This is Karen Hunter and welcome to the hub. Welcome, welcome. Welcome. I am so honored to have this conversation today around this

groundbreaking project 1619 and to have the kind of conversation we need to have around all

dinner tables throughout America no matter what your background I just want to again

thank the panel I don't have to reintroduce you because the guy that you heard did a

great job I want to start with you, Hannah, excuse me,

Nicole Hannah Jones. What sparked this whole project? When did you wake up and say,

I'm going to take on this Beaumuth, 400th anniversary of the first

enslaved people here in America?

So there's a long answer and a short answer.

I'll try to give the in-between answer.

I've been thinking about the year 1619 since I was a high school student.

That's when I first came across that date in a history book by

Laurent Bennett called Before the Mayflower.

And it just struck me that every American child

knew about the Mayflower landing in 1620,

but no one knew about the white lion landing in 1619

with that first cargo of enslaved people and that there was a reason why

one was part of our national narrative and what was not. So I've been kind of

obsessed with that number and kind of excavating the history of slavery and the legacy

of slavery since then.

I studied African American studies in college.

I became a journalist really only because I wanted to write about racial inequality and as the anniversary was approaching I just kept thinking

...