No Wonder ‘Project 1619’ Creator’s Daughter Was Furious at Mom, It Wasn’t Just Crummy Schools – Her Mom Trashed Her Dream to Be the Best
The article discusses the challenging decision faced by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and her husband, Faraji, when choosing a school for their daughter Najya. Despite having access to numerous options through New York City’s pre-K for All program, they intentionally sent Najya to a lower-quality school to combat segregation and support her cultural identity. Hannah-Jones reflects on the consequences of this choice, noting that Najya experienced challenges with inadequate schooling, teacher neglect, and a chaotic environment, which impacted her academic performance. Despite her perseverance and eventual acceptance into a prestigious NYC high school, Najya remains critical of the quality of her early education and questions her mother’s decision. Hannah-Jones also expresses her own internal conflict, balancing her advocacy against systemic racism with her desire to provide her daughter with the best educational opportunities, including considerations about attending historically white colleges like Harvard versus HBCUs like Howard University. The story highlights themes of racial segregation, educational inequality, and parenting choices in a racially divided society.
Imagine your mom and dad intentionally sent you to a bad school. How would you respond?
Some 11 years ago, parents Faraji and Nikole Hannah-Jones dropped their daughter off at school for the first time. Because of New York City’s novel Pre-K for All program, they could apply for any of the 1,800 options across the city.
Instead of choosing the school that was best for their daughter, they deliberately sent young Najya to a school they knew was subpar.
Now they’re left wondering if that decision was a mistake.
On Sept. 20, Nikole Hannah-Jones released an essay examining all of this and more. The title says it all: “In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?”
Hannah-Jones, a longtime writer for The New York Times, has spent much of her adult life investigating racism in America. Best known for her work on the 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones also spent significant time reporting on school inequality.
When it came time to send her child to school, however, Hannah-Jones had a difficult choice: prioritize her daughter’s education or fight the “hopeless battle for school integration.” She chose the latter.
To counter the segregation of the New York City schools, Hannah-Jones sent her black daughter to a predominantly black school.
In the essay, she expressed hope that her family’s wealth, voice, and influence would help bring positive change. It didn’t go as planned.
Within 10 months of starting pre-K, Najya found herself on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. According to Hannah-Jones, she “hadn’t intended at first” to write about their decision, but eventually felt the need to speak out against the systemic problems she saw.
And the problems only got worse.
Hannah-Jones writes that toward the end of first grade, she visited Najya during lunch. “Children were running wild, chasing, hitting and pushing each other while the teacher’s aides and cafeteria workers stood by looking bored,” she said.
“It was not the children that horrified me — kids of all incomes are rambunctious at lunchtime. It was the callous disregard of the adults.”
As detailed in her piece, this chaotic atmosphere made learning difficult. By the time fourth grade came around, Najya “was not performing on grade level in any of her academic subjects.”
In the essay, Hannah-Jones recalled that she asked for copies of her daughter’s schoolwork, which Najya brought home in her backpack. A brief glance revealed that none of the schoolwork was graded. So, Hannah-Jones began checking her daughter’s work. She found that most of the answers were wrong.
According to Hannah-Jones, the same problems followed Najya into her English assignments, which were “rife with uncorrected punctuation, capitalization and grammar errors.”
This wasn’t just a fourth-grade problem. In the essay, Hannah-Jones describes how her daughter carried the weight of insufficient schooling into the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. Eventually, Najya had to speak up.
“Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?” she asked her mom one day after school.
As they drove home, Najya rattled off test scores and school ratings, frustrated about being placed in an inferior environment.
Her mother finally gave in. Najya studied hard and was accepted into a prestigious New York City high school, where she is making up for lost time. Her story, however, is far from over.
A recent podcast episode revealed her opposition to her daughter’s desire to attend Harvard due to its status as a PWI — a predominantly white institution.
“I’m disappointed. I’m like, what is wrong with you?” said Hannah-Jones. Instead, she pushed for Howard University — preferring a school ranked No. 73 over one ranked No. 3.
That same podcast episode gave Najya the opportunity to confront her mother: “All you’re supposed to do is just put me in a good school.”
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