One of the most talked about popular history initiatives of 2019 was the “1619” series on the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the “first slaves” at Jamestown, Virginia. Professors Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, James Oakes, James McPherson and Sean Wilentz have signed a joint letter to the New York Times critical of some of the articles in the series. You can read their letter here. At the end of the letter is a response from the New York Times written by Jake Silverstein, the Editor in Chief.
The five signers are all prominent in their field. Victoria Bynum is the distinguished emerita professor of history, Texas State University; James M. McPherson is the George Henry Davis 1886 emeritus professor of American history, Princeton University; James Oakes, is distinguished professor, the Graduate Center, the City University of New York; Sean Wilentz is George Henry Davis 1886 professor of American history, Princeton University; Gordon S. Wood is Alva O. Wade University emeritus professor and emeritus professor of history, Brown University.
Blogger Al Mackey has a good synopsis of the arguments made by the five historians as well as a critique of “1619” by Allen Guelzo. You can find his long post on this here. You can read Guelzo’s latest critique of the Times’s series here.
Victoria Bynum has posted her own critique of the series here.
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The 1619 crowd are the Lost Causers of the 21st century