Hannah-Jones regrets schools choice for daughter Najya

Nikole Hannah-Jones, the New York Times journalist and creator of the 1619 Project, published an essay in The New York Times Magazine expressing regret over her decision to enroll her daughter Najya in high-poverty Brooklyn public schools, acknowledging that she placed her ideals ahead of her child's education. In the essay, headlined "In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?" Hannah-Jones recounted a confrontation with Najya, now 16, in which her daughter asked why the family had not sent her to one of the best schools available. Hannah-Jones apologized, saying she felt Najya had been cheated and that she was sorry. The essay revisits a decision Hannah-Jones described in a 2016 New York Times Magazine piece, when she and her husband enrolled Najya at P.S. 307, a Brooklyn school then serving a largely low-income, predominantly Black and Latino population. At the time, she wrote that she believed middle-class families could help improve segregated schools by enrolling their children in them.