The 1619 Project (in the New York Times Magazine)

[David Lockmiller]

I received a brief acknowledgement from George Will of my email to him that I posted yesterday. He referred to my extensive email to him (later posted on this thread) as a "note." So, maybe it is standard office procedure to acknowledge emails in this manner and possibly without the email actually being read by anybody.

Dear David Lockmiller:
Thanks for your note.
--George F. Will

Nevertheless, I sent to Mr. Will another email.

My first email to him related to the "expropriation of Native American lands" attack by Nikole Hannah-Jones, winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Mr. Will chose for his editorial example the "colonization" of freed blacks. But he did not provide any detail on this example in support. I provided such support in my email to him that I sent yesterday afternoon as follows.

Mr. George Will:

If you are seeking a historically accurate description of the August 14, 1862 meeting at the White House, I would suggest that you read historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 2006 Lincoln Prize-winning book “Team of Rivals “ at page 469.

Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote in her Pulitzer Prize winning work: “You can imagine the heavy silence in that room, as the weight of what the president said momentarily stole the breath of these five black men. . . . As Lincoln closed the remarks, Edward Thomas, the delegation’s chairman, informed the president, perhaps curtly [emphasis added], that they would consult on his proposition. ‘Take your full time,’ Lincoln said. ‘No hurry at all.’”

Contrast these “factual” statements of history, according to historian Nikole Hannah-Jones, with what historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote in 2005 in quoting what the delegation’s chairman, Edward Thomas, actually wrote to President Lincoln two days later on August 16, 1862:

“We were entirely hostile to the movement until all the advantages were so ably brought to our views by you,” the delegation chief wrote Lincoln two days later, promising to consult with prominent blacks in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston who he hoped would “join heartily in Sustaining Such a movement.”

David Lockmiller

I do not see any way that Mr. George Will can use this additional information regarding his editorial example unless Nikole Hannah-Jones chooses to challenge Mr. Will regarding the black "colonization" example. But at least now Mr. Will has the ammunition to defend his initial editorial statement (if Mr. Will actually reads my second email to him).

I read in last week's New York Times that online readership of the Times had now topped 6 million because of the corona-virus coverage. The number of daily subscribers of the Washington Post is less than 2 million (last reported online subscribers was 1 million in 2018).

It's amazing that the New York Times was able to corrupt the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize process in this manner. George Will of the Washington Post and prominent historians of this nation (specifically named in the Washington Post editorial) have stood against the onslaught of the New York Times regarding the revisionist-history of The 1619 Project.

I also intend to defend the reputation of President Abraham Lincoln as best as I am able to do so.