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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .