The 1619 Project Episode 1- Extra Credit Assignment

Timothy Beresford

Episode 1 of The 1619 Project centers around the ways in which Black Americans have helped fight for the U.S. and move toward a better democracy. Something in particular the episode focuses on is the importance of voting. The Georgia Coalition of the Peoples’ Agenda is a non partisan organization that has been working for years to defend the right to vote. Most recently in 2020, they had helped mobilize a multiracial group of voters in a dominantly red state and this act has helped shift the power in the government. It is very interesting just how influential and important the right to vote is. As not everybody who is of the age to vote actually goes out to vote. It’s something crazy to think about as it is our given right. Most recently, the Peoples’ Agenda helped in a 2022 poll where a group of elderly and disabled people were told they were unable to vote at the given location. The voting location had messed up their zip codes which made them unable to vote there, rather somewhere 20 minutes away. One of the members of Peoples Agenda brings up that it should not be this hard to vote and she is entirely. It is crazy how complicated it is as this is something everyone has the right to do. 

In our society, we are taught freedom of speech, religion, press, and to protest. All the credit on this is given to the founding fathers. But white freedom had become predicated on black slaves and the documentary brings up a great point that black people have been the ones who have been fighting for freedom for centuries. As slaves were considered to be foundational for economy and the laws, they are rarely shown in historical sites. In many ways,  society has erased their history and their stories in doing so. As said in the documentary, in Williamsburg, slaves made up half of the population. Yet their history has almost been forgotten.