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Mississippi GOP Sen Angela Hill proposes bill to prevent state funds for schools teaching 1619 Project

The Saving American History in Mississippi Schools Act, if passed, would require any institute which teaches from The 1619 Project curriculum to have state funding curtailed by as much as 25 percent
PUBLISHED FEB 1, 2021
Senator Angela Hill introduces Saving American History in Mississippi Schools Act (Mississippi Legislature)
Senator Angela Hill introduces Saving American History in Mississippi Schools Act (Mississippi Legislature)

Political polarization in the US has come to the fore once again, this time in Mississippi, with a bill introduced in the state Senate set to prevent state funds from being used by schools-both elementary and secondary-to teach the 1619 Project Curriculum. The Saving American History in Mississippi Schools Act, if passed, would require any institute which teaches from The 1619 Project curriculum to have their state funding curtailed by as much as 25 percent. The bill was introduced on January 18. 

The bill, which is sponsored by GOP Senator Angela Burks Hill, says: “An Act To Prevent State Funding From Being Used By Elementary And Secondary Schools To Teach The 1619 Project Curriculum; To Provide That Elementary And Secondary Schools That Teach The 1619 Project Curriculum Shall Receive Reduced Mississippi Adequate Education Program Funds By Twenty-five Percent; And For Related Purposes.”

Calvin Pearson, president of 1619 Project, hands out flower petals before a flower throwing ceremony to honor Africans who passed away at sea during the Atlantic slave trade during the 2019 African Landing Commemorative Ceremony on August 24, 2019 in Hampton, Virginia. (Getty Images)

The Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project, which has been developed by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, is a historical revisionism project that aims to reframe US’s history by putting the consequences of slavery and contributions made by Black Americans at the center of the country’s national narrative. The controversial project was first published in August 2019 marking the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first batch of enslaved Africans in the colony of Virginia. The project, however, received a backlash from some eminent historians as it was accused of putting ideology over historical understanding. The 1619 project was inaugurated with a special issue of The New York Times Magazine and it refused to issue corrections despite facing criticism from the historians. In March last year, the Times came up with an “update” in the form of a “clarification” in which Hannah-Jones’s essay was corrected into “protecting slavery was a primary motivation for some of the colonists”. 

Trump blasted 1619 Project last year

Former president Donald Trump also slammed the project last year and set up a new 1776 Commission in September to reinstate “patriotism” in the US’s schools. “The left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods, and lies. There is no better example than the New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project,” Trump had said at the White House then. "This project rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom," he added. 

Former president Donald Trump (Getty Images)

In July 2020, Republican Senator Tom Cotton introduced a legislation aiming at the teaching of the project. A statement from the Arkansas lawmaker’s office announcing the bill’s introduction said that the legislation would be named the Saving American History Act of 2020 and it “would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts”. It also warned schools that teach the 1619 Project to become ineligible for federal professional-development grants.

Senator Hill also backed the critics of the project and called it “racially divisive”. She also called it a “revisionist account of history” that threatens the country’s integrity by denying the true principles of its foundation. The bill states that the nation’s true founding “is July 4, 1775, the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress,” WLOX reported. The declaration was officially adopted on July 4 the following year. 

Mississippi is a deep red state which has not voted for a Democrat in presidential elections since 1976. 

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