When the New York Times published an interactive version of their 1619 Project online in August 2019, they included the bold claim that the year 1619 is the United States’ “true founding.” At some point in the last year, while defending their project from the disputes of respected historians and issuing corrections for other central claims, the paper of record quietly omitted the controversial “founding” claim from its description.
A look at the source code of the original description found through internet archives confirms that lead essayist Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project removed the line “understanding 1619 as our true founding,” from the description of the project sometime after August 2019.
Phil Magness, a historian, observed the newspaper’s deceptive edits on Twitter.
“Can the @nytimes‘s #1619project get any more dishonest? They appear to have edited their own website to remove the claim that 1619 was America’s “true founding” some time between August 2019 and @nhannahjones‘s denial today that she ever intended to claim that,” Magness wrote…