If you were wondering why the name Nikole Hannah-Jones was familiar, she’s the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist behind The 1619 Project:

The 1619 Project argues that the 250 years of chattel slavery that followed were not an aberration or a footnote; they were the foundation upon which the nation's wealth, culture, and political systems were built.

It is an origin story that forces a reckoning with the brutal hypocrisy at the heart of America's founding ideals and reveals who we have been, who we are, and who we might yet become.

The original collection of essays, published seven years ago in The New York Times Magazine, remains a journalistic tour de force and has spawned books, curricula, a podcast, and a television documentary.