Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich expressed his thoughts on the #1619Project that was released in the New York Times, during an interview on Fox & Friends on Monday. Gingrich did not hold back with his sentiments.
What We Know:
- The 1619 Project sparked a lot of controversy among a few conservatives as they do not agree with the project’s released information. The 1619 Project’s objective is to re-frame the country’s thinking about slavery and how intertwined the practice of slavery has been in shaping the nation, VOX reports.
- When asked about his thoughts on the project, Gingrich said, “the whole thing is a lie. I think slavery is terrible. I think putting slavery in context is important. We still have slavery in certain places around the world today, so we need to recognize that this is an ongoing story.”
- Gingrich’s remarks did not stop there as he said, “I think certainly if you’re African American, slavery is at the center of what you see as the American experience, but for most Americans there were other things going on such as, there were thousands of white Americans who died in the civil war in order to free the slaves.”
- In response to Gingrich’s ‘in context’ remarks, the author of the 1619 Project Nikole Hannah Jones took to her twitter to say that the project “does exactly that.”
Funny. Putting slavery in context is *exactly* what the #1619Project does. https://t.co/ABi6RHliLM
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) August 19, 2019
The former speaker also spoke on the state of the New York Times. As he so frankly put it, the piece is a “tragic decline of the New York Times.”
