Five Years of Teaching 'The 1619 Project'

Our Impact: Five Years of Teaching The 1619 Project

On August 18, 2019, The New York Times Magazine published a special issue, The 1619 Project. It called readers to recognize the foundational role of the institution of slavery in the United States and the often unacknowledged contributions of Black Americans in moving the country toward the ideals of its founding documents. The publication date for the issue was a commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the first recorded sale of enslaved Africans to British settlers in the colony of Virginia. 

This report is a commemoration of the fifth anniversary of that New York Times Magazine special issue and a documentation of the impact of the programming that Pulitzer Center K-12 Education and Campus and Outreach team members have implemented over the last five years as the original and a continued education partner of The 1619 Project.

The 1619 Project is one of the most creative and ambitious journalistic projects published in recent years. The Project continues to expand and creatively engage audiences through text and media resources from over 100 contributing journalists, historians, and artists that have been published in a print magazine, five-episode podcast, six-part docuseries, a book anthology, and a children’s book. 

In the five years since the publication of the original issue, the Pulitzer Center teams have, likewise, explored and refined a variety of strategies for focused engagement of educators and students with the Project and the critical questions it raises. Over 1 million people have engaged with the reading guides we published in 2019 as the first initiative for this partnership. Since that time, we’ve developed a series of educator programs, building a network of 541 educator partners and reaching over 25,000 students in pre-K-12th grade and over 2,500 adult learners. We have facilitated 203 events and workshops attended by over 15,000 people, and published over 100 curricular materials on our award-winning 1619education.org website, which has been viewed over 400,000 times by people in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

The thousands of educators we’ve had the privilege of supporting, either directly through our 1619 Education programs or indirectly through our online curricular resource library, overwhelmingly emphasize the relevance and usefulness of our programming and resources in better understanding The 1619 Project and the history it covers. They share that these programs and resources have helped them develop a meaningful classroom experience for their students, further developing their skills as educators, and that they have inspired meaningful action in their classrooms and communities.

In our most recent survey of our website audience, 87% say that they would highly recommend our resources to other educators. The educators surveyed saw positive impacts on their learning environments with 78% of the educators reporting that the 1619 materials helped their students build new content knowledge, and 75% of educators surveyed reported that engaging with 1619 helped their students further develop critical thinking skills.

The Pulitzer Center’s 1619 Education programming connects educators and students to The 1619 Project resources and to one another, thus expanding and sustaining the influence of a journalistic project examining some of the most complex issues of our time.

In choosing the Pulitzer Center as an education partner, The New York Times Magazine put trust in our audience engagement strategy and commitment to partnerships that inspire action. Through our time implementing focused programming around The 1619 Project and Pulitzer Center-supported reporting on racial justice, we have developed new education partnerships built on that same trust and investment in our K-12 Education mission to cultivate a more curious, informed, empathetic, and engaged public. 

In addition to the thousands of educators whose individual classrooms we’ve supported, our programs have built partnerships with over 120 K-12 schools and districts in 30 states and Washington, D.C. We’ve partnered with professors at 22 colleges and universities in 15 states and facilitated 17 workshops at academic education conferences.

We designed and hosted three annual 1619 Education Conferences for teacher program partners to share the work they’re doing with public audiences and to connect educators directly with Project contributors. Of 1619 Education Conference attendees surveyed this year, 98% said they would recommend the conference to other educators. 

We’ve met teachers where they already are through collaborative events with organizations like the National Council of Teachers of English, National Council for the Social Studies, and the American Federation of Teachers. Our curricular resource library has been cited by the American Historical Association as one of the top no-cost resources for secondary teachers of history, and our team wrote the official 1619 book guides for the books’ publisher, Penguin Random House. 

Our programming is a testament to the power of investing in targeted engagement to extend the reach and impact of quality journalism to key audiences and communities. A desire for increased engagement in 1619 programming also led to the launch of a dedicated newsletter that now regularly reaches over 6,000 educators.

When the Pulitzer Center agreed to be an education partner for the initial magazine publication of The 1619 Project, we had no way of knowing the impact that the Project would have in journalism, education, policy, and beyond. Now, five years later, the questions the Project raises about how we define the United States and understand its history are more relevant than ever. 

As we come upon a historic presidential election and look ahead just two years to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we recognize this as a moment when many Americans are seeking to better understand how our past connects to our present and how to work together to create the future. 

We are proud that we have become leaders in this work since The 1619 Project launched in 2019. We are excited to share the learning and impact of our 1619 Education programs with those hoping to join the consistently growing network of educators engaging with these questions, and continue our work engaging educators with breakthrough racial justice reporting into the future.

Explore the 1619 Education Impact Report