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Senate Apologizes For Not Enacting Anti-Lynching Legislation,
A Look at Journalist and Anti-Lynching Crusader Ida B. Wells
Strange Fruit: Anthem of the Anti-Lynching Movement
Mississippi Trial Begins in 1964 Civil Rights Killings
Senate Apologizes For Not Enacting Anti-Lynching
Legislation, A Look at Journalist and Anti-Lynching Crusader
Ida B. Wells
The Senate passes a resolution to apologize for its failure
to enact anti-lynching legislation. We hear excerpts of Louisiana
Senator Mary Landrieu speaking on the Senate floor and we
talk about the history of lynching, focusing on pioneering
journalist and anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells. We speak
with her grandson, sociologist Troy Duster as well as historian
Nell Irvin Painter.
On Monday, the U.S senate passed a non-binding resolution
to apologize for its failure to enact anti-lynching legislation.
The resolution states that the Senate "expresses the
deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets of the Senate to
the descendants of victims of lynching, the ancestors of whom
were deprived of life, human dignity and the constitutional
protections accorded all citizens of the United States."
More than 200 anti -lynching bills were introduced in congress
in the first part of the century and the House of Representatives
passed anti-lynching bills three times. However, the legislation
was repeatedly blocked by Senators from the South and almost
5,000 people -- mostly African-Americans -- were lynched between
1882 and 1968.
This time, the resolution was introduced by two senators
from the South - Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu who is from
Louisiana and Republican Senator, George Allen, from Virginia.
Landrieu called lynching "an American form of terrorism."
She also referenced the song anti-lynching song "Strange
Fruit" as well as pioneering journalist Ida B. Wells,
who was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, suffragist and
women's rights advocate.
- Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), speaking on the Senate floor,
June 13, 2005.
We speak with the grandson of Ida B. Wells, Troy Duster.
He is a professor of Sociology at NYU and Berkeley and president
of the American Sociological Association. He is author of
several books, his most recent is titled "Whitewashing
Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society." We are also
joined on the phone from Princeton by Nell Irvin Painter.
She is a leading historian of the United States. From 1997
to 2000, she was Director of Princeton's Program in African-American
Studies.
- Troy Duster, grandson of Ida B. Wells Barnett, the famed
journalist and anti-lynching campaigner. Also professor
of Sociology at NYU and Berkeley and president of the American
Sociological Association. He is author most recently of
"Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society."
- Nell Irvin Painter, Professor of American History at
Princeton University. She is author most recently of "Creating
Black Americans," coming out this fall from Oxford
University Press.
Strange Fruit: Anthem of the Anti-Lynching Movement
We look at the famous anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit,"
most famously sung by Billie Holiday. The song was written
in the 1930s not by Holiday - but by a lyricist writing under
the pseudonym Lewis Allan. The songwriter was actually Abel
Meeropol, a school teacher and union activist living in the
Bronx. He wrote the lyrics after being disturbed by a photograph
of a lynching.
Years later Meeropol - along wife Anne - adopted the orphaned
children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were executed in
1953.
- Strange Fruit, documentary that explores the history
and legacy of the song.
Mississippi Trial Begins in 1964 Civil Rights Killings
The trial of former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen
has begun in Philadelphia, Mississippi. He is charged with
the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers. We speak with
the brother and mother of two of the victims, Ben Chaney and
Carolyn Goodman. And we speak with the journalist who has
been investigating the murders for the past 16 years.
Jury selection began yesterday in the 41-year-old case of
three civil rights workers, murdered in 1964 by members of
the Ku Klux Klan in Philadelphia, Mississippi. African American
James Chaney, and whites Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner
were part of the voter registration campaigns of Mississippi
Freedom Summer.
They were driving to Neshoba County to inspect a church that
had been burned by the KKK when deputy sheriff Cecil Price,
a Klansman, stopped them for speeding and held them in jail
until a mob could gather. The local Klan leader, Edgar Ray
Killen, is now on trial for masterminding the murders and
choosing the burial site. In 1967, the federal government
tried 18 men for conspiring to violate the victims' civil
rights. Seven were convicted, but none served more than six
years in prison. And Killen himself was released when his
all-white jury deadlocked. We go down to Mississippi in a
moment, but first, we hear from Carolyn Goodman, mother of
Andrew Goodman. She spoke to us yesterday before leaving to
attend the trial.
- Carolyn Goodman, mother of slain civil rights worker
Andrew Goodman.
We go to Mississippi to speak with Ben Chaney, brother of
James Earl Chaney. He is currently attending the retrial of
Edgar Ray Killin. We also speak with Jerry Mitchell, who is
an investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger. He has been
investigating the murders of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney
for 16 years. It is largely because of his reporting that
the investigation was re-opened.
- Ben Chaney, head of the
James Earl Chaney Foundation named after his brother
who was murdered during the 1964 Freedom Rides along with
fellow civil rights activists.
- Jerry Mitchell, investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger.
He has been investigating the murders of Michael Schwerner,
Andrew Goodman and James Chaney for 16 years. It is largely
because of his reporting that the investigation was re-opened.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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