In August of 1619, a pirate ship sailed its way through the still-warm waters of The Atlantic Ocean, heading north along the coast of North America, a continent that was then known to most Europeans as the New World.

The ship arrived at Jamestown in the British colony of Virginia, carrying an expensive cargo that the pirates hoped to sell to the colonists - Africans. The ship's crew had stolen the 20 or 30 Africans from a Portuguese slave ship. And that slave ship had captured the men and women from an area of west Africa that would one day be Angola.

Thus began a 250-year history of slavery in a land that would later become the United States of America.

In August of 2019, on the 400-year anniversary of the introduction of African slavery to America, The New York Times Magazine released a 100-page spread called The 1619 Project, a collection of essays and profiles that discusses the history and legacy of slavery in America and, in the words of its authors, "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States' national narrative."

But this bold reframing of America's history has attracted withering criticism, generated intense controversy, and stimulated a fierce national debate.

This short book peels back the veil and provides a clear-eyed glimpse into the explosive history of The 1619 Project - a glimpse that you can read in about an hour.