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Media

Chris Wallace, ‘1619 Project’ author Nikole Hannah-Jones argue over ‘racist’ World War II generation

By
Ariel Zilber
Published April 7, 2022
Updated April 7, 2022, 1:47 p.m. ET

Chris Wallace got into a heated exchange with “1619 Project” author and New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, who told him that the generation that fought in World War II “brutally suppressed” black people.

Hannah-Jones, who said the US is a country “founded on racism,” got pushback from Wallace in response to her claim that the “Greatest Generation” that fought in World War II “brutally suppressed democracy” by denying African Americans the right to vote in the US.

During his CNN+ show, Wallace read aloud a passage from the “1619 Project” — the controversial, Pulitzer Prize-winning series from the New York Times in which Jones and others argue that America’s founding was predicated on a desire to preserve slavery.

“Without the idealistic strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different. It might not be a democracy at all,” Wallace read.

“We like to call those who lived during World War II the Greatest Generation, but that allows us to ignore the fact that many of this generation fought for democracy abroad, while brutally suppressing democracy for millions of American citizens.”

The former “Fox News Sunday” host then turned to Hannah-Jones and asked: “Again, I am in no way minimizing our terrible racial legacy. But in some of these things, aren’t you overstating?”

Wallace, the former Fox News Sunday moderator, took issue with Wallace's contention that the generation that fought in World War Two "brutally suppressed" black people.
Wallace, the former “Fox News Sunday” moderator, took issue with Wallace’s contention that the generation that fought in World War II “brutally suppressed” black people. CNN+

Hannah-Jones disagreed: “If you have half of the country — where it’s in some states majorities, in many other states pluralities, 25% of the population, 40% of the population, cannot vote, have their vote violently suppressed, where they’re a single one-party, one-race rule in a region where about 30% of the population is black … would you consider that democracy?”

When Wallace said youngsters from “ethnic neighborhoods in Brooklyn and South Philly” who went to “storm the beaches of Normandy” were not “brutally suppressing blacks,” Hannah-Jones replied: “Well, they were.”

“No, they weren’t. You don’t be telling me that a farm, that a kid coming off a farm in Indiana, or a kid who came from Brooklyn, was suppressing black people,” Wallace responded.

“Indiana has the largest population of the Klan in the United States,” Hannah-Jones said in response. “The Klan was raised, was reached first in Indiana.”

Wallace told Hannah-Jones she was using a “broad brush” to “paint … the 20- and 30-year-olds who defended democracy.”

To which Hannah-Jones replied: “But 30-year-old is a fully grown person who can serve in Congress, who can be the mayor, who can act, enact laws and policies — these are not children.”

“These are not babies,” she added.

Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work, has been a lightning rod of controversy.
Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work, has been a lightning rod for controversy. CNN+

“We wouldn’t parse this, I think, if we were talking again about another country and say, well, well, yes, the government was violently suppressing but everyone else, they weren’t.” 

The “1619 Project” has been a lightning rod of controversy over the claim that America’s “true” founding should be traced to the arrival of the first African slaves some 400 years ago.

Hannah-Jones’ series stirred up anger to the point where some have called for its banning.