Best Of: Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Fight Over U.S. History
What does it mean to reckon with the violence, the tragedy, and the numerous contradictions of America? \n\nThat is the focus of this conversation \u2013 originally aired in July of 2021 \u2013 with Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta- Nehisi Coates. On one level, the conversation is a reflection on the fights over teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. But it is really focused on the deeper meaning behind those skirmishes: The ongoing fight over the story we tell about America and why that fight has so gripped our national discourse. What changes when a country\u2019s sense of its own history changes? What changes when who gets to tell that story changes? What are the stakes here, and why now?\n\nMy guests for this conversation need little introduction. Nikole Hannah-Jones is an investigative journalist for the New York Times Magazine where she led the 1619 Project, and, before that, did incredible work on racial inequality in the American education system. Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of books including \u201cBetween the World and Me\u201d and \u201cThe Water Dancer,\u201d essays including \u201cThe Case for Reparations,\u201d and, for Marvel Comics, \u201cCaptain America\u201d and \u201cBlack Panther.\u201d Each of them has won more prestigious awards for their work than I could possibly list here, and both will be taking faculty positions at Howard University.\n\nWe discuss the 1619 Project, whether patriotism can coexist with shame and regret, the political power of American exceptionalism, the cracked foundations of American democracy, how journalism is and should be taught, our relationships to Twitter, what journalists can learn from children and much more. It's a conversation that feels just as relevant today as when it first aired. \n\nNikole Hannah-Jones book recommendations:\n\nBlack Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B Du Bois\n\nThe Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson\n\nTa-Nehisi Coates book recommendations:\n\nPostwar by Tony Judt\n\nAvengers of the New World by Laurent Dubois\n\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.\n\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\n\n\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.