Page 34 - 1619 Project Curriculum

T h e 1619 P ro j e c
The 1619 Projectt
Featured in chronological order throughout this issue are

17 literary works that bring to life consequential moments in
African-American history. All are original compositions by

contemporary black writers who were asked to create brief
explorations of important events or people.

⬤ August 1619: A ship arrives in Point Comfort, Va., carrying more than 20

enslaved Africans, the first on record to be brought to the English colony of Virginia.
They are among the 12.5 million Africans forced into the trans-Atlantic slave trade,

their journey to the New World today known as the Middle Passage.

Over the course of 350 years, I pull my index finger from Angola

36,000 slave ships crossed the Atlantic to Brazil & feel the bodies jumping from

Ocean. I walk over to the globe & move the ship.
my finger back & forth between I drag my thumb from Ghana
the fragile continents. I try to keep to Jamaica & feel the weight of dysentery
count how many times I drag make an anvil of my touch.

my hand across the bristled I slide my ring finger from Senegal
hemispheres, but grow weary of chasing to South Carolina & feel the ocean

a history that swallowed me. separate a million families.

For every hundred people who were The soft hum of history spins
Credit by Name Surname Diagram: Getty Images
captured & enslaved, forty died before they on its tilted axis. A cavalcade of ghost ships
ever reached the New World. wash their hands of all they carried.

By Clint Smith

28 28 Photo illustrations by Jon Key