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:

Alabama Gov Kay Ivey hospitalized following minor procedure, says she is determined to make speedy recovery

After Years of Bashing Straight, Christian, White Men, Dems Reportedly Conclude They Need One to Win WH

Florida Supreme Court keeps ex-cop’s execution on hold after DNA test fails to give a clear answer

Experts Respond to Claims That the Bullet That Killed Charlie Kirk ‘Did Not Match the Rifle’ Allegedly Used by Tyler Robinson

Wisconsin mother stabs teen daughter to death to ‘protect’ her from Elon Musk: authorities

Trump signs executive order overhauling mail-in voting in major election integrity push

Alert: Judge Rules Trump Can’t Build Ballroom, Even with Private Donations, Without Outside Approval

Man charged in ‘particularly heinous’ killing of DC resident found bound and set on fire in ritzy area: police

Family ramps up search for missing coffee shop owner, mother of two, urges public to check cameras

Breaking: Markets Skyrocket as Trump Looks to Iran Endgame, With the Dow up Over 1,000 Points, S&P Booming

State Department Reopens Embassy in Venezuela Following Maduro Capture

Trump says he will attend Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship challenge

Illegal alien murder suspect avoided system as ICE pushes Dem governor to keep him locked up

Insanity: Far-Left Backlash Halts Mural Honoring Train Stabbing Victim Iryna Zarutska, Dem Mayor Calls Work ‘Divisive’

Kristi Noem, Trump respond to shocking cross-dressing photos tied to her husband

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.”