I just came aware of one of the most stunning reads in my life: The 1619 Project, a treatise on the history and effect of 240 years of slavery in America. The title of the work comes from the date, August 1619, the month and year a ship carried the first slaves to be sold in the British colony of Virginia.

Organized by the New York Times magazine and published August 14 this year, The 1619 Project is a collection of poems and fiction by an couple dozen incredible writers, most all of them black. It is at times an excruciating read, at times philosophical, but most of all illuminating. And it poses a fundamental question: would America ever have become America were it not built on the backs of people who had no say in their lives or their futures?

The magazine sold out almost immediately, but a PDF of it can be downloaded free at http://pulitzercenter.org/sites/default/files/full_issue_of_the_1619_project.pdf.

The writings reached the core of me.