Four years ago, the 1619 Project — a grossly distorted presentation of American slavery and an obvious political ploy for reparations — burst onto the scene. Full of inflammatory rhetoric condemning all of white America for any and all racial disparities, it helped fuel the riots of 2020 that, in an unprecedented manner, attacked national symbols — from Confederate and Union soldiers to an elk and a pioneer mother.

Now, during the lead-up to the presidential election this summer, we have our vice president as a bomb thrower, cherry-picking one sentence from Florida’s new black history standards, then dividing it up to further distort its meaning in an effort to smear Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.

Harris Responds to Florida Education Policy

The singled-out sentence appears in a 216-page document that mentions slavery 191 times. 

Here it is on page six: “Benchmark Clarification: Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied to their personal benefit.”

The same sentence appears again on page 71 under a pedagogical task: “Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).”

The media have run with it, adding fuel to the fire. One needs only to read the headlines and opening sentences of the stories that have plastered the mediascape in the last few days to see how coordinated this attack has been.

Just a few examples:

• “Florida’s new Black history curriculum cites ‘personal benefit’ of slavery”
• “New Florida teaching standards say African Americans received some ‘personal benefit’ from slavery”
• “Middle school students in Florida will be taught that slavery gave Black people a ‘personal benefit’ because they ‘developed skills.’”
  

The vice president of the United States traveled to Florida and, in an arm-waving performance, charged DeSantis and the curriculum writers with “gaslighting.” “They want to replace history with lies,” she yelled. “Middle school students in Florida to be told that enslaved people benefited from slavery.” (READ MORE: Democrats Smear RFK Jr. as Anti-Semitic)

“Adults,” Harris cried, know that slavery involved “rape” and “torture.” Grimacing hysterically, she asked, “How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities that there was any benefit to this level of dehumanization?”

The creator of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who had received tweets from Harris in 2019 praising the project as a “masterpiece,” returned the favor by retweeting clips of Harris’ performance.

One can see that Harris shares Hannah-Jones’ views of slavery in America, which, in Hannah-Jones’ words, was “unlike anything that had existed in the world before.” The American system of slavery, in which the enslaved were treated as “subhuman,” guaranteed that the attitude would persist to the present. All slaves, according to the 1619 Project, were treated like brutes, as if they were incapable of learning trades or skills. None were emancipated, nor did any earn their freedom. Emancipation did not occur until after the Civil War, and then on questionable terms at that.

That is the perspective being pushed by critics of the Florida standards. But it is political, not historical.

Slaves Sometimes Obtained Freedom Through Artisanship

It is historically true that, in “some instances,” slaves did benefit from the skills they had developed. As I point out in my book Debunking the 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America, sometimes, upon being granted or earning their freedom, black people started their own businesses or plantations and bought their own slaves. Some became quite wealthy.

There were a variety of duties given to the enslaved. Some were entrusted to carry money or arms. Thomas Jefferson’s first memory, when he was 2 or 3 years old, was of being carried on horseback by a trusted slave. (READ MORE: Thomas Friedman Urges Biden to Intervene in Israel’s Domestic Politics)

Some slaves were trained as artisans or tradesmen. When Jefferson freed some of his own slaves, he made sure that they could make a livelihood. Robert Hemings was taught barbering; James Hemings was taught “the art of cookery.”

Let’s consider a few other examples of how “slaves developed skills” that were “applied to their personal benefit”:

• George Gardiner, a bricklayer, who had been a slave in South Carolina, became free and, at the time of his death in 1797, was listed as the owner of seven slaves. 
• “Isaac Hunter, a free Negro shoemaker of Raleigh, said that ‘by the kindness of his … master he was permitted to do small jobs for himself and by great industry and saving he accumulated from his small sums a sum sufficient to buy himself from his master.”
• “In his memoirs, Lunsford Lane told how he saved the money which he made in the tobacco business until he had $1,000, at which time he successfully negotiated for his freedom.”
• John Carruthers Stanly, a wealthy North Carolinian, began acquiring his fortune while he was still enslaved when he was hired out as an apprentice barber, then opened his own shop and brought in slave apprentices. He was freed in 1798 after his owners saw he could support himself.  
• “Future Alabama congressman Benjamin Turner, while still in bondage, acquired a livery stable and considerable other property in Selma. Turner not only managed his own business but also conducted his owner’s financial affairs as well…. Turner testified to the Southern Claims Commission in 1871, seeking restitution for the $8,000 worth of property he had lost at the hands of Wilson’s raiders.”
• Frederick Douglass learned to caulk and probably could have earned his freedom through that trade. Douglass, of course, chose immediate-but-risky freedom through escape.

Loren Schweninger, in Black Property Owners in the South, 1790–1915, describes slaves hired out as “dining room servants, porters, draymen, and coachmen”; “barbers, laundresses, and market women”; and “carpenters, masons, industrial workers, and factory hands.” Often the opportunity to buy their freedom was offered as an incentive. Many took advantage by working extra hours. 

As Philip D. Morgan writes under “Artisans” in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery, the opportunity for artisanship varied according to the crops produced and increased with the size of the plantations. While tobacco processing required only minimal skills, cotton processing required cotton gin operators and mechanics, jobs often held by slaves. Slaves were trained in woodworking, leatherworking, metalworking, brickmaking, brick masonry, and textile production; “[o]n some slaveholding units, as many as a fifth to a quarter of the men were craftsmen.” 

The noted historian Ira Berlin, in the Encyclopedia, writes, “Urban slaves with connections to the house and workshop — house servants and artisans — had the greatest opportunity to gain freedom through self-purchase.”

To be sure, many of the enslaved were not so fortunate. Torture and rape did occur in America — and across the globe at that time.

But it is also true that, as the Florida standards point out, some slaves in America did benefit from the skills they were taught. 

Students deserve exposure to the full range of American experiences, including that of slavery. They also should learn about the global context of slavery, a perspective that the Florida standards offer. Students don’t need the 1619 Project–style history that the White House is pushing, hoping to sow racial division and win an election.  

Mary Grabar, a resident fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, is the author of Debunking the 1619 Project: Exposing the Plan to Divide America and Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America.