Historian who publicly rebuked 1619 Project founder over slavery tweet says far-left goal to ‘tear down’ American institutions

Phil Magness, an economic-historian who rose to fame this week after his viral rebuke of Nikole Hannah-Jones, 1619 Project founder, on her since deleted tweet claiming that ‘tipping is a legacy of slavery’ and that tipping is only a practice in the United States and nowhere else in the world. Magness says that not only is this a long-practice that “pre-dates” the Civil War, but that there are references to tipping from the Middle Ages and Shakespeare’s plays, indicating that this is a “common practice that emerged out of Europe”. The Historian comments that this is a “pattern” with the 1619 Project founder making “historical claims on twitter”, “someone challenges her and they become a point of embarrassment” and then she deletes them. He says that these false historical claims are part of “a larger political agenda”, to “tear down institutions and practices” of America.

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