Presented by American Edge Project.

It's Friday morning. I'm Olivia Reingold, and this is your Politico Playbook Daily Briefing.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and 37 of his Republican colleagues don't want your kids to hear this.

From the New York Times magazine, I'm Nicole Hannah-Jones.

This is 1619.

That podcast and essay series from last year made waves for its retelling of American history

through the eyes of enslaved people.

It immediately ignited the right because of claims like this,

that our democracy began in 1619 when the first enslaved Africans arrived on the shores of

what would later become the United States. Not the 1776 state you probably learned in school.

And it would actually be those very people

who were denied citizenship in their own country,

who were denied the protections of our founding documents,

who would fight the hardest and most successfully

to make those ideals real,

not just for themselves, but for all Americans.

It is black people who have been the perfectors of this democracy.

Soon, schools started saying they would create curriculums around the 1619 project,

and the Pulitzer Center, which awarded Jones its prize for commentary last year,

partnered with her to distribute a curriculum,

saying over 4,500 schools have

adopted its lessons since 2019.

...