Democracy and The 1619 Project: In Conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones

What is democracy? What is freedom? What do these ideas mean to individuals, to communities?

Join Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones in conversation with Howard University constitutional law professor Lisa Crooms-Robinson to explore democracy through the lens of The 1619 Project, the award-winning reframing of American history that placed slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. 

The event is organized by the Howard University School of Law, Howard's Cathy Hughes School of Communications, the Pulitzer Center, and Penguin Random House.

This event will focus on “Democracy,” chapter 1 of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, as the first of six culminating events of "The 1619 Project Read Along: A Classroom Without Walls,” launched in October 2022.

Listen to “The Fight for a True Democracy,” the first episode of The 1619 Project podcast, which delves into America’s founding ideal of democracy and how Black people fought to make it one.

Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and architect of The 1619 Project, created in conjunction with The New York Times Magazine.

At Howard University, Hannah-Jones is the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at the Cathy Hughes School of Communications and founder of the Center for Journalism and Democracy. The Center focuses on training and supporting aspiring journalists in investigative skills and historical and analytic expertise to cover crises faced by our democracy.

Lisa Crooms-Robinson is a professor at the Howard University School of Law, where she teaches constitutional law, gender and the law, international human rights law, and Supreme Court jurisprudence. Crooms-Robinson also is a board member for the Center for Constitutional Rights and the US Human Rights Network.

The 1619 Project launched in August 2019 with an entire issue of The New York Times Magazine devoted to a series of articles by Hannah-Jones and other authors.

Subsequent products include a podcast, and two books: The 1619 Project and Born on the Water, a children’s book. The Pulitzer Center is the education partner of The 1619 Project, with the development of an educators’ network and related curriculum, including modules for law schools developed in conjunction with Howard University and the University of Miami. Penguin Random House is publisher of the related 1619 Project books.

The Read Along focuses on six chapters in The 1619 Project book: democracy, capitalism, fear, race, justice, and music. 

This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.