With Florida governor and expected Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis making headlines for rejecting an Advanced Placement course on African American Studies, Hulu’s six-part docuseries “The 1619 Project” couldn’t be better timed. What started as an initiative from The New York Times reassessing slavery’s lingering impact on our nation even in the 21st century sparked a conservative backlash, making top journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones both a star and a target in the process. In some ways, that backlash has only fueled “The 1619 Project’s” momentum, which already includes a bestselling book and now this Oprah Winfrey-produced docuseries on Hulu.
Taking a departure from the initial project, which leans more heavily on the past (which has been a contentious point even with some historians), this docuseries, steered by Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams (“Music By Prudence”), producer Shoshanna Guy, and Hannah-Jones (a MacArthur genius who is also a distinguished professor at the HBCU Howard University herself), takes a more contemporary and personal approach.