Prager U Effortlessly Explains and Destroys the 1619 Project

AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File

You’ve likely heard of something called the “1619 Project” and know very little about it. What you do know is that it has something to do with the hard-left and that it’s trying to undermine the Republic.

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You’d be right on both counts but if we want to get a bit more specific, Prager U makes it very clear what it is and how it’s a load of bunk.

Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University, Wilfred Reilly, succinctly describes what the 1619 Project is before pointing out the major cracks in its reasoning.

He starts by explaining that the 1619 Project is the idea that America didn’t start in 1776 with the founding of our country, but in 1619 when the first slaves are brought over. According to the hard-left, America’s entire existence is owed to and revolves around its practice of slavery. It even attributes the purpose of the revolution to attempting to protect slavery.

Reilly goes into revealing more about America’s history, and unsurprisingly, what Reilly reveals completely debunks the ludicrous claims made by the hard-left.

For instance, the claim that the revolution was about protecting slavery from the British is wrong as the British weren’t out to end slavery.

The other claim is that slavery made Americans rich. This is hardly correct. While it did make some rich, Reilly explains how it mostly kept the economy suppressed:

As economist Thomas Sowell points out, in 1860, just one year before the Civil War began, the South had only one-sixth as many factories as the North. Almost 90% of the country’s skilled, well-paid laborers and professionals were based in the North. Banking, railroads, manufacturing—all were concentrated in the North. The South was an economic backwater.

And the cost of abolishing slavery was enormous—not merely in terms of dollars (Lincoln borrowed billions to pay for it), but also in terms of human life: 360,000 Union soldiers died in order to free 4 million slaves. That works out to about one soldier in blue for every ten slaves freed. It’s hard to look at that butcher’s bill and conclude that the nation turned a profit from slavery.

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But most of all, the 1619 Project wants you to believe that America never stopped being racist. This is complete nonsense and all you need to do to see it look around today. We’ve never been more accepting of each other’s skin colors and we got here after men and women died, marched, and campaigned relentlessly for it.

Watch the video for yourself and be sure to share it!

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