By T. Keung Hei and Kate Murphy
October 26, 2021
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones urged supporters of public education in North Carolina on Tuesday to organize to fight “anti-history laws” being promoted by Republican lawmakers.
Hannah-Jones said the left hasn’t gotten “mad enough” in opposing the “culture war that has been contrived by the right wing” that has led to laws banning schools from teaching things such as her 1619 Project.
She said at an online forum of North Carolina educators that people are living in “dark and scary times” where teachers are ”afraid to even teach and talk about the experiences that their children are having.”
“We’re being outgunned right now and I think that’s because this is not an issue that’s getting enough of the people on the left angry,” Hannah-Jones said. “People on the right are very angry and anger is often what inspires you to organize and to push for laws and to push for these changes.”
Hannah-Jones was the keynote speaker Tuesday at The Color of Education Summit, a two-day virtual event drawing 1,600 people “to engage in critical conversations centered on addressing issues of racial equity and education.
The summit is sponsored by the Public School Forum of North Carolina’s Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity and Opportunity, the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University.