Over the weekend the New York Times launched an ambitious project that argues, among other things, that America’s start date was 1619, with the arrival of enslaved blacks in Virginia.



I haven’t finished the whole issue, but what I’ve read has impressed me greatly, especially the lead article, by Nikole Hannah-Jones, which, like so much in the collection, is at once provocative and compelling.



https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html



Her thesis is that "Black Americans have also been, and continue to be, foundational to the idea of American freedom. More than any other group in this country’s history, we have served, generation after generation, in an overlooked but vital role: It is we who have been the perfecters of this democracy.”



Fascinating, especially to one like me, an amateur in the field.



On a related note is the theme of the LP Symposium, March  2020, "When and Where They Enter: Four Centuries of Black Women in America":



https://www.wm.edu/sites/lemonproject/annual_symposium/index.php





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Terry L.. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, Emeritus, The College of William and Mary, in Virginia, Williamsburg  23187



                                http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/tlmeye/



                                http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_ecology.html

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 Have we got a college?  Have we got a football team?....Well, we can't afford both.   Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.                 --Groucho Marx, in "Horse Feathers."







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