Black Americans’ struggles may have saved American democracy itself

Evidence

Without the idealistic, strenuous, and patriotic efforts of Black Americans, our democracy today would look very different; in fact, our country might not be a democracy at all. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 85

Categorization

• QUESTION: A strong counterfactual claim — would the US genuinely not be a democracy without Black struggle? Worth chasing the historians’ exact objections to this.