Author: CNN

Editor’s Note: Suzanne Nossel is CEO of PEN America. The views expressed here are hers. Read more opinion on CNN.

CNN
 — 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is going to destroy free speech in order to save it, it seems.

Over the last year DeSantis has championed a law that limits classroom discussions of LGBTQ identities, banned teaching and learning of particular perspectives on race, enacted a measure barring certain diversity training in schools and workplaces, and replaced the leadership of a small, progressive public college with conservative ideologues and religious leaders charged with overhauling the campus’s politics.

DeSantis has also sought to shut down a drag show, citing a 1947 legal precedent banning “men impersonating women.” He has proposed to challenge the landmark Supreme Court decision on libel, narrowing the scope of press freedom.

As recently as 2019, DeSantis styled himself as a First Amendment defender. During his first gubernatorial run in 2018 he pledged on his campaign web site to defend “First Amendment speech rights against those in academia, media and politics who seek to silence conservatives.”

The following year he announced an agreement among the state’s 40 public colleges and universities to adopt a free speech pledge modeled on the “Chicago Principles,” the University of Chicago’s admirable and influential manifesto in defense of open discourse. The Chicago statement, the result of work done by a committee on free expression convened at the college in 2014, proclaims that “debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral or wrong-headed.”

Over the last three years, however, DeSantis has turned his back on free speech in the name of pushing back against ideas he finds contemptible. He has railed against progressive curricula and academic theories as “an attempt to really delegitimize our history and delegitimize our institutions” and urged his supporters to “think deeply about if we are a disfavored class based on our principles, based on having conservative views,”

DeSantis is not wrong to point out that progressive orthodoxies can sometimes stifle opposing views. But a principle isn’t a principle unless it’s extended to all, and DeSantis now seems bent on using the power of his office to apply free speech protections only to the ideas he supports.

Indeed, in pushing back against what he decries as wokeness run amok, DeSantis has embraced the very tactics he once decried, putting the weight of government power behind efforts to repress viewpoints that offend him and his supporters.

DeSantis’s tactics are winning adherents in Florida and fueling momentum for a national campaign. To blunt their appeal, it is essential to understand what the governor and his supporters are mobilizing against. DeSantis has fanned fears that progressives have taken control of schools and universities, imposing an ideological agenda that DeSantis argues is at odds with the values of most Floridians.

The new visibility and appreciation of transgender and non-binary identities and rights has raised important questions about pronouns, bathrooms, sports and the autonomy of adolescents. The 2020 murder of George Floyd spurred schools, colleges and companies to take new steps aimed to root out the entrenched, stubborn legacy of racism in their institutions. These are positive developments, vital to bringing about a more inclusive and equal society.

In some cases, though, efforts to promote equity cross over into censoriousness. Just last week Roald Dahl’s publisher announced plans to scrub beloved works like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” of references that could be construed as offensive to the overweight, wig-wearers or people with horse-like features. In 2015, a student performance of “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler (now known as V) was cancelled on the basis that the play itself was transphobic because the script failed to acknowledge that not all women have vaginas.

Some curricula and programs offer simplistic, monolithic or flat-out illiberal ideas about racial issues, dismissing challenging questions or alternative perspectives as rooted in racism, reeking of undeserved privilege or otherwise beyond the pale.

In a highly publicized incident at the University of Central Florida in 2020, Professor Charles Negy was fired after his tweets about “Black privilege” prompted campus protests. While the university claimed he was guilty of misconduct, an arbitrator found no just cause for his determination and ordered him reinstated. The incident seemed to form part of a broader pattern at the University.

Last year a federal appeals court struck down the campus’ discriminatory harassment policy, citing its “astonishing breadth—and slipperiness.” The court found it “clear that a reasonable student could fear that his speech would get him crossways with the university and that he’d be better off just keeping his mouth shut.”

DeSantis and his supporters are not wrong to call out the quest for a more inclusive and equitable society when it veers into the outright suppression of speech and ideas. Progressives too often forget that the movements they wage – whether for racial justice, gender justice, climate or anything else – depend upon free speech protections to guarantee the space for dissent; and that such protections must apply equally to speech with which they disagree. Some fail to acknowledge, too, that worthwhile perspectives and solutions can emerge from outside their own ideological spheres.

But the cure that DeSantis and his backers favor – intrusive legislation to muzzle the opposite set of views – is worse than the disease. State-ordered legal bans based on viewpoint – whether ideas on critical race theory, books depicting LGBTQ families or diversity programs – strike at the heart of what the First Amendment protects. Such bans also, ironically, tend to elevate the ideas being cast off limits. The now widely documented feelings of intimidation and muzzling of Florida librarians, teachers, professors and students are fueling a backlash against DeSantis, prompting allegations of racism and authoritarianism.

College Board educators insist that they were not consciously bowing to DeSantis’ pressure when they eliminated edgier topics from the AP African American History curriculum. But the mechanisms of censorship are insidious – threats and intimidation cause people to shift their views, choose their words and stay away from certain topics without even recognizing that they are doing so.

To escape this escalating tit-for-tat battle of assaults on speech will demand leadership. University presidents need to stand up and insist, and ensure, that all viewpoints – left and right alike – get a fair hearing on campus. They also need to resist intrusive legislation that micromanages curriculum and undercuts academic freedom.

Progressive leaders need to draw the line at approaches that seek to silence criticism, including through demonization and stigmatization that make the cost of raising questions too high. Conservatives need to reject an approach that meets informal chilling of speech with out-and-out government censorship. Florida education officials should educate and incentivize college administrators, principals and teachers on how to maintain a classroom open to all ideas, rather than responding to the exclusion of views they like with laws prohibiting those they don’t.

This escalating battle for control over our public discourse should worry all those who care about free speech, no matter their politics. The left is too quick to want to silence those who offend or threaten them. The right – led by DeSantis – is going a major step further, legitimizing the use of government power to render certain books, ideas and viewpoints off-limits. The greatest casualty in this battle may be neither progressive nor conservative ideas, but the principle of free speech itself.

An earlier version of this essay misstated the name of the University of Central Florida.

CNN
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Another day of harsh winter weather brought continued air travel misery across the United States on Thursday with more than 1,100 flights canceled and thousands more delayed by snow storms and plunging temperatures.

As of 6 p.m. ET, 1,110 airplane departures had been scrapped and more than 5,000 delayed within the US, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. The schedule disruptions come a day after more than 1,700 flights were dropped and more than 7,000 delayed.

Blizzards, snow dumps and ice have hit a huge swath of the western and northern US stretching from California to New York and New England, with much of the upper Midwest experiencing particularly heavy snowfalls. More than 60 million people were under winter weather alerts early Thursday.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport was the worst affected with more than 130 departures and about 100 arrivals struck off. Delta was the worst affected carrier, accounting for more than 200 of the overall cancellations and more than 550 delays.

Boston Logan International, Portland International and Toronto Pearson International were also showing significant impact.

Southwest Airlines has issued winter weather waivers for about a dozen airports. Delta Air Lines has issued waivers for Upper Midwest winter weather and Rockies and Mountain regions winter weather. American Airlines and United have also issued winter weather waivers for travel this week.

CNN
 — 

Brutal winter storms are expected to deliver snow, blizzard conditions or icing across strips of the US from California to the Northeast on Thursday, part of a multiday event that has already closed roads and caused numerous power outages – even as the Southeast basks in unseasonably high temperatures.

More than 60 million people were under winter weather alerts Thursday morning from the West into the northern Plains, Great Lakes region and New York and New England. That’s part of storms that already have left nearly one million homes and businesses without power, mainly in Michigan – struck partly by freezing rain and ice that’s damaged utility lines and trees – and other parts of the Midwest, according to tracker PowerOutage.us.

Heavy snow already hit some of these areas over the past two days – including, as of early Thursday, more than 40 inches in parts of southern Wyoming; up to 32 inches in northwestern Montana; and generally 3-6 inches across Nebraska and the Dakotas.

Search and rescue operations were underway Wednesday evening in several counties across Wyoming to recover motorists that become trapped in heavy snow, the state highway patrol said.

In Minnesota, swaths of which saw 3-7 inches with locally higher amounts as of early Thursday, more than 160 vehicle crashes were reported and dozens of cars spun off roads Wednesday, Minnesota State Patrol spokesperson Lt. Gordon Shank said in a series of tweets.

In Wisconsin – similarly hit by snow since Tuesday in the north and freezing rain Wednesday in the south – Gov. Tony Evers declared a statewide energy emergency Wednesday, saying it will “allow for a more swift and efficient restoration of any electric power outages throughout the state,” a news release from his office said.

Perilous travel conditions are expected to continue in many of these areas Thursday. Snowfall of up to 1 to 2 inches per hour could hit parts of the West, the northern Plains and Great Lakes on Thursday, joined by winds as high as 40 to 50 mph, according to the National Weather Service. The combination will cause “significant impacts that will include major disruptions to travel, infrastructure, livestock and recreation,” the service said.

The upper Midwest and Northeast could see an additional 6 to 12 inches of snowfall, with locally higher amounts, through Thursday, the service said.

And an ice storm warning stretched Thursday morning from central Iowa to the Wisconsin-Illinois line and through southern Michigan – with freezing rain threatening ice accumulations that could make morning travel “nearly impossible” in places, the service said.

Out west, in an extremely rare event, California’s Los Angeles and Ventura Counties will be under blizzard warnings from Friday morning through Saturday afternoon, the weather said. That will be the first blizzard warning issued by the weather service’s Los Angeles office since 1989, it said.

“Nearly (the) entire population of California will be able to see snow from some vantage point later this week if they look in the right direction,” according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Snow remains very unlikely in California’s major cities, but it’ll fall quite nearby.”

The National Weather Service in San Diego has issued a blizzard warning for the San Bernardino County mountains from 4 a.m. local time Friday to 4 p.m. Saturday. It’s the first blizzard warning ever issued by the San Diego office, the weather service tweeted.

In the San Bernardino mountains, total snow accumulations of 3 to 5 feet are likely above 5,000 feet. Snow totals of 1 to 3 feet are possible between 4,000 and 5,000 feet. The snow combined with wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph will create visibilities near zero.

Meanwhile, the Southeast will continue to see unusually high temperatures Thursday – as high as 30 to 40 degrees above normal – after more than 30 daily record highs were recorded there and parts of the Appalachians and lower Midwest on Wednesday. More than 80 such records could be broken Thursday.

The dueling winter storm and southern heat wave created a stark 100-degree temperature difference between the Northern Rockies and the South earlier this week.

The treacherous winter storm conditions across wide swaths of the western and northern US have caused major disruptions to daily life in some areas, and prompted local officials to issue warnings against venturing out onto the roads.

More than 680 flights within, into or out of the US scheduled have been canceled Thursday, according to the tracking site FlightAware. That’s following more than 1,600 flight cancellations Wednesday.

Since the storm began Monday evening, cumulative snowfall has reached dozens of inches in some cities, including 48 inches in Battle Lake, Wyoming, 32 inches in Dupuyer, Montana, and 29 inches in Park City, Utah.

Areas of California that rarely see snow could get significant snowfall beginning Thursday, as heavy rain and mountain snow begin to develop in parts of the state, the weather service said. Additionally, flood watches have been issued for lower-elevation areas, including Los Angeles.

Hazardous conditions have led to safety measures being implemented in multiple states.

• Wisconsin airport preemptively closed: Green Bay’s international airport canceled the remainder of its daily flights Wednesday evening and most of its flights Thursday morning.

• Road closures in several states: Perilous conditions triggered highway closures on several states Wednesday, including South Dakota, Wyoming, Arizona, North Dakota and Minnesota.

• Maine government offices closed: Gov. Janet Mills announced that state offices would be closed Thursday as the storm “is expected to bring significant snowfall to most of the state,” her office said in a release.

After Wednesday brought warmer than usual winter air across the Southeast on Wednesday, Thursday will offer some of the same.

Dozens of record highs are expected on Thursday from Ohio to Florida. Highs could be as much as 35 degrees above normal for parts of the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley.

Dozens of record daily highs were reached or tied Wednesday, including 98 degrees in McAllen, Texas, and 87 degrees in Naples, Florida. In Atlanta, Georgia, a record was set for the month of February with 81 degrees, which is the city’s typical average high in mid-May.

By the end of the week, more than 100 record highs are possible stretching from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Great Lakes.

The region also experienced severe storms throughout the Mississippi River Valley on Wednesday, with over 30 storms reported across the region.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated which city reached 87 degrees Wednesday. It was Naples, Florida.

CNN
 — 

When Marguerite Richards made a TikTok bragging about her father’s decade-old thriller novel, she was hoping to rouse a little interest. A few dozen new readers, maybe. As the first few positive comments started rolling in, she was pleased to have done something nice for a dad who definitely deserved it.

She had no idea that, within a matter of days, millions of people would see her video, and her father’s book would rocket to the top of Amazon’s Best Seller list.

Lloyd Devereux Richards first published “Stone Maidens” in 2012. It’s a thriller about an FBI agent following a killer in Indiana and, by his daughter’s account, it’s quite good. However, the publishing industry is a fickle mistress, and the original release failed to drum up excitement.

It’s a different world now, with TikTok and other tight-knit book communities rocketing titles to fame overnight. Richards, the daughter, decided to try her luck.

“I saw how much time and effort and passion my dad put into his book. I know what a lovely storyteller he is,” she told CNN. “He never stopped writing, and he always stayed positive.”

Whether it was the gripping thriller, the author’s unassuming Vermont mien, or the efforts of a proud, tech-savvy daughter, the story of Lloyd Devereux Richards and “Stone Maidens” struck a chord.

Marguerite Richards posted the first TikTok about “Stone Maidens” about two weeks ago. It has since received 48 million views and innumerable positive responses. As every good story needs a sequel, Richards posted more videos of her father, the author of the hour, delighting in his unexpected success.

This particular episode falls under a social media genre best described as “Young people giving their elders love and recognition on a platform the latter doesn’t understand.” It’s a fruitful one, full of parents just like Lloyd Devereux Richards who wake up one morning to find their talents, hobbies or peculiar habits have been broadcast to the world – and won them legions of admirers.

“My dad wasn’t really sure what TikTok is, but he has been so pleased and grateful,” Richards says. “I love how people are appreciating him. Even some brands have commented. A few weeks ago, these people didn’t know who he was. And now the Tootsie Roll account is cheering him on.”

The experience has breathed new life into a labor of love. It’s also driven home some lessons about inspiration and determination.

“A lot of people who are struggling with a project, who thought they were way off track, this has given them the inspiration to recharge,” Richards says. “Everyone can relate to the feeling of being a late bloomer.”

At the same time, the duo has been overwhelmed by the kindness and open-mindedness of millions of strangers.

“We can see the analytics of who’s following and watching us. We read as many comments as we can,” Richards says. “There are young people who have said they’ve never bought a book for pleasure, or they don’t read a lot. And now they’re sitting down, they’re reading and they’re loving it.”

“My dad is thrilled that young people are reading.”

Now, Lloyd Devereux Richards has more than 360,000 TikTok followers and a brand new story to tell. He has plans for the future, too, though it would be very un-authorly of him to give them all away at once.

CNN
 — 

House Republicans had hoped to pass a narrow border security bill within the first two weeks of their new majority, notching an easy win and delivering on a key campaign promise in the process.

But a three-page bill from conservative Texas Rep. Chip Roy has run into fierce opposition from moderates, forcing GOP leaders back to the drawing board and exposing deep divisions in the party along the way.

The party’s struggles to pass a messaging bill that’s dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate — and on an issue that uniformly excites the GOP’s base, no less — underscores the challenges of governing in a razor-thin majority, and dashes whatever hopes there were for a bipartisan package to address border security and reform the nation’s broken immigration system.

For his part, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has defended the House GOP’s inaction on border security thus far, arguing it’s still early in their new majority and reiterating that Republicans are committed to addressing the issue. The California Republican made his first trip to the southern border last week as speaker, while Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are slated to hold a field hearing Thursday afternoon in Yuma, Arizona, on what they describe as “the Biden border crisis.”

“Committees have just now been constituted, not all of them have even been constituted. So I don’t think it’s really an opportunity to say you haven’t acted,” McCarthy said during a news conference in the Tucson Sector, near a stretch of border wall. “This isn’t my first trip. This is my sixth trip. … So no, Republicans have been taking action. We’ve got a lot of ideas inside Congress.”

But the GOP’s early internal disagreement over the issue of border security has inflamed tensions between the party’s moderates and conservatives, even as Republicans are united in their belief that the record level of migrant encounters along the border amounts to a crisis.

In a sign of how tense things have become, a staffer for Roy recently blasted out an op-ed to other congressional offices that was critical of GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, a moderate who represents a Texas border district and has been an outspoken opponent of Roy’s border bill, according to a screenshot of the email shared with CNN. The op-ed, written by a conservative advocacy group, dubbed Gonzales a “RINO” and accused him of “helping Joe Biden undermine our border.” One senior GOP source said the email was “just pouring gasoline on the fire.”

Asked for comment, Gonzales told CNN: “Anyone who thinks a 3 page anti-immigration bill with 0% chance of getting signed into law is going to solve the border crisis should be buying beach front property in AZ.”

Roy had some choice words for the critics of his bill, though he didn’t name names.

“If someone is calling a bill ‘anti-immigrant,’ that carries out the very policies that that same someone has supported in the past,” Roy told CNN, “then that someone should do a long, hard look in the mirror at what they’re trying to sell their constituents and the rest of the American people.”

As House Republicans struggle to unite behind a border bill, Democrats have their own internal disagreements over immigration policy. The Biden administration released a new rule Tuesday that largely bars migrants who traveled through other countries on their way to the US-Mexico border from applying for asylum in the United States, marking a departure from decadeslong protocol. The Biden policy has garnered wide condemnation from Democratic lawmakers and immigrant advocates.

As part of his bid to win the speaker’s gavel, McCarthy promised to pass a border security plan. His top deputy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, outlined a dozen bills and resolutions in December that were supposed to come straight to the floor within the first two weeks of the new Congress, while committees were still being organized.

That included a three-page measure from Roy, dubbed the “Border Safety and Security Act,” which would allow the Homeland Security secretary to turn away migrants at the border if it was deemed necessary to maintain “operational control” of the border.

But the bill — which was initially seen as a straightforward measure that could be quickly moved on the floor — rankled the party’s moderate and Hispanic lawmakers, who worry it would block legitimate asylum claims. Republican leaders, who can only afford to lose four votes on any partisan bills, yanked the bill from tentative floor consideration and instead promised to move it through the normal committee process, hoping to assuage those members’ concerns that way.

Yet the Roy bill, which has over 60 co-sponsors, has remained stalled, with skeptics unmoved in their opposition to the measure. Now the House Judiciary Committee is exploring a broader package focused on border security and protecting border communities, senior GOP sources tell CNN, which they hope can win wider consensus in the conference. But even if Republicans are able to move it through the House, such a measure is unlikely to be considered in the Senate.

Roy said there’s a lot of “misinformation” about his border plan, and rebutted the notion it would ban legitimate asylum seekers – though he did acknowledge it would make it more difficult to claim asylum and get quickly released into the United States. He also said he’d be willing to make some tweaks to the bill, but not if the end result is watered down.

“I’m open to words that will clear up that which I don’t think needs to be cleared up,” Roy said, in reference to the claims that his bill would ban asylum seekers. “So long as it doesn’t change the purpose of the bill: which is to ensure that people are not being released into the United States until they’ve been processed and adjudicated as having an actual, credible fear of persecution.”

Some moderates said they still harbor some resentment toward the 20 House GOP rebels – a group Roy was a part of – who initially opposed McCarthy’s speakership, forcing him to make a number of concessions, many of which benefited the holdouts.

“There’s deep anger across the conference on the 20 who hurt the team in early January. Deep resentment,” one GOP lawmaker told CNN. “Folks don’t want to lift a finger for them.”

Perhaps the GOP’s best opportunity to address the border will be in upcoming spending fights, since House Republicans will actually have leverage now that they are in power. But it could also take the government to the brink of a shutdown — and some conservatives are already agitating for a fight.

“Don’t think for a minute that I’m all that inclined to fund a government that isn’t securing the border,” Roy said.

In the absence of legislative momentum, House Republicans have continued to move ahead with their messaging efforts to call attention to problems at the southern border.

The field hearing in Yuma hosted by House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, marks the third Republican-led trip to the border so far this year. The House committee on Energy and Commerce and McCarthy both led trips to the border last week, just a day apart. The House committee on Homeland Security also has an upcoming trip, billed a “border bootcamp” for Republican freshman members, while the House committee on Oversight and Accountability is also planning something for the near future as well, a source familiar with the plans tells CNN.

In a sign of the intense focus on trips, House Judiciary Republicans have requested $262,400 for travel this Congress, compared to the $7,986 the committee spent on travel in 2022 in the last Congress when the House was under Democratic control, a Democratic committee source tells CNN.

Back in Washington, DC, both the House Oversight and Judiciary committees have held hearings on the border. And both committees have sent a flurry of requests for documents and interviews to the Department of Homeland Security. The House Homeland Security panel will dedicate its first full committee hearing to the border next week.

In preparation for a slew of field hearings, the House Administration committee put together a field hearing guide, in consultation with various House offices, which was provided to Republican committee staff, a senior aide told CNN. Titled “Running an Effective Committee Field Hearing,” the purpose of the memo was to sync House Republicans on a variety of fronts including technical specifics about livestreaming, best practices for communication strategy, and what to consider when choosing a location site.

House Republicans contend that multiple committee hearings and border trips reflect an aggressive strategy in their effort to build a public case against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who according to a department spokesperson has already testified before Congress more than any other Biden administration cabinet secretary, and the Biden administration at large.

GOP Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who serves on both the Energy and Commerce and Oversight panels, told CNN that “the only way we have a chance to break through is by coordinating and keeping the pressure constant.”

“Nobody overlapped. Everybody is working hard to make sure we are communicating with each other” Armstrong said. “And we are forcing the Democrats to respond.”

House Democrats and the Biden administration, however, view the multitude of trips and hearings as political stunts.

The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, said in a statement to CNN, “it’s clear that House Republicans have gotten ahead of themselves with their proposed anti-immigrant legislation and so-called border oversight. Republicans are eager to make trips to the southwest border, but seem unwilling to do the actual work necessary to address the challenges we face.”

Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who hosted House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in his Texas border town last week, told CNN, “For me, being from the border, I wonder how much all of this border activity at the end of the day that the Republicans are doing will actually become law? Or is it more trying to get publicity?”

But, Cuellar is not surprised by the numerous trips.

“It’s really a byproduct of their political campaign that they ran this last November in many ways,” he said.

White House spokesperson for oversight Ian Sams told CNN that instead of working with President Joe Biden on the immigration reform bill he proposed, “House Republicans driven by their most extreme MAGA members are wasting time on politically motivated stunts.”

The messaging battle has left each side to dig in with their respective camps. House Judiciary Democrats are not attending Jordan’s Thursday field hearing, over scheduling disagreements. Instead, an outside Democratic messaging group, the Congressional Integrity Project, will station a mobile billboard ad outside of Jordan’s field hearing in Yuma attempting to discredit Judiciary Republican efforts.

CNN
 — 

These are the surprising and personal stories, lost and hidden in America’s past, hosted by CNN’s Abby Phillip, Suzanne Malveaux, Omar Jimenez, Athena Jones, Ryan Young, John Avlon and more. Knowing these stories might reshape your understanding of the disparities the country faces today.

150 years ago, Republicans fought hard for Black voter turnout

By Channon Hodge, Ken Borland and Frank Fenimore, CNN

On April 11, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln delivered what would be his last speech from a window at the White House to the crowd below. They had gathered there expecting a celebratory speech on Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant just two days earlier.

But that evening, Lincoln’s speech was about Reconstruction, readmitting Louisiana into the Union and a proposal for “giving the benefit of public schools equally to Black and White, and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the colored man.”

Plantation-owning elites, Southern Democrats and White supremacists, however, would not easily concede political power to those who had so recently been their slaves. That evening among the crowd of listeners was an enraged John Wilkes Booth, who would go on to assassinate the President just three days later at Ford’s Theatre.

For decades after Lincoln’s death, White supremacists would wage a war of intimidation, murder and massacre on anyone, Black or White, who dared covet a share of their power. Yet, Black people persisted.

And between 1865 and 1880, over 1,500 Black men took political office; most not for long, as their efforts were cut down by mobs of violent White men.

1868 Louisiana – African Americans participated in Constitutional Conventions like this across the South where delegates argued over Union demands, drew up new laws and elected new leadership.

Oscar James Dunn was one of those determined men. He became the country’s first Black lieutenant governor in Louisiana in 1868 serving under Henry Clay Warmoth on the Republican ticket. Dunn’s first legislative address showed hope and restraint:

“As to myself and my people, we are not seeking social equality. That is a thing no law can govern,” said Dunn. “We simply ask to be allowed an equal chance in the race of life.”

Oscar Dunn died mysteriously in office only four years later…

The story continues…

By Channon Hodge, Breeanna Hare, Tami Luhby and CNN Staff

As the Civil War neared its end, Union General William Sherman had been convinced that newly emancipated slaves needed their own land to secure their freedom. He issued Special Field Order No. 15, setting aside 400,000 coastal acres of land for Black families and stating that, “…no white person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be permitted to reside.” A provision was added later for mules.

In three months, the potential of Sherman’s order vanished with a single shot. That April, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and in the fall President Andrew Johnson reversed Sherman’s order, allowing Confederate planters to regain the land. It demonstrated a ruthless appropriation that would be repeated for decades to come.

Still, Black Americans created pockets of wealth during the Reconstruction years and into the early 20th century. Yet where Black Americans created a refuge, White Americans pushed back through political maneuvering and violence.

“We estimate that there were upwards of 100 massacres that took place between the end of the Civil War and the 1940s,” says William Darity Jr., a Duke University economist who co-authored “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” with writer and folklorist A. Kirsten Mullen. “And they take place North and South, East and West.”

We looked back through research and news clippings, paying particular attention to around 50 racially charged incidents between 1863 and 1923 when people of color lost property or economic opportunity. The events highlighted here reveal how acts of racial violence of different scope played out across the country and targeted various ethnicities. Historians then helped us examine how and why they had occurred and where we still see the impact today…

The story continues here…

This one act locked Black students out of school in a county for 5 years

By Shawna Mizelle, Channon Hodge, Maya Blackstone, John General, Frank Fenimore and Demetrius Pipkin, CNN

Everett R. Berryman Jr. was 11 years old when the Supreme Court handed down the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which made racial segregation in public schools illegal.

But supervisors in Prince Edward County, Virginia, where Berryman was attending public school, had no intention of complying. Five years later, in 1959, as Berryman was looking ahead to attending 7th grade, the county shuttered all public schools and opened a private school – for White children only. It would take five years, an intervention by the Department of Justice and another Supreme Court order, before integrated public schooling in Prince Edward County proceeded.

Around the same time, in North Carolina, Dr. E.B. Palmer was working as the executive secretary of state for the North Carolina Teachers Association, advocating for Black teachers after Brown was decided.

“When the school system said ‘separate but equal,’ that was fine,” Palmer recalled to CNN. “But when we moved a little further, they tried to say, ‘We don’t want Black teachers teaching White students.’”

Nearly 40,000 teaching positions held by Black teachers in 17 southern and border states would be lost in the ensuring years, according to Samuel B. Ethridge, a National Education Association official who was a leader in the movement to integrate teacher organizations during the civil rights movement.

The story continues here…

This 15-year-old was the original Rosa Parks

By Brandon Tensley, Skylar Mitchell, Deborah Brunswick, Janelle Gonzalez, Abby Phillip, Jeff Simon and Cassie Spodak, CNN

Claudette Colvin did a revolutionary act nearly 10 months before Rosa Parks.

In March 1955, the 15-year-old was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White person on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

The teenager and others challenged the law in court. But civil rights leaders, pointing to circumstances in Colvin’s personal life, thought that Parks would be the better representative of the movement.

“People said I was crazy,” Colvin recently told CNN’s Abby Phillip. “Because I was 15 years old and defiant and shouting, ‘It’s my constitutional right!’ “

The story continues here…

90-year-old former Senator: Fighting racism relies on White people

By Amir Vera, Bryce Urbany and Cassie Spodak, CNN

In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders – better known as the Kerner Commission – put out a report that attempted to address systemic racism in the US, including police violence against Black people.

A Michigan State police officer searches a youth on Detroit’s 12th Street where looting took place in the 1960s.

A Michigan State police officer searches a youth on Detroit’s 12th Street where looting took place in the 1960s.

The report stated that racism was a major cause of economic and social inequality for Black people and that it was moving the nation toward two societies: “One Black, one White, separate and unequal.” That, coupled with the brutal police treatment of people of color and poverty, helped spark the race riots of the 1960s.

At the time, the commission’s findings shocked many Americans because for the first time, “White racism” was noted as a major cause for the unequal status and living conditions of Black Americans, said the commission’s last surviving member, former Oklahoma Sen. Fred Harris. But the report’s findings and proposed solutions led nowhere.

More than 50 years after the report, Harris, historians and policy experts tell CNN that change will only come when the people have the will and the government is truly honest about what must be done politically, socially and economically to address racial inequality.

Jelani Cobb, historian and co-editor of “The Essential Kerner Commission Report,” tells CNN that people and institutions already know what the problem is and that the only action that needs to be taken now is actually following the recommendations of the commission, and pay the price that comes with it.

“The actions are laid out, you really don’t need more recommendations,” Cobb said. “The fundamental observations (of the commission) have never been acted on.”

The story continues…

Can a formula be racist? She says one put her health at risk

By Jacque Smith, Cassie Spodak, Jessi Esparza and Natalia V. Osipova, CNN

When she first learned about race correction, Naomi Nkinsi was one of five Black medical students in her class at the University of Washington.

Nkinsi remembers the professor talking about an equation doctors use to measure kidney function. The professor said eGFR equations adjust for several variables, including the patient’s age, sex and race. When it comes to race, doctors have only two options: Black or “Other.”

Nkinsi was dumbfounded.

“It was really shocking to me,” says Nkinsi, now a third-year medical and masters of public health student, “to come into school and see that not only is there interpersonal racism between patients and physicians … there’s actually racism built into the very algorithms that we use.”

At the heart of a controversy brewing in America’s hospitals is a simple belief, medical students say: Math shouldn’t be racist.

The argument over race correction has raised questions about the scientific data doctors rely on to treat people of color. It’s attracted the attention of Congress and led to a big lawsuit against the NFL.

What happens next could affect how millions of Americans are treated…

The story continues…

How the KKK’s failures became lessons for White power

How an 1800s surgeon experimenting on enslaved Black women affects the anti-abortion movement

CNN
 — 

Jesse Lee Soffer knew he would be asked why he decided to leave his role as Det. Jay Halstead on “Chicago P.D.” after more than nine seasons.

“I’ve thought so hard about how to answer this question — and there’s no good answer,” he told Variety. “Except I was ready for more.”

Viewers of the popular NBC series may not be happy about it, especially given that during this season the character got a bigger storyline with a promotion at work and a marriage.

But Soffer told the publication “Eventually, you know the character so well, there’s not much that can shift or transform.”

“I really wanted to grow and expand, and we’ve only got this one trip,” the actor, 38, said. “If I signed up again, it would have been for another three years. I would have turned 40 on the show. I thought, ‘You know what? It’s time to take a risk.”

Soffer added “It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life.”

“Let’s be honest: I love the fans of our show so much, and I love my fans,” he said. “I know that they’re still grieving this, and to some degree, I am too.”

“Chicago P.D.” airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on NBC and the next day on Peacock.

Archer City, TX
CNN
 — 

One half of television’s most famous renovation duo is the new owner of an iconic literary landmark built by author Larry McMurtry in the hard-scrabbled town of Archer City, Texas. Residents are now wondering what Chip Gaines, who with wife Joanna built the Magnolia Network, is planning for the shop’s next chapter.

Last November, Gaines quietly bought two buildings that are home to Booked Up – the bookstore that was McMurtry’s lifetime passion project in his hometown. The author of “Lonesome Dove” and “The Terms of Endearment” opened the bookstore in 1987 and over the decades it became a pilgrimage site for McMurtry fans and book lovers from around the world.

They also come to see The Royal Theater, which inspired McMurtry’s classic novel “The Last Picture Show,” and was seen in the classic 1971 film starring Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges.

In this dusty town of roughly 16-hundred people, where the summer heat can feel like getting hit in the face with a scalding iron skillet, McMurtry accomplished what one resident described as the unlikely dream of “making Archer City a little book town.”

The bookstore has been closed for at least a year. The news that it’s now in the hands of Chip Gaines, who became famous for his exuberant passion for “Demo-Day” destruction on his television shows, has created a buzz through the town’s gathering spots.

Some residents are anxious to know if Gaines has bigger plans to give Archer City a fixer-upper makeover or if the books are about to disappear and the buildings left vacant, like many other buildings on the town square.

“Chip’s connection to Archer City traces back to his parents and grandparents, who grew up there,” a spokesperson for Gaines told CNN in a statement. “He loves this community and has been a big fan of Larry McMurtry for years. Chip is honored and excited to preserve this incredible book collection with the respect it deserves.”

The representative declined to comment on specific future plans for the bookstore.

Jerry Phillips, the former owner of the Archer County News, said the city is proud of its ties to one of the most influential writers of the last 100 years.

“People would be devastated if the bookstore disappeared. It needs to have some presence here just for his legacy,” Phillips told CNN. 

When Larry McMurtry died in March 2021, predicting the fate of the bookstore and the thousands of books stacked inside became a routine parlor game.

Before his death, McMurtry bequeathed Booked Up to the store’s longtime manager Khristal Collins, according to James McMurtry, the writer’s son, and well-known musician.

Archer County deed records show that on November 4, 2022, the two bookstore buildings, still holding a breathtaking collection of books, were transferred to an investment company listing Chip Gaines as the director.

The deed records show the properties were sold for ten dollars “and other good and valuable consideration.” Khristal Collins did not respond to CNN’s calls about the sale of the store.

However, on Wednesday, she launched a new online bookstore, keeping the name “Booked Up” but confirming she no longer owns the building, nor the inventory of McMurtry’s bookstore.

The bookstore’s sale was first reported in December by Nathan Lawson, the news editor of the Archer County News.

The tip came from Jerry Phillips, who called Lawson when he saw Chip Gaines and his father carrying boxes of books out of the store. Phillips said he approached the star and said, “Inquiring minds want to know what’s going on?”

Chip and Joanna Gaines turned their HGTV home improvement show into the Magnolia lifestyle brand empire. The Magnolia Silos in Waco, which opened in 2015, transformed the city’s central business area and attracts more than one million visitors a year, according to local tourism officials. (HGTV and CNN are both part of Warner Bros. Discovery.)

In a January 2019 interview with Cowboys & Indians magazine, Chip Gaines talked about his family’s connection to Archer City, the place where his parents grew up and is located about 200 miles northwest of Waco.

While Gaines grew up in Albuquerque, he said he would often spend summers with his grandfather in Archer City, riding horses and mending fences, and that’s where a suburban kid from the big city learned to appreciate the farming and ranching lifestyle.

“I don’t know what it was about it, but it certainly got in my blood at a very young age,” Gaines told the magazine.

There’s a great deal of interest in what happens next. For decades, Booked Up was a huge tourist draw for local businesses. But Archer City residents see what the Gaines’ did for Waco and they can’t help but wonder if they’re planning a “Magnolia North” kind of destination that would bring even more tourists to town.

There are a lot of people, Lawson said, that don’t want to see the buildings sit vacant or, worse yet, see the massive collection of books taken out of town.

“We’re forever intertwined with Larry McMurtry,” Lawson said. “There would still be a large portion of our community that would be sad to see the bookstore go, and I think our economy would be sad to see the bookstore go.”

The Spur Hotel in Archer City is owned by Dotty and John Hudson. The hotel is often filled with McMurtry fans visiting the writer’s hometown. His books are left in each room and the top floor guest room is known as The Lonesome Dove Suite.

Her husband, John, lived in Archer City when Hollywood came to town to shoot “The Last Picture Show.” He was one of the many locals picked to work as extras in various scenes shot on location. If you watch close enough, Dotty said, you can spot him eight times in the movie.

Dotty Hudson says many of their guests are McMurtry fans and writers who come here to get inspired. Hudson says the hotel is a frequent stop for people who route vacation road trips through town to see The Royal Theater and the downtown square where “The Last Picture Show” was filmed.

Hudson told CNN if the bookstore closed permanently it “would leave a little hole in Archer City’s heart.”

Hundreds of McMurtry’s most intimate items are also set to be sold in an auction on May 29. 

From typewriters to personal copies of his famous books; from his grand piano and bed to his cowboy boots held together with duct tape, the catalogue of roughly 400 items is already drawing widespread interest, according to Rob Vogt, director of the Vogt Auction gallery in San Antonio.

“The buzz has been the biggest thing that’s ever happened to us,” Vogt said. “It’s very exciting.”

While Vogt described Archer City as the “romantic heartland of the McMurtry story,” he said his team worked with McMurtry’s son, James, to plan the sale at the auction house in San Antonio, which Vogt said has the infrastructure to plan a proper, modern auction.

Several hundred people are expected to attend in person, with thousands more likely joining online, Vogt said.

“We’ve been around almost 50 years. We call ourselves the Texas auction. These are the stories and the land and objects that we specialize in,” he said. “It’s a huge, huge honor.”

Jerry Phillips is organizing a public effort to preserve the county’s historic three-story jail into a museum and arts center. He would love to see the building hold McMurtry’s bookstore.

Business owners like, Dotty Hudson, are hopeful. She says the Gaines’ have proven they have the “magic touch.”

In “The Last Picture Show” the world saw Archer City on desolate black and white film, they quietly hope if the cameras return again McMurtry’s hometown will be in full color.

A previous version of this story stated “The Last Picture Show” was released in 1973. It has been corrected to reflect the film was released in 1971.

CNN
 — 

A Texas man was sentenced to more than three years in prison Wednesday for assaulting police officers during the US Capitol riot and threatening Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter shortly after the attack.

Garret Miller, 36, pleaded guilty in December to charges related to his conduct on January 6, 2021. He was arrested weeks after the riot – on Inauguration Day – while wearing a shirt that said: “I was there, Washington, D.C., January 6, 2021.”

According to court documents, Miller brought gear with him to DC, including a rope, a grappling hook and a mouth guard, and prosecutors said he was “at the forefront of every barrier overturned, police line overrun, and entryway breached within his proximity that day.” Miller was detained twice during the riot, according to court documents.

When he left the Capitol building, he took the fight to Twitter, according to court documents. In response to a tweet from Ocasio-Cortez calling for then-President Donald Trump’s impeachment, Miller responded: “Assassinate AOC.”

“At the time that I tweeted at the Congresswoman, I intended that the communication be perceived as a serious intent to commit violence against the Congresswoman,” Miller said in court documents as part of his guilty plea. He also levied threats against the officer who shot and killed a pro-Trump rioter during the melee, according to court documents, saying that he wanted to “hug his neck with a nice rope.”

Clint Broden, Miller’s laywer, said in a statement to CNN that the sentence “ultimately reflects Judge Nichols careful consideration of the case,” and said that his client “has expressed his sincere remorse for his actions.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the nature of Garret Miller’s guilty plea.

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 25 books, including the New York Times best-seller, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Lies and Legends About Our Past” (Basic Books). Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN
 — 

On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump headed to East Palestine, Ohio, in an apparent attempt to gain a political edge over President Joe Biden, whose administration he criticized for being more preoccupied with international affairs than with domestic issues like the toxic train derailment earlier this month.

As Biden concludes a successful trip to Europe, where he paid a surprise visit to Ukraine and reaffirmed America’s commitment to stopping Russian aggression, the residents of East Palestine are still struggling with the fallout from the Norfolk Southern train derailment, which contaminated thousands of cubic yards of soil and more than 1.1 million gallons of water.

The train, which was carrying hazardous chemicals including vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate, set off a massive fire that lasted for several days. Residents in both Ohio and Pennsylvania were told to evacuate as authorities carried out a controlled release of toxic materials, which were diverted to a trench and burned off.

Many in East Palestine are understandably concerned about the effects these chemicals might have on their health. Even though federal air monitoring and water sample tests have indicated conditions are safe, residents have reported a number of ailments and thousands of fish have died in nearby creeks.

Trump, who donated water and cleaning supplies on Wednesday, has been critical of the federal response, saying earlier this week, “You have a president going to Ukraine and you have people in Ohio that are in desperate need of help.” On Wednesday, he said he hoped Biden has “some money left over” after he returns from Ukraine.

He isn’t the only one – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also criticized Biden for “neglecting” a “lot of problems accumulating here in our own country,” while Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley made similar comments, asking, “Shouldn’t he be with those people in Ohio?”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg admitted on CBS News that he “could have spoken sooner about how strongly I felt about this incident, and that’s a lesson learned for me.” Facing mounting criticism, Buttigieg is now planning to visit East Palestine on Thursday.

Despite this criticism, Democrats have been quick to point to the supposed hypocrisy of the Republican attacks, criticizing Trump for rolling back federal regulations on train safety, including one that would have imposed braking requirements for trains carrying certain hazardous material. (Given the ongoing National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the cause of the accident, it’s unclear whether any of those regulations could have prevented the accident. The specific regulation regarding braking would not have applied to the train in Ohio because it was not classified as a high-hazard flammable train.)

But the Biden administration needs to follow through and make sure that the government is providing the necessary support for people in East Palestine. Already, the Environmental Protection Agency has stepped in, saying that it will force Norfolk Southern to clean up the contaminated soil and water, reimburse the EPA for cleaning services, and more. It has also sent federal medical experts to the town to “assess the public health needs” at the site.

But the president needs to reassure the residents of East Palestine and make sure that the town has all the resources it needs for a comprehensive cleanup while calling for the establishment of safety regulations that can diminish the chances of this kind of accident from happening again.

While the Biden administration has tried more recently to emphasize the steps it has taken to address the accident, the president could pay a high political cost for appearing to ignore the domestic front in favor of the international realm.

One can look back at President George H.W. Bush, whose skyrocketing poll numbers after the US successfully forced Iraqi troops out of Kuwait without triggering a ground war was seen as a ticket to reelection. Within months, those hopes evaporated as Democrats criticized the administration for ignoring the economic recession gripping the nation. They pounced on the president, claiming he was out of touch with average Americans and that his administration was slow to respond to the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in Florida.

The famous mantra of the Clinton team, “It’s the economy, stupid,” was meant to be a constant reminder to everyone on the campaign to keep highlighting the difference between a Democratic candidate whose focus was on the bread-and-butter concerns of Americans and a president whose primary interest was foreign policy.

The political finger pointing that has broken out after the train derailment comes at a time when people who live outside major cities harbor negative opinions about both parties, according to a report released by the nonprofit American Families Voices. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 6 out of 10 Americans don’t feel that Biden has done much.

The good news for Democrats is that Biden is not George H.W. Bush. “Scranton Joe” is a politician who has always sought to connect with middle and working class voters. During the Obama presidency, Biden was tasked with making policy recommendations to tackle the challenges facing the middle class. And his administration has pushed a robust domestic agenda that has poured billions into local communities and bolstered family budgets. If Republicans want to really take him on with this issue, the president will have plenty to point to — from the Child Tax Credit to infrastructure projects.

It is not just Biden, either. From the New Deal to the Great Society to President Obama’s domestic agenda, Democrats have spent much of the 20th and 21st century championing federal programs to help achieve economic security. Biden also recently pushed his vision of economic populism in his State of the Union address.

Moreover, while inflation continues to be a serious problem for Americans, job growth is booming and the economy has bounced back from the devastating effects of the pandemic, with the American Rescue Plan having played a big role in that effort.

In other words, Biden has plenty to work with to dispute the kind of claims being leveled by a Republican Party that has focused much more on supply side tax cuts, deregulation, and culture wars than on addressing the kind of crucial issues to emerge through the situation in East Palestine.

But former President Bush, who lost in 1992 after serving just one term, still has a lesson to offer. Biden can’t take his or his party’s record for granted, and if he runs for reelection, he must outline what more his party would be doing to address the kinds of structural challenges so many American communities face.

If Biden is indeed seeking reelection, he must make clear that he would be the candidate fighting hardest to make sure that America’s working and middle class families will be better off than when his presidency started.