The final episode of #1619podcast is out and it’s a devastating end to the story of @AngProvostFarms and @Juneraisincane, an emotional end to a series on the ongoing struggle of black Americans to be treated fairly as full citizens, and a searing call for a reckoning.
I am humbled and grateful to @Juneraisincane and @AngProvostFarms for sharing their story and I hope the light we’ve helped shine will help make things right. There’s is a story of how the struggle for black liberation is unending, the tactics to subvert it unrelenting.
Thank you so much to the NYT audio team — @larissaluu @Adizah_E @nniebrown @lisaechow @kmarieprime @lisannette — for bringing the heart, intellect, vision, professionalism and compassion this project required. Folks don’t understand the long hours you worked to make it look easy.
And thank you to all who listened and who shared and who’ve sent kind words and encouragement. This work has been the most emotionally taxing of my life. But we — the NYT and you all — have created something powerful here. We’ve participated in a resetting.
Black people were the only people in the history of this country for whom it was illegal to read and write. And so the #1619podcast tells our story the way our ancestors would have— with word and sound and people gathered to listen to the storytellers, the preserves of our past.
I am tired. But I am grateful. This is the story of America.
