The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Congress responded by promulgating the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which opened with a declaration of citizenship as birthright: “All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.” This phrasing acknowledged that most Native peoples were citizens of their own sovereign nations. For Black Americans, now neither race nor color nor “previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude” disqualified them from claiming new, affirmative rights: “To make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.”42