Well, I think the - one, you can't kind of divorce those comments from the context of what was happening in America at the time. In 2020, our nation was undergoing a racial reckoning, and people were really starting to talk about the way that racism and inequality were structured into our society. People were taking to the streets. And so The 1619 Project, of course, was being viewed through that lens. But I also think what really upset people like Donald Trump and other conservatives was that we were trying to challenge our founding mythology and say that, you know, we are taught that this is a nation founded on freedom. That's true. We were also founded on slavery, and we've only wanted to deal with one of those histories. And I think the fact that so many Americans embraced what we were talking about was very dangerous to people who think that their power relies on us only believing in one idea of America.
MARTIN: That's New York Times investigative reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her work on The 1619 Project. Thank you so much for talking with us.
HANNAH-JONES: Thank you.
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