This story about Nikole Hannah-Jones and “The 1619 Project” first appeared in The Race Begins issue of awards magazine TheWrap.
In 2019, The New York Times premiered “The 1619 Project,” a series of articles that, on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in colonial America, addressed the consequences of slavery in US history. The project was developed by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her efforts. She has now executive produced a Hulu documentary of the same name, with six episodes focusing on a separate aspect of what it means to be black in America: “Democracy,” “Race,” “Fear,” “Justice,” “Music” and “Capitalism”.
Can you talk about the process of adapting this huge project for television?
It was a completely stressful process because while the original project was ambitious, I know how to print. I have spent my entire career in print. So I know what works. I know how to do it. And in deciding to adapt it, I had to give up so much control because I don’t know how to tell stories in this medium. I don’t even know how a documentary is produced.
I’ll be honest, I was afraid that once you sell to a network, they’re going to want to dilute it? Will you be able to maintain the unwavering nature of the project that made it what it is? In this medium, you have a lot of other people reporting for you, which I’m not used to.
I think the most important thing for me was trying to identify a team that I could trust because I’m [usually] very controlling of work, and could not be. I don’t know how then I met [Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker] Roger Ross Williams, and all of this, of course, is happening in the pandemic, so it’s all happening over Zoom and it’s hard to get any real idea of who you’re going to enter into this marriage with. I think the only thing that has benefited me is that I have been an investigative reporter for a long time. So I’m a pretty good judge of people. And I have an immaculate bullshit detector. Then I met Roger Ross Williams and [saw] his passion for the product. He already knew his work. He knew that he is an amazing director and producer. And so I trusted that.
Did you have to change to facilitate that change of medium?
It was definitely an adjustment for me. I am not an on-air personality. I never wanted to be an anchor. I thought, I’m not going to change my way of speaking, I have my notebook, it’s me. I don’t know if it will work on camera or not, but this is all I know how to do, which was difficult.