But the most interesting thing that happened with the 1619 Project was what happened when it moved from the page onto the street. In June 2020, when protests and riots followed the killing of George Floyd, the New York Post ran an opinion piece saying, “America is burning.” It described how rioters had already set fire to police stations and restaurants, had looted shops across the country, and were now coming for statues, including George Washington’s, which had just been torn down in Oregon. “Call them the 1619 riots,” the author wrote.15 Hannah-Jones noticed this and took to social media to
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