More than 4,400 enslaved black men, women and children were lynched by white mobs between 1877 and 1950. America’s first memorial and museum dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people opens in Montgomery, Alabama. (The Guardian)
By PatD, a Trail Mix Contributor
More Posts by PatD
Is it just me or does anyone else see irony when a defendant in a hush money cas pleads the fifth so he doesn’t have to talk?
Montgomery acknowledges our shameful past. About time.
Strange fruit.
Thank You patd for this post.
Hoping the memorial will make more of an impact in Montgomery than it would in Washington. “It happened here & you are there” as opposed to just another building on the tour map.
Pogo,
Not only Montgomery. Hate & racism exist everywhere forever. Whether enough people get that is a losing proposition. Blinkers & blinders, most handy accessories.
here’s the link to the lengthy article in today’s
the guardian: The sadism of white men: why America must atone for its lynchings
The new National Memorial for Peace and Justice – along with the related Legacy Museum – aims to shine a light on America’s history of enforcing white supremacy through racial terrorism in the form of lynching
[…continues…]
pogo, so what do you make of this?
wapo:
…in an interview with Fox News on Thursday morning, Trump appeared to reveal that he had knowledge of Cohen’s payment to Daniels.
“Michael represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me,” Trump said. “And from what I’ve seen, he did absolutely nothing wrong. There were no campaign funds going into this.”
Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, weighed in a few minutes later on MSNBC and said that Trump had made a “hugely damaging admission.”
business insider:
In long rant on ‘Fox & Friends,’ Trump admits he stayed overnight in Moscow — alluding to the most salacious allegation in the Steele dossier
the twit tells his faux news friends this morning top people at fbi are corrupt and
sen flake on mojo msnbc says “Trump out of bounds with attack on FBI”
Trump just had a wild ‘Fox and Friends’ interview reminiscent of the early days of the 2016 campaign
In a scene reminiscent of the 2016 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump on Thursday morning conducting a wild interview with the “Fox and Friends” morning show.
The topics: everything from the 2016 election to the Russia investigation to Kanye West.
The interview, conducted over the phone, was similar to when the then-candidate would call into morning shows to riff on the news of the day. Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights from the interview:
Trump cryptically threatened the Justice Department and FBI over its investigation into possible ties between his campaign and the Russian government. “Our Justice Department — which I try and stay away from but at some point I won’t — our Justice Department should be looking at that kind of stuff, not the nonsense of collusion with Russia,” Trump said.
Trump acknowledged that his lawyer Michael Cohen represented him in dealings with porn star Stormy Daniels. “He represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me and, you know, from what I see, he did absolutely nothing wrong,” Trump said. “There were no campaign funds that went into this, which would have been a problem.”
Trump defended Dr. Ronny Jackson, the White House doctor who withdrew as the nominee for Veterans Affairs secretary on Thursday after allegations of workplace misconduct. “He would have done a great job, he has a tremendous heart,” Trump said. “These are all false accusations, they’re trying to destroy a man.”
Trump suggested he could walk away from talks with North Korea at any time. “It could be that I walk out quickly, with respect, but it could be,” Trump said. “It could be that the meeting doesn’t even take place, who knows?”
Trump attacked former FBI Director James Comey, calling him “leaking, lying Comey” for claims made in Comey’s new book and memos Comey wrote after meeting with Trump in prior to being fired. “Comey, what he did Brian, was terrible,” Trump said.
Trump said he no longer watches CNN, but did watch CNN’s town hall with Comey on Wednesday.
Trump said rapper Kanye West’s recent support stems from record low black unemployment rates. “He sees that stuff and he’s smart, so he says, ‘You know, Trump is doing a much better job than the Democrats did,'” Trump said.
“strange fruit”
sjwny, thanks for reminding me about what was called “the song of the century”…here’s its story
The Salt Project and WFYI collaborated on a retrospective of the 75th anniversary of the classic Billie Holiday song “Strange Fruit.” The video traces the dark inspiration for the song, and the redemptive power of art. The moving SALT video is followed by a powerful performance of the song by Marietta Simpson and Tyron Cooper.
Good Job Pat
if you haven’t time to hear the story and the commentary and the poetry about it, the song “strange fruit” is played and sung on the above video starting at 11:20 minutes in.
more from avenatti reported by newsweek: Michael Avenatti: Trump Made ‘Hugely Damaging Admission’ That Michael Cohen Represented Him In Stormy Daniels Case
[…]
Avenatti made the statement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe after the show played a clip from Trump’s call in which he said Cohen—who is under a federal investigation for deals including a payout to Daniels to cover up an alleged affair with Trump—represented him in “a tiny, tiny, little fraction” of his overall legal work.
“Michael would represent me, and represent me on some things. He represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me,” Trump said. “And you know from what I see, he did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Avenatti called Trump’s admission “another gift from the heavens in this case.”
“They keep coming, I don’t know, I don’t know how I’ve fallen into such good luck in this case but I’m going to take it,” he continued. “Hugely damaging admission by the president because according to what he said on Air Force One a few weeks ago, he didn’t know anything about the agreement, he didn’t know anything about the payment, Michael Cohen went off did this on lark and Mr. Trump knew nothing about it.”
Daniels’s lawyer concluded, “We now find out that that’s bogus.”
Avenatti after his television appearances reiterated the significance of Trump’s admission on Twitter.
Thank you @foxandfriends for having Mr. Trump on this morning to discuss Michael Cohen and our case. Very informative.
“Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen previously represented to the American people that Mr. Cohen acted on his own and Mr. Trump knew nothing about the agreement with my client, the $130k payment, etc.,” Avenatti tweeted. “As I predicted, that has now been shown to be completely false. #basta.”
like how the museum goes beyond slavery to memorialize the brutality that continued long after slavery. Good catch Pat, compelling video.
like how the museum goes beyond slavery to memorialize the brutality that continued long after slavery.
still going
SJ, you don’t have to tell me that racism and bigotry are everywhere.
patd… great job!
I just don’t get how these people aren’t seen as humans…. but as animals.
and thinking about Macron’s recent visit and speech to Congress…
COMMENTS Scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson made headlines once again after he took to Twitter recently to say, The perennial cry to ‘Save Earth’ is odd. Planet Earth survives massive asteroid strikes — it’ll survive anything we throw at it. But Life on Earth will not.
The internal numbers on this latest Quinnipiac Poll are fascinating. The only thing keeping Trump afloat at present are White Males over 50. Just about everyone else have his disapproval numbers way down. Even the White Women are fleeing.
https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2538
Unfortunately human beings are speeding up the destruction of a whole lot of other species before getting around to killing off ourselves. I’m betting on (hoping for) a Mother Nature Gets Even Virus.
I was a young teen when my mother called from the living room with “Come, sit down, and listen”. That was the first time I heard “Strange Fruit”. When it finished, she said, “You can go think now.” Thinking can become a habit.
Macron calls Trumpsky’s all-over-the-place policies “insane.” So much for the handholding.
Senate Judiciary Panel sends a message to Trumpsky: Keep your hands offa Mueller.
Trumpsky spills a little more about Cohen & Stormy. High fives all around.
The version above with the quiet guitar is beautiful, but the Billie Holiday version does tear at your heart.
It’s horrible, the things thinking humans do to humans and other living beings. Maybe feeling a little more would be helpful.
Life on Earth will go on, but it may not look like humans.
How did the Toronto PD take down the woman-hating asshat who drove a van on the sidewalk & then pretended to pull a gun & told the cop to shoot him?
Can you imagine that outcome here? Is it because Canadians don’t tend to carry handguns & the cop knew he was bluffing?
Labeling humans based on the bodies they were born into, or seeing them as body parts, seems to be the problem. But how do you get everyone to treat everyone else as either being from the larger group (humans) or as individuals based on their talents, challenges and choices? Maybe in a few more generations, but I think it’s human nature not to take the time to do that. It requires too much effort.
I am glad that I had the opportunity to explore downtown Montgomery in 1979 while I was attending the USAF Senior NCO Academy on the edge of town. My explorations took me to a mid-sized house not far from the Capitol Building. The dwelling was open to the public because it was Jefferson Davis’ official residence.
I entered, signing the guest book with my British address. Upon seeing that, the docent cooed saying that she and other Alabamans would be forever grateful for the support Britain gave to their cause. I nodded my acknowledgement.
The tour itself was unremarkable except for the hushed tones in which the visitors spoke to each other. I didn’t stay long.
The NCOs from my floor in our building socialized together. Most of us didn’t go to the club, we just wanted to get away from the Base. The destination of choice turned out being the snack-bar in the small Montgomery airport. A very pleasant place where our mixed race group felt quite comfortable.
I look forward to visiting the new museum understanding that it will be a wrenching experience.
If I ever get down Montgomery way again I’ll have to visit the museum. I suspect that it has opened to mixed reviews – it’s in Montgomery after all.
Pogo, I was an enthusiastic supporter for the building of the Holocaust museum now in the St Petersburg area. The creativity of man in wielding inhumanity upon men and women and children, born and unborn, is stunning. I hope Hell can hold all the miserable cretins.
“I just don’t get how these people aren’t seen as humans…. but as animals.”
renee, even being seen as an animal, a sentient being should be treated with compassion. we are all animals related to one another in one form or the other, cruelty to one is cruelty to the whole. beware the animal abuser, a sick and twisted soul.
trump : “No collusion !”
ronny : “No collision !”
a troubling excerpt from another article on the lynchings in today’s guardian:
Among the most unsettling realities of lynching is the degree to which white Americans embraced it, not as an uncomfortable necessity or a way of maintaining order, but as a joyous moment of wholesome celebration.
“Whole families came together, mothers and fathers, bringing even their youngest children. It was the show of the countryside – a very popular show,” read a 1930 editorial in the Raleigh News and Observer. “Men joked loudly at the sight of the bleeding body … girls giggled as the flies fed on the blood that dripped from the Negro’s nose.”
Adding to the macabre nature of the scene, lynching victims were typically dismembered into pieces of human trophy for mob members.
In his autobiography, WEB Du Bois writes of the 1899 lynching of Sam Hose in Georgia. He reports that the knuckles of the victim were on display at a local store on Mitchell Street in Atlanta and that a piece of the man’s heart and liver was presented to the state’s governor.
In the 1931 Maryville, Missouri, lynching of Raymond Gunn, the crowd estimated at 2,000 to 4,000 was at least a quarter women, and included hundreds of children. One woman “held her little girl up so she could get a better view of the naked Negro blazing on the roof”, wrote Arthur Raper in The Tragedy of Lynching.
After the fire was out, hundreds poked about in his ashes for souvenirs. “The charred remains of the victim were divided piece by piece,” wrote Raper.
it is inconceivable that children were made to witness such cruelty…. even if the lynched had been cattle or chickens meant to feed the family, no one and especially a child should be taught that torture is acceptable.
I shall always remember the sense of horror I felt the morning I heard that Billie Holiday had been murdered for the color of her skin. Call it a passive lynching.
wapo as of 10:12 a.m. today:
Tracking how many key positions Trump has filled so far
Of 656 key positions requiring Senate confirmation …
208
No nominee
5
Awaiting nomination
143
Formally nominated
300
Confirmed
The Post and Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, are tracking roughly 600 key executive branch nominations through the confirmation process. These positions include Cabinet secretaries, deputy and assistant secretaries, chief financial officers, general counsel, heads of agencies, ambassadors and other critical leadership positions. These are a portion of the roughly 1,200 positions that require Senate confirmation.
The Senate can only act on nominations that have been formally submitted by the Trump administration. Those marked “awaiting nomination” above have been announced but not yet submitted, while those marked “formally nominated” are awaiting action by the Senate.
[…continues with comparison chart and long list of positions filled, failed and still to be filled…]
excerpt from wapo
What’s interesting about the conversation between Trump and Fox News, though, is that Fox News released a poll Wednesday showing that most Americans side with Mueller — but that data was never presented to Trump to challenge his argument.
For example, Fox News pollsters asked if Americans thought Mueller and his team were treating Trump fairly. A fifth of Americans said they were extremely confident that he was; 64 percent said they were at least somewhat confident that Trump was being treated fairly.
Unsurprisingly, there was a sharp partisan split, with a third of Democrats expressing extreme confidence in Mueller’s impartiality and 45 percent of Republicans having no confidence in it.
What’s more, Trump’s frequent assertions that the investigation is unnecessary isn’t a view most Americans share. Two-thirds of Americans said it was at least somewhat important that the investigations continue. More than half of Democrats said it was extremely important, while more than half of Republicans said it wasn’t important at all.
[….]
The most remarkable finding from Fox News’s poll is that more than half of Americans said it was at least somewhat likely that Mueller would turn up evidence of criminal or impeachable offenses. Most Republicans said it wasn’t at all likely — but even 22 percent of that group said it was at least somewhat likely.
[….continues….]
patd… I didn’t think I needed to explain that comment… I took that everyone here was intelligent enough to know what I meant… oh well…
Pruitt gotta go!
Flatus – I was there in 1974, having my knee rebuilt – I was supposed to be on my way to Ton Son Nhut a few months earlier but wrecked my knee. Around for a few days and then back to my base and rehab to send me away. When I left the hospital and did rehab, I was still frozen for a combat zone.
Been thru Montgomery a few hundrillion times, never had any reason to stop. Doubt there will ever be any occasion to go thru there again.
I am really glad Bill Cosby was convicted but I do not want to see him go to jail
renee, i’m sorry that you thought I wasn’t agreeing with your well expressed sentiment. you were right about what you said. I was mostly muttering to myself, mounting my usual soapbox on animal rights and saying way too much off subject….preaching to the choir and looking stupid for doing it. please forgive me. I shall crawl in my hole and shut up for awhile to everyone’s relief.
patd… I didn’t get how a one line comment I made about slavery turned into abuse of animals… but yeah… so what. If you crawl into a cave I’m gonna come and drag your butt out (insert smiley face that for some reason won’t post). Chill…. Peace.
Keep posting your stuff… it makes this place worth coming to.