NY Times claimed our Founders never meant what the Declaration says, but wanted to preserve slavery

Last August (2019), with huge fanfare, the New York Times launched a project it called the 1619 Project.  Its main goal was to convince readers that the founding of America should be changed from 1776--the Declaration of Independence--to 1619.

Why did the Times insist this was a more accurate year?  Because 1619 was when the first slave ships arrived in the New World.

In 1776 the men generally referred to as America's founders laid out their beliefs and goals for seeking to win freedom from the British monarchy, in the Declaration of Independence.  The leftists at the Times were determined to re-write American history to advance the Left's purposes.

The 1619 Project claimed the Founders didn't mean what the Declaration said--that "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  Instead, the Leftists at the Times claimed that the Founders' real intent was...wait for it...to protect slavery.

Really.  The project's main creator, Nikole Hanna-Jones, wrote that “one of the primary reasons” the colonists revolted against Great Britain was to preserve the institution of slavery. 

Historians politely disagreed, but the Times refused to retract the claim.  Indeed, Hannah-Jones mocked the many academics who directed mild and good-faith criticisms at her bogus statement.  Finally, seven months after Jones published her defamatory lie, the author claimed she really meant to say "some of" the colonists wanted to preserve slavery, rather than it being "one of the primary reasons." 

Most of the time, people do things for a reason.  With its 1619 Project the editors of the NY Times have deliberately distorted one of the most critical parts of our nation's history, in a way designed to fan suspicion, anger and resentment by black Americans against whites. 

You might ask yourself:  Why did the Times do this?  Whose agenda was helped by publishing this lie?