Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist behind the 1619 Project, has written that she and her husband deliberately enrolled their daughter in low-income, mostly Black public schools in Brooklyn rather than send her to better-performing schools they could have afforded.
In an essay published Sunday in the New York Times Magazine, Hannah-Jones described the decision, made when her daughter Najya was entering pre-K in 2015, as intentional. “When Najya was entering pre-K, my husband, Faraji, and I decided to send her to the type of school that wealthier families with choices uniformly avoid — one that is low-income and mostly Black,” she wrote, according to a report by the New York Post.
Hannah-Jones framed the choice as an obligation tied to fighting inequality in the city’s school system. She wrote that she told her daughter about the “deep inequality” in New York City schools and described it as a family “obligation” to remain in the same struggling system as other families in the community.
The essay also details the toll the decision took. Hannah-Jones wrote that her daughter was eventually allowed to transfer to a better high school but arrived far behind her new classmates.
“Najya deserved better. They all did. But she was mine. This girl, my only child, looked to me to protect her, to give her what she needed to thrive. And I had not chosen her.”
She added: “My daughter’s sacrifice could not transform a system that those who hold the most power refuse to change.”
Hannah-Jones has previously argued that parents should not have decision-making power over school curricula, a position she stated in 2021. She has also drawn attention for mocking a Brooklyn mother who raised concerns after a troubling subway ride in 2022, and for describing the “entire existence of the United States” as a “crime,” according to past Breitbart News reporting.
