Pulitzer Prize to New York Times Essay Falsely Claiming American Revolution Was Fought to Preserve Slavery

The 2020 Pulitzer Prize for commentary was awarded Monday to Nikole Hannah-Jones for an essay in the New York Times that falsely claimed the American Revolution was fought primarily to protect slavery.

The essay, titled “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true,” launched the Times‘ controversial 1619 project.

The essay incorrectly claimed that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776 (signing began weeks later, on August 2).

However, the far more egregious error was Hannah-Jones’s claim about the cause for which the Revolution was fought. She wrote: “Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.”

That passage, which appeared in the original text, has since been updated to include the word “some” (emphasis added): “Conveniently left out of our founding mythology is the fact that one of the primary reasons some of the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.”

Historians were outraged by Hannah-Jones’s false claim. One of them, Northwestern University Professor Leslie Harris, was enthusiastic about the 1619 Project, but furious about the inaccurate claim. Harris recalled in Politico:

Trump says ‘America needs God’ in Good Friday message touting ‘resurgence of religion’

Watch: DEI-Obsessed Sky News Reporter Claims Moon Landings by ‘All White Men’ Didn’t Represent Humanity

Pro-Lifers Shred Trump Admin’s Biden-Era Title X Extension as ‘Inexplicable Slap in the Face’

Trump Admin Declares War on Microplastics in Drinking Water

Trump Executive Order Aims to Save College Sports, Limit Athlete Transfers

Artemis II astronauts nearly halfway to the moon; NASA shares stunning photos from Orion spacecraft

California 4-year-old boy survives attack by coyote that bit and tried to drag him away

Trump requests over $10 billion for DC infrastructure and National Guard deployment

Colorado lawyers say court e-file system now makes them certify they won’t assist ICE

Patel, McCormick warn foreign terror threats inside US grew during Biden years

Trump gives rare praise to persistent GOP foe after White House ballroom vote

Illegal immigrant accused of murdering wife in Texas just weeks after marriage, ICE fights release

Nebraska Senate candidate restructures campaign after complaint over payments to family: report

Legendary Fleetwood Mac Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham Attacked with ‘Unknown Substance’ in California

‘It’d Be Better Not to Talk About it at All’: Mamdani’s Good Friday Message Draws Backlash from Christians

On August 19 of last year I listened in stunned silence as Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter for the New York Times, repeated an idea that I had vigorously argued against with her fact-checker: that the patriots fought the American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery in North America.

…

I vigorously disputed the claim. Although slavery was certainly an issue in the American Revolution, the protection of slavery was not one of the main reasons the 13 Colonies went to war.

…

Overall, the 1619 Project is a much-needed corrective to the blindly celebratory histories that once dominated our understanding of the past—histories that wrongly suggested racism and slavery were not a central part of U.S. history. I was concerned that critics would use the overstated claim to discredit the entire undertaking. So far, that’s exactly what has happened.

The current version of Hannah-Jones’s essay preserves other controversial statements, such as the claim that “Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA of this country,” which repeats (almost verbatim) a claim then-President Barack Obama made in 2015 to National Public Radio that racism is “still part of our DNA.”