Ken Burns’ Benjamin Franklin: The good and the bad of a Founding Father
Once again, Burns’ undeniable talent for visual storytelling is not matched by depth of historical analysis.
Tom Mackaman•
Book Review: The St. Louis Commune of 1877: Communism in the Heartland by Mark Kruger
Kruger’s book is a rebuke to the most basic lie of American history: that there has been no class struggle or socialism in the United States.
Douglas Lyons•
The New York Times’ Jake Silverstein concocts “a new origin story” for the 1619 Project
Having previously disregarded historiography, Silverstein now falsifies it—and admits to privileging “narrative” over “actual fact.”
Tom Mackaman•
How US capitalism established the modern two-party system of bourgeois rule
American capitalism has systematically disenfranchised the poorest and most exploited sections of the working class.
Fred Mazelis•
Shannon Jones, Marcus Day•
Tom Mackaman•
Tom Mackaman•
Tom Mackaman•
Shannon Jones•
The New York Times’ 1619 Project
In August, 2019, the New York Times launched its “1619 Project,” marking the 400th anniversary of the initial arrival of 20 African slaves at Point Comfort in Virginia, a British colony in North America.
The Times wrote that its project intended to “reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.” It included not only a special magazine edition that was freely distributed in hundreds of thousands of copies to schools and museums nationally, but a proposed teaching curriculum for teachers to use in their classrooms.
Despite the pretense of establishing the United States’ “true” foundation, the 1619 Project is a politically motivated falsification of history. It presents and interprets American history entirely through the prism of race and racial conflict.
The World Socialist Web Site published detailed refutations of the numerous falsifications contained in the Times project, and interviewed leading historians of the United States.
Introduction to The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History
This is the introduction by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North to a volume, available for delivery in January 2021, containing the main interviews and essays published by the WSWS exposing the New York Times’ racialist falsification of American history.
David North•
The New York Times’s 1619 Project: A racialist falsification of American and world history
The 1619 Project, launched by the New York Times, presents racism and racial conflict as the essential feature and driving force of American history.
Niles Niemuth, Tom Mackaman, David North•
The New York Times and Nikole Hannah-Jones abandon key claims of the 1619 Project
The Times has abandoned, without any public announcement or explanation, the central thesis that 1619, not 1776, was the “true founding” of the United States.
Tom Mackaman, David North•
A reply to the American Historical Review’s defense of the 1619 Project
The disrespect expressed by editor Alex Lichtenstein toward leading historians reveals the extent to which racialist mythology, which has provided the “theoretical” foundation of middle-class identity politics, has been accepted, and even embraced, by a substantial section of the academic community as a legitimate basis for the teaching of American history.
David North, Tom Mackaman•
New York Times Magazine editor Jake Silverstein attempts to slither away from central 1619 Project fabrication
Times Magazine editor Jake Silverstein is attempting to palm off a minor semantic change as a cure for a totally false presentation of the American Revolution.
Tom Mackaman•
The 1619 Project and the falsification of history: An analysis of the New York Times’ reply to five historians
New York Times Magazine editor Jake Silverstein, reviving discredited racialist distortions of the American Revolution and Civil War, refuses to correct historical errors in the 1619 Project.
David North, Eric London•
Nikole Hannah-Jones, race theory and the Holocaust
There was not a single statement made by Hannah-Jones at NYU on historical issues that withstands serious examination.
Eric London, David North•
20th Century US History
Martin Luther King Jr. and the fight for social equality
King’s conception of a mass democratic movement for civil rights based on the unified action of all the oppressed sections of the population is being replaced with an essentially racialist narrative that presents all of American history in terms of a struggle between whites and blacks.
Tom Mackaman, Niles Niemuth•
A half-century since the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
It may be the case that the American people will never know who killed Kennedy. But the deeper causes of his death can be explained.
David North•
Fifty years since the Kerner Commission report
While documenting devastating conditions in America’s cities, the report drew the false conclusion that race, not class, is the basic division in American society.
Tom Mackaman•
New York Times column falsifies legacy of Eugene Debs
Isserman portrays the early American socialist as a moralistic reformer.
Tom Mackaman•
Fred Mazelis•
Barry Grey•
Nancy Hanover•
Patrick Martin•
Fred Mazelis•
Labor History
Eighty-two years since the victory of the Flint sit-down strike
With 48,000 GM workers engaged in the longest nationwide auto strike in nearly a half century, it is valuable to study the heroic struggle by GM workers during the 1936-37 sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan.
Jerry White•
Trotskyism and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
A recent book by historian Bryan Palmer chronicles the role of American Trotskyists in leading one of the most important strikes in US history.
Tom Mackaman, Jerry White•
One hundred years since the Great Steel Strike
The Great Steel Strike of 1919 and its defeat hold crucial strategic lessons for workers as they enter into struggle.
Tom Mackaman•
From the archive of the World Socialist Web Site
Walter Reuther and the rise and fall of the UAW
Walter Reuther’s biography has much to teach workers about the transformation of the trade unions into reactionary adjuncts of the corporations and the government.
Tom Mackaman•
The US Civil War
The bicentenary of Frederick Douglass
The foremost black Abolitionist escaped slavery as a young man and went on to advise Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War.
Fred Mazelis•
The Civil War in 1864
The American Civil War entered its decisive phase 150 years ago, in the summer and fall of 1864.
Tom Mackaman•
Trump on Jackson and the Civil War: Historical ignorance and the decline of the American presidency
In recent comments, the president said the Civil War was an avoidable mistake and that Andrew Jackson was angered by it—though Jackson had been dead for 16 years at the war’s outbreak.
Tom Mackaman•
An interview with David Williams, author of Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War
The World Socialist Web Site recently interviewed Professor David Williams of Valdosta State University about class conflict during the American Civil War and its relationship to social and political developments after the war.
Eric London•
Joanne Laurier•
Tom Mackaman•
Joe Mount•
The First American Revolution
In Defense of the American Revolution
The American Revolution, the most progressive event in world history in its time, continues to inspire the struggle for equality.
Tom Mackaman•
America’s revolutionary founding document
A book that seriously considers the impact the Declaration of Independence is most welcome reading in 2013, a year which has seen an intensifying assault on the most basic principles of America’s founding document.
Tom Mackaman•
Equality and the Fourth of July
The social, political and cultural state of present-day America make a mockery of the principles that are recalled and celebrated on July 4.
Joseph Kishore•
Equality, the Rights of Man and the Birth of Socialism
The following is a lecture given by David North, national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on 24 October 1996.
David North•
James P. Cannon•
Charles Bogle•
Helen Halyard, Shannon Jones•
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