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Noted personal-injury attorney Ben Crump has filed more than 90 suits, representing more than 200 people, who say they were harmed at the show. Nearly 200 people have filed 93 lawsuits through civil rights attorney Ben Crump, in the wake of last week’s deadly Astroworld music festival in Houston.
At least 10 people were killed when fans rushed the stage at NRG Stadium on Nov. 5 during the event put on by rapper Travis Scott.
Both Scott and promoter Live Nation are targets of civil actions, Crump and Texas attorney Alex Hilliard said.
“If Travis Scott is accountable, he absolutely should be held accountable,” Crump told reporters in Houston.
“But don’t forget that Live Nation does these every day, all day, (in) every part of the world. So if we want the change to make sure people are going to be safe, we got to be talking to the person who is the parent corporation, the industry leader. That’s the only way you get change.”
A representative for Scott on Friday declined to comment on the lawsuits. The performer said last week he will fully cooperate with the Houston Police Department in the ongoing investigation.
A woman walks past a memorial to those who died at the Astroworld festival outside of NGR Park on Nov. , 2021 in Houston, Texas.Brandon Bell / Getty Images
A Live Nation spokesman said the company is also cooperating with investigators.
“We continue to support and assist local authorities in their ongoing investigation so that both the fans who attended and their families can get the answers they want and deserve, and we will address all legal matters at the appropriate time,” the spokesman said in a statement Friday.
In one lawsuit, Hilliard listed more than 90 plaintiffs and named Drake as a defendant.
The Canadian rapper made a surprise appearance during the concert and later hosted a party for Scott.
The action didn’t spell out how Drake could have been at fault for the mayhem. It only said that plaintiffs’ lawyers are trying to serve him with the lawsuit at his mansion in the Los Angeles County community of Hidden Hills
Reps for Drake could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.
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Many of the plaintiffs in the 90-plus-person lawsuit said they were trampled and suffered emotional trauma, mental anguish, back pain and other physical injuries and accused the plaintiffs of negligence.
While a majority of the plaintiffs are from Texas, the lawsuit showed the far-reaching popularity of Scott’s festival, which drew fans from every corner of America.
Plaintiffs came from Los Angeles, South Florida, New York and cities, big and small.
Several of Crump and Hilliard’s clients spoke to reporters in Houston, describing chaos at the annual music festival.
Dishon Issac called the scene a “war zone” because of the dangerously packed conditions.
“You’re packed in so tight, we were like sardines in a can. The feeling was like, imagine someone coming up behind you and bear hugging you as hard as they possibly can and it’s just bodies,” said Issac, recalling all the people who had fallen around him as they desperately tried retreating.
“There’s people on the ground trying to use me to pull themselves up, and I just remember thinking, ‘If I fall, it’s over.’”
Hilliard said the festival should have never been allowed to happen due to lack of staffing and planning.
“The medical staff was egregiously, egregiously short-staffed,” the attorney said. “They did not have enough personnel. They did not have enough stretchers. They did not have have enough defibulators to resuscitate all the people whose hearts weren’t beating.”
In gun debate, Rittenhouse verdict unlikely to be last word
By SARA BURNETT Associated Press
Kyle Rittenhouse walked the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, a rifle slung around his chest and shoulder.
The weapon was supposed to be for hunting on a friend’s property up north, the friend says. But on that night in August 2020, Rittenhouse says he took the Smith & Wesson AR-style semi-automatic with him as he volunteered to protect property damaged during protests the previous evening. Before midnight, he used it to shoot three people, killing two.
After a roughly two-week trial, a jury will soon deliberate whether Rittenhouse is guilty of charges, including murder, that could send him to prison for life. Was the then-17-year-old forced to act in self-defense while trying to deter crime, as he and his defense attorneys say? Or did Rittenhouse — the only person in a well-armed crowd to shoot anyone — provoke people with his weapon, instigating the bloodshed, as prosecutors argue?
It’s a similar debate to what has played out across the country around the use of guns, particularly at protests like the one in Kenosha over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer or in other cities over pandemic-related restrictions. In Rittenhouse, some see a patriot defending an American city from destruction when police were unwilling or too overwhelmed to do so. Others see an irresponsible kid in over his head, enamored with brandishing a firearm, or someone looking for trouble or people to shoot.
On the streets of Kenosha that night, Rittenhouse was notable to some for his apparent youthfulness. But, for a while anyway, he was just another person with a gun.
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The Kenosha protest was one of many that year to draw armed militias or counterprotesters. Protesters, too, were armed, Kenosha Police Officer Pep Moretti and others testified.
“We were surrounded all night,” Moretti said, adding “there was probably more people armed with weapons than not.”
The shooting occurred as the coronavirus pandemic raged in the U.S. and three months after the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis prompted protests — some violent — in cities big and small. The election between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was heating up, with an increase in homicides and calls to “defund the police” a major focus.
All of those factors, experts say, led to a historic spike in the number of background checks to buy or possess a firearm, a key barometer of gun sales. In 2020, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System database reported almost 39.7 million background checks for gun purchases — more than double the 14.4 million in 2010.
Rittenhouse wasn’t old enough to buy a firearm. But in May 2020 he gave money to his sister’s boyfriend, Dominick Black, with whom he had gone shooting in northern Wisconsin, and Black bought the Smith & Wesson for him. The gun was supposed to remain in a safe at the home of Black’s stepfather, Black testified.
Then on Aug. 23, a white Kenosha police officer responding to a domestic disturbance call shot Blake, who investigators said was armed with a knife. The shooting sparked the protests where people damaged buildings and started fires, at one point burning over 100 vehicles in the lot of a car dealership.
Black said that was when his stepfather got the guns out of his safe in the garage and brought them into the house.
On Aug. 25, Rittenhouse traveled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois. He and Black helped clean up businesses damaged in the unrest, then went back to Black’s house. When they left again for the scene of the protests, they both took their guns.
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Richie McGinniss, the chief video director for The Daily Caller, a conservative news site, arrived in Kenosha after working at other protests around the country. This protest was different because Wisconsin law allows some people to openly carry weapons, and he testified that as he followed Rittenhouse through the night, he sensed something bad could happen.
Ryan Balch said he carried an AR-style rifle that night and wore body armor to protect himself from protesters who were armed. The former Army infantryman said he patrolled streets with Rittenhouse, who told Balch he was 19 and an EMT, and thought he seemed like “a young and impressionable kid and “a little underequipped and underexperienced.”
Gaige Grosskreutz, a protester and volunteer medic, carried a loaded pistol. A supporter of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, he said it was the same as any other day: “It’s keys, phone, wallet, gun.”
Grosskreutz became the third person shot by Rittenhouse that night. He testified that he drew his weapon because he believed Rittenhouse, who had already fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, was an active shooter. He said Rittenhouse shot him in the arm right after Grosskreutz unintentionally pointed his pistol toward the 17-year-old.
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Rittenhouse, who faces a misdemeanor charge of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18 in addition to homicide charges, testified he did nothing wrong and was defending himself when he fired his rifle. Prosecutors say the former police youth cadet who liked to play video shooting games was taking those fantasies to the streets.
For a lot of people, Rittenhouse is the face of gun owners in America, said David Yamane, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University who studies gun culture.
But that is a misconception, he said. In Kenosha, the more typical gun owner was the father who took weapons out of a safe amid unrest, or Grosskreutz, who carried a concealed pistol as a matter of course.
And while Rittenhouse’s core supporters believe he did nothing wrong from start to finish, a much larger group of gun owners “are somewhere in between,” Yamane said. While they support Rittenhouse’s right to defend himself in the moment, they also think he had no business being there, and that “two people died and one person was injured for no good reason.”
Former gun industry executive Ryan Busse, now senior policy adviser to the gun-safety group Giffords, calls Rittenhouse the “avatar” of a customer the NRA and gun companies have been appealing to, including by marketing and selling products with names like the Ultimate Arms Warmonger.
Among much of society, whether Rittenhouse is guilty or not guilty won’t change anyone’s minds about guns, he said.
“What’s dangerous is he’s going to become a mascot or a martyr,” Busse added. “Every time there’s a Rittenhouse, it moves the window of what’s acceptable. I think Rittenhouse has moved the window.”
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Officer Moretti’s last name.
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Find AP’s full coverage on the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse at: https://apnews.com/hub/kyle-rittenhouse
Workers at federal prisons are committing some of the crimes
By MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 100 federal prison workers have been arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes since the start of 2019, including a warden indicted for sexual abuse, an associate warden charged with murder, guards taking cash to smuggle drugs and weapons, and supervisors stealing property such as tires and tractors.
An Associated Press investigation has found that the federal Bureau of Prisons, with an annual budget of nearly $8 billion, is a hotbed of abuse, graft and corruption, and has turned a blind eye to employees accused of misconduct. In some cases, the agency has failed to suspend officers who themselves had been arrested for crimes.
Two-thirds of the criminal cases against Justice Department personnel in recent years have involved federal prison workers, who account for less than one-third of the department’s workforce. Of the 41 arrests this year, 28 were of BOP employees or contractors. The FBI had just five. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives each had two.
The numbers highlight how criminal behavior by employees festers inside a federal prison system meant to punish and rehabilitate people who have committed bad acts. The revelations come as advocates are pushing the Biden administration to get serious about fixing the bureau.
In one case unearthed by the AP, the agency allowed an official at a federal prison in Mississippi, whose job it was to investigate misconduct of other staff members, to remain in his position after he was arrested on charges of stalking and harassing fellow employees. That official was also allowed to continue investigating a staff member who had accused him of a crime.
In a statement to the AP, the Justice Department said it “will not tolerate staff misconduct, particularly criminal misconduct.” The department said it is “committed to holding accountable any employee who abuses a position of trust, which we have demonstrated through federal criminal prosecutions and other means.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland has said his deputy, Lisa Monaco, meets regularly with Bureau of Prisons officials to address issues plaguing the agency.
Federal prison workers in nearly every job function have been charged with crimes. Those employees include a teacher who pleaded guilty in January to fudging an inmate’s high school equivalency and a chaplain who admitted taking at least $12,000 in bribes to smuggle Suboxone, which is used to treat opioid addiction, as well as marijuana, tobacco and cellphones, and leaving the items in a prison chapel cabinet for inmates to retrieve.
At the highest ranks, the warden of a federal women’s prison in Dublin, California, was arrested in September and indicted this month on charges he molested an inmate multiple times, scheduled times where he demanded she undress in front of him and amassed a slew of nude photos of her on his government-issued phone.
Warden Ray Garcia, who was placed on administrative leave after the FBI raided his office in July, allegedly told the woman there was no point in reporting the sexual assault because he was “close friends” with the person who would investigate the allegation and that the inmate wouldn’t be able to “ruin him.” Garcia has pleaded not guilty.
Garcia’s arrest came three months after a recycling technician at FCI Dublin was arrested on charges he coerced two inmates into sexual activity. Several other workers at the facility, where actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin spent time for their involvement in the college admissions bribery scandal, are under investigation.
Monaco said after Garcia’s arrest that she was “taking a very serious look at these issues across the board” and insisted she had confidence in the bureau’s director, Michael Carvajal, months after senior administration officials were weighing whether to oust him.
In August, the associate warden at the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City was charged with killing her husband — a fellow federal prison worker — after police said she shot him in the face in their New Jersey home. She has pleaded not guilty.
One-fifth of the BOP cases tracked by the AP involved crimes of a sexual nature, second only to cases involving smuggled contraband. All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. In the most egregious cases, inmates say they were coerced through fear, intimidation and threats of violence.
A correctional officer and drug treatment specialist at a Lexington, Kentucky, prison medical center were charged in July with threatening to kill inmates or their families if they didn’t go along with sexual abuse. A Victorville, California, inmate said she “she felt frozen and powerless with fear” when a guard threatened to send her to the “hole” unless she performed a sex act on him. He pleaded guilty in 2019.
Theft, fraud and lying on paperwork after inmate deaths have also been issues.
Earlier this month, three employees and eight former inmates at the notorious New York City federal jail where financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself were indicted in what prosecutors said was an extensive bribery and contraband smuggling scheme. The Justice Department closed the jail in October, citing deplorable conditions for inmates. Last year, a gun got into the building.
One of the charged employees, a unit secretary, was also accused of misrepresenting gang member Anthony “Harv” Ellison as a “model inmate” to get him a lesser sentence.
The Bureau of Prisons, which houses more than 150,000 federal inmates and employs about 37,500 people, has lurched from crisis to crisis in the past few years, from the rampant spread of coronavirus inside prisons and a failed response to the pandemic to dozens of escapes, deaths and critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies.
In interviews with the AP, more than a dozen bureau staff members have also raised concerns that the agency’s disciplinary system has led to an outsize focus on alleged misconduct by rank-and-file employees and they say allegations of misconduct made against senior executives and wardens are more easily brushed aside.
“The main concern with the Bureau of Prisons is that wardens at each institution, they decide if there’s going to be any disciplinary investigation or not,” said Susan Canales, vice president of the union at FCI Dublin. “Basically, you’re putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”
At the federal prison in Yazoo City, Mississippi, the official tasked with investigating staff misconduct has been the subject of numerous complaints and multiple arrests. The bureau has not removed him from the position or suspend him — a deviation from standard Justice Department practice.
In one instance, a prison worker reported that the official assaulted him inside a housing unit, according to a police report obtained by the AP. Internal documents detail allegations that the official grabbed the officer’s arm and trapped him inside an inmate’s cell, blocking his path.
The same official was arrested in another instance when a different employee contacted the local sheriff’s office, accusing him of stalking and harassing her. The AP is not identifying the official by name because some of the criminal charges were later dropped.
In both instances, the victims said they reported the incidents to the prison complex warden, Shannon Withers, and to the Justice Department’s inspector general. But they say the Bureau of Prisons failed to take any action, allowing the official to remain in his position despite pending criminal charges and allegations of serious misconduct.
A bureau spokesperson, Kristie Breshears, declined to discuss the case or address why the official was never suspended.
Breshears said the agency is “committed to ensuring the safety and security of all inmates in our population, our staff, and the public” and that allegations of misconduct are “thoroughly investigated for potential administrative discipline or criminal prosecution.”
The bureau said it requires background checks and carefully screens and evaluates prospective employees to ensure they meet its core values. The agency said it requires its employees to “conduct themselves in a manner that fosters respect for the BOP, Department of Justice, and the U.S. Government.”
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Sisak reported from New York.
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On Twitter, follow Michael Balsamo at twitter.com/mikebalsamo1 and Michael Sisak at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips
Prize-winning 1619 Project now coming out in book form
By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer
Thais Perkins is the owner of Reverie Books in Austin, Texas, and the parent of a middle school student and high school student. Among the books she is eager to have in her store, and in the schools, is an expanded edition of “The 1619 Project” that comes out this week.
“My store is a social-justice oriented bookstore, and this book fits very well within that mission,” she says. “I am promoting community sponsorships of the book, where people can purchase a copy and have it donated to one of the schools.”
That is assuming, of course, the school will be allowed to accept it.
The “1619 Project,” which began two years ago as a special issue of The New York Times magazine, has been at the heart of an intensifying debate over racism and the country’s origins and how they should be presented in the classroom.
The project has been welcomed as a vital new voice that places slavery at the center of American history and Black people at the heart of a centuries-long quest for the U.S. to meet the promise — intended or otherwise — that “all men are created equal.” Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones received a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
At the same time, opposition has come from such historians as the Pulitzer Prize winner Gordon Wood, who denounced the project’s initial assertion that protecting slavery was a primary reason for the American Revolution (the language has since been amended) and from Republican officials around the country. Sen. Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, has proposed a bill that would ban federal funding for teaching the project, and the Trump administration issued a “1776 Commission” report it called a rebuttal against “reckless ‘re-education’ attempts that seek to reframe American history around the idea that the United States is not an exceptional country but an evil one.”
In 2021, Republican objections to the 1619 project and to critical race theory have led to widespread legislative action. According to Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America, dozens of bills around the country have been proposed or enacted that call for various restrictions on books seen as immoral or unpatriotic. Two bills passed in Texas specifically mention the 1619 project.
“When you look at the current movement about critical race theory, you can see some of its origins in the fight over the 1619 project,” Friedman says.
The Texas laws, Friedman says, are “opaque” about how or whether a given school such as the ones attended by Perkins’ kids could receive a copy of the 1619 book. He cites a passage which reads “a teacher, administrator, or other employee of a state agency, school district, or open-enrollment charter school may not … require an understanding of the 1619 Project.” The provision “effectively bars a teacher from teaching or assigning any materials from the 1619 Project,” he says, but not the school library from stocking it — especially if the book has been donated.
A spokesperson for the Austin Independent School District says in a statement that the “academics team is currently working on this internally, and we are not yet able to speak to the issue.”
The 1619 book appears destined for political controversy, but it’s also a literary event. Contributors range from such prize-winning authors on poverty and racial justice as Matthew Desmond, Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander, to Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins, to “Waiting to Exhale” novelist Terry McMillan and author Jesmyn Ward, a two-time winner of the National Book Award for fiction. Along with essays on religion, music, politics, medicine and other subjects, the book includes poetry from the Pulitzer winners Tracy K. Smith, Yusef Komunyakaa, Rita Dove and Natasha Trethewey.
“It’s just such an amazing part of this book,” Hannah-Jones says of the poems and prose fiction. “It gives you these beautiful breaks between these essays.”
“The 1619 Project” book already has reached the top 100 on the bestseller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. Online seller Bookshop.org has set up a partnership with the publisher One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House, for independent stores such as Reverie Books to donate copies to local libraries, schools, book banks and other local organizations.
Hannah-Jones’ promotional tour is a mix of bookstores and performing venues, and at least one very personal journey. She will make appearances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Free Library of Philadelphia. She will visit Waterloo West High School in her home state of Iowa, partner with Loyalty Bookstore and Mahogany Books for an event at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington and attend the Chicago Humanities Festival.
She also will speak at the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. Lynsey Burkins, who leads the council’s Build Your Stack initiative, which helps teachers build their classroom libraries, says it was important to reflect a diversity of experiences in the classroom texts. Burkins, a third grade teacher in Ohio, says that it’s easier to engage students with topics like history when they can see themselves in the work they’re reading.
“The more books that we have in our menu, the more that students get to start learning about historical events in a way that is humanizing for them,” Burkins says.
Hannah-Jones says that reaching classrooms was not on her mind when she conceived of “The 1619 project,” but that schools have become important outlets. Through a partnership with the Pulitzer Center, which has teamed with the Times before, the project has been embraced by dozens of schools and educational centers around the country, from high school history faculty in Baltimore to grade school teachers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the advocacy group Texas Trailblazers for Equity in Education.
Hannah has a second book out this week. The Penguin Random House imprint Kokila is publishing the picture story “Born On the Water,” a collaboration among Hannah-Jones, co-writer Renée Watson and illustrator Nikkolas Smith that Hannah-Jones says she was inspired to work on after readers of the Times magazine asked for something addressed to younger readers.
It is a mini-history, with verse and images, that traces centuries of Black lives from their thriving communities in Africa to their forced passage overseas and enslavement to their hard-earned freedom. Those once “brokenhearted, beaten and bruised” became “healers, pastors and activists,” Hannah-Jones and Watson write, “because the people fought/America began to live up to its promise of democracy.”
Jess Lifshitz, who teaches fifth grade literacy in the Chicago suburbs, says that although she was familiar with “The 1619 Project,” she didn’t plan to directly incorporate the work into her classroom because of her students’ age. That changed when she received a preview copy of “Born on the Water.”
“It honors what children are able to wrestle with and grapple with, and I think so many books written for children underestimate what they’re capable of,” Lifshitz says. “With all the tension that is swirling around adults, sometimes it’s hard to remember what a beautiful picture book that tells an accurate story about history can do for the kids sitting in the room.”
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Annie Ma, who covers education and equity for AP’s Race and Ethnicity team, contributed to this report. Follow her on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/anniema15
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This story has been updated to correct a quotation in the second paragraph to read “social-justice oriented” instead of “socially justice oriented,” and to add the word “up” in the quotation “America began to live up to its promise of democracy.”
Prize-winning 1619 Project now coming out in book form
By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer
Thais Perkins is the owner of Reverie Books in Austin, Texas, and the parent of a middle school student and high school student. Among the books she is eager to have in her store, and in the schools, is an expanded edition of “The 1619 Project” that comes out this week.
“My store is a social-justice oriented bookstore, and this book fits very well within that mission,” she says. “I am promoting community sponsorships of the book, where people can purchase a copy and have it donated to one of the schools.”
That is assuming, of course, the school will be allowed to accept it.
The “1619 Project,” which began two years ago as a special issue of The New York Times magazine, has been at the heart of an intensifying debate over racism and the country’s origins and how they should be presented in the classroom.
The project has been welcomed as a vital new voice that places slavery at the center of American history and Black people at the heart of a centuries-long quest for the U.S. to meet the promise — intended or otherwise — that “all men are created equal.” Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones received a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
At the same time, opposition has come from such historians as the Pulitzer Prize winner Gordon Wood, who denounced the project’s initial assertion that protecting slavery was a primary reason for the American Revolution (the language has since been amended) and from Republican officials around the country. Sen. Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, has proposed a bill that would ban federal funding for teaching the project, and the Trump administration issued a “1776 Commission” report it called a rebuttal against “reckless ‘re-education’ attempts that seek to reframe American history around the idea that the United States is not an exceptional country but an evil one.”
In 2021, Republican objections to the 1619 project and to critical race theory have led to widespread legislative action. According to Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education at PEN America, dozens of bills around the country have been proposed or enacted that call for various restrictions on books seen as immoral or unpatriotic. Two bills passed in Texas specifically mention the 1619 project.
“When you look at the current movement about critical race theory, you can see some of its origins in the fight over the 1619 project,” Friedman says.
The Texas laws, Friedman says, are “opaque” about how or whether a given school such as the ones attended by Perkins’ kids could receive a copy of the 1619 book. He cites a passage which reads “a teacher, administrator, or other employee of a state agency, school district, or open-enrollment charter school may not … require an understanding of the 1619 Project.” The provision “effectively bars a teacher from teaching or assigning any materials from the 1619 Project,” he says, but not the school library from stocking it — especially if the book has been donated.
A spokesperson for the Austin Independent School District says in a statement that the “academics team is currently working on this internally, and we are not yet able to speak to the issue.”
The 1619 book appears destined for political controversy, but it’s also a literary event. Contributors range from such prize-winning authors on poverty and racial justice as Matthew Desmond, Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander, to Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins, to “Waiting to Exhale” novelist Terry McMillan and author Jesmyn Ward, a two-time winner of the National Book Award for fiction. Along with essays on religion, music, politics, medicine and other subjects, the book includes poetry from the Pulitzer winners Tracy K. Smith, Yusef Komunyakaa, Rita Dove and Natasha Trethewey.
“It’s just such an amazing part of this book,” Hannah-Jones says of the poems and prose fiction. “It gives you these beautiful breaks between these essays.”
“The 1619 Project” book already has reached the top 100 on the bestseller lists of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. Online seller Bookshop.org has set up a partnership with the publisher One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House, for independent stores such as Reverie Books to donate copies to local libraries, schools, book banks and other local organizations.
Hannah-Jones’ promotional tour is a mix of bookstores and performing venues, and at least one very personal journey. She will make appearances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Free Library of Philadelphia. She will visit Waterloo West High School in her home state of Iowa, partner with Loyalty Bookstore and Mahogany Books for an event at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington and attend the Chicago Humanities Festival.
She also will speak at the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. Lynsey Burkins, who leads the council’s Build Your Stack initiative, which helps teachers build their classroom libraries, says it was important to reflect a diversity of experiences in the classroom texts. Burkins, a third grade teacher in Ohio, says that it’s easier to engage students with topics like history when they can see themselves in the work they’re reading.
“The more books that we have in our menu, the more that students get to start learning about historical events in a way that is humanizing for them,” Burkins says.
Hannah-Jones says that reaching classrooms was not on her mind when she conceived of “The 1619 project,” but that schools have become important outlets. Through a partnership with the Pulitzer Center, which has teamed with the Times before, the project has been embraced by dozens of schools and educational centers around the country, from high school history faculty in Baltimore to grade school teachers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the advocacy group Texas Trailblazers for Equity in Education.
Hannah has a second book out this week. The Penguin Random House imprint Kokila is publishing the picture story “Born On the Water,” a collaboration among Hannah-Jones, co-writer Renée Watson and illustrator Nikkolas Smith that Hannah-Jones says she was inspired to work on after readers of the Times magazine asked for something addressed to younger readers.
It is a mini-history, with verse and images, that traces centuries of Black lives from their thriving communities in Africa to their forced passage overseas and enslavement to their hard-earned freedom. Those once “brokenhearted, beaten and bruised” became “healers, pastors and activists,” Hannah-Jones and Watson write, “because the people fought/America began to live up to its promise of democracy.”
Jess Lifshitz, who teaches fifth grade literacy in the Chicago suburbs, says that although she was familiar with “The 1619 Project,” she didn’t plan to directly incorporate the work into her classroom because of her students’ age. That changed when she received a preview copy of “Born on the Water.”
“It honors what children are able to wrestle with and grapple with, and I think so many books written for children underestimate what they’re capable of,” Lifshitz says. “With all the tension that is swirling around adults, sometimes it’s hard to remember what a beautiful picture book that tells an accurate story about history can do for the kids sitting in the room.”
___
Annie Ma, who covers education and equity for AP’s Race and Ethnicity team, contributed to this report. Follow her on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/anniema15
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Inside DNC chair’s ‘challenging’ bid to avert midterm defeat
By STEVE PEOPLES AP National Political Writer
He’s not particularly close to the White House. He’s never won statewide office or a seat in Congress. And just last year, he lost a high-profile Senate race by double digits.
But if you ask him, Jaime Harrison will tell you he is uniquely prepared to lead a Democratic Party confronting fierce Republican obstruction, intense infighting and the burden of history heading into next year’s midterm elections.
He will tell you of his own childhood of poverty in rural South Carolina, where he ate cereal with water instead of milk before eventually becoming an attorney, a congressional aide, the first Black state party chair, a prodigious fundraiser and now, at 45 and the father of two young children, the chair of the Democratic National Committee.
He will also tell you about the intense pressure he feels to stave off political disaster in 2022.
“Let me tell you, man, it is a big weight. It is a tremendous weight,” Harrison said in an interview from a makeshift television studio in the basement of his South Carolina home. “My experiences are the experiences that we need at this moment to help really thread a needle. This is going to be challenging.”
Harrison is leading a party in peril.
A year after seizing control of Congress and the White House, Democrats are struggling with painful losses across several states in the recent off-year elections that raised serious concerns about a much larger Republican wave in 2022. Suddenly, the Democratic optimism of this spring has been replaced by doubt as party officials ponder whether they have the right message, the right messengers and the right political strategy.
The finger-pointing has already begun.
DNC members, who accepted Harrison as President Joe Biden’s pick for chair in January, have begun to grumble about his limited engagement with the rank-and-file activists and state party officials who do much of the day-to-day heavy lifting in Democratic politics. Others believe the White House isn’t giving him the freedom he needs to do the job well.
Some allies worry that Biden’s team hasn’t let Harrison select the members he wants, hire his preferred staff or drive the party’s messaging.
“Jaime Harrison knows how to do that job. I fear that he may not be allowed to do the job,” said Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., whom Harrison describes as a father figure and mentor.
Clyburn declined to criticize the White House directly but questioned whether Harrison is being “hamstrung by people who never ran for anything.”
The White House declined to comment publicly, while Harrison played down any tension as a simple matter of navigating a new relationship with Biden’s chief political emissary, Jen O’Malley Dillon. Harrison said they meet two times to three times a month, and after getting to know each other better, are building a friendship.
“Are there challenges that we all have to navigate in this process because the DNC is not normally involved in the midterms? Yes, there always will be, and there are now,” Harrison said. “I’m going to continue to push, I’m going to continue to be creative, but Jen and I are working hand in glove in terms of trying to make this work.”
These days, Harrison is doing most of his work from his basement in Columbia, South Carolina, his home of the past five years. The DNC’s Washington headquarters is still largely closed because of pandemic concerns. So, like thousands of Americans working from home, he is balancing his work life with the demands of raising two young sons, scheduling video meetings with the White House and television interviews around nap times, school activities and even the occasional COVID-19 scare.
From his home base 500 miles (800 kilometers) south of Washington, he acknowledges that he is fighting tremendous odds. Political parties that hold the White House have lost congressional seats in virtually every midterm election in the modern era. And Democrats are clinging to the narrowest majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Polling suggests there is cause for concern.
Gallup found in September that 55% of Americans had a negative view of the Democratic Party, the highest disapproval in five years. At the same time, majorities of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track with Democrats in charge.
Democratic concerns deepened earlier this month after losses across Virginia, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The party’s Trump-era advantages eroded in the suburbs, while their struggle in rural areas worsened.
Harrison rejected a popular takeaway from the off-year drubbing that Democrats should no longer focus on former President Donald Trump as a centerpiece of their message to voters. Such a strategy failed in Virginia, among other states.
“The odds are Donald Trump is gonna run for president in 2024. And he’s the odds-on favorite to get the Republican nomination,” Harrison said. “And so I think it’d be foolhardy for us to say, ‘Let’s forget Donald Trump because he’s not here.’ He’s going to have his presence felt all over the 2022 midterms.”
At the same time, Democrats believe that a positive message focused on their legislative accomplishments will also lift their standing — if they can effectively sell their achievements to voters.
Earlier in the year, Democrats enacted a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, which sent $1,400 checks to most Americans and provided billions more in support for people and businesses affected by the pandemic. On Nov. 6, Democrats, with some Republicans, approved the biggest infrastructure package in generations, a $1 trillion measure that will fund years’ worth of major construction projects in every state in the nation. Biden will sign the bill into law on Monday.
Still unsettled is Biden’s larger social spending plan, which features unprecedented government funding to address climate change, childhood poverty and health care.
A week after Democrats approved the infrastructure package, however, the party has yet to unveil a comprehensive plan to promote their accomplishment, which polls suggest is overwhelmingly popular despite pockets of conservative opposition.
In an attempt to get things started, Harrison participated in four cable television interviews this past week. At the same time, some DNC leaders have made television or radio appearances. Elected officials in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan held news conferences to highlight the infrastructure bill.
Harrison said the modest start is intentional.
The party is planning a “slow simmer” strategy to sell the infrastructure package, he said, a shift from the burst of attention surrounding the passage of the Democrat-backed pandemic relief plan earlier in the year.
“What’s the use of really jumping high into this right now, and then dropping off in December, and then by February or March, people are like, ‘What? What happened?’” Harrison said. “The goal is to burn this into the minds of the American people and to have it sustained as we move forward into the 2022 midterms.”
Soon, the DNC will begin rolling out a new wave of TV ads, radio spots and digital ads featuring a combination of Biden and everyday Americans talking about the impact of the infrastructure package on their lives. The party would then focus on highlighting the flood of nationwide groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings expected in the subsequent months.
“This has to be a long-term and sustained thing,” Harrison said. “It just can’t be a flash in the pan.”
Beyond Washington, some Democrats aren’t so sure the DNC should be focused on selling infrastructure at all — at least, not now.
John Verdejo, a North Carolina-based DNC member who describes himself as Harrison’s friend, said he hears gripes from other members concerned that Harrison isn’t engaged enough with local officials on the ground in key states. Others worry that he’s simply repeating White House talking points instead of addressing more pressing issues affecting people’s everyday lives.
“He’s selling it, but people ain’t buying it,” Verdejo said of the Democrats’ achievements. “That’s not his fault because he’s getting his messaging from the White House. Infrastructure is great and all, but that’s way down the road, and I’m paying 17 bucks for a family pack of chicken wings.”
Verdejo continued: “It’s disappointing to see a guy like that with so much potential almost being handcuffed.”
Meanwhile, the memories of 2010 are persistent.
That year, Democrats went into the first midterm election of Barack Obama’s presidency struggling to sell another major policy achievement, the health care law now known as “Obamacare,” to frustrated voters. Democrats ultimately lost 63 seats in the House and six in the Senate.
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who led the DNC from 2009 to 2011, says that much of the responsibility of selling Biden’s accomplishments will fall to Harrison, even if the White House ultimately controls the big decisions on messaging and strategy.
“The leader of the party is the president, and when he goes out, he has the loudest microphone of anybody,” Kaine said. “But the DNC chair does many, many more political events and many, many more calls to rally the troops.”
“The fact that he’s a young guy, African American, he’s from a state that’s not the bluest state, this gives him the ability to connect with a lot of folks,” Kaine added. “He’s very effective at it.”
Harrison has another advantage that Kaine did not in 2010.
Democrats struggled to sell the health care overhaul to midterm voters in part because Obama personally didn’t like having to sell the party’s accomplishments, Kaine said. The Biden White House, Kaine suggested, seems more committed to ensuring that voters give Democrats credit for major achievements on the pandemic and infrastructure — and Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, if approved.
But well-publicized Democratic infighting on Capitol Hill between competing factions has clouded the party’s message. And Harrison is worried.
He said it’s critical for Democrats from the party’s moderate and progressive wings to come together on Capitol Hill to enact Biden’s agenda.
“All of this infighting, it has to stop. It has to stop,” he said. “We have to be on the same page. We have to pass these bills. Get them done and then get out on the ground and sell the hell out of them.”
Harrison acknowledges he does not have enough clout on his own to persuade his party’s warring factions to come together. So for now, he’s focusing on the things he can control. A big piece of that is fundraising.
Harrison was Biden’s pick for DNC chair, in part because of the extraordinary fundraising success he had in his underdog campaign against South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham last year. Harrison’s campaign raised an eye-popping $109 million, although he lost the election by 10 percentage points.
By any measure, he has carried that fundraising acumen to the DNC.
So far in 2021 alone, the DNC and its allied Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund has raised more than $127.6 million, the most ever for a nonpresidential year. The committees currently boast $74.5 million in the bank.
The DNC has also announced plans to invest $23 million in state parties ahead of the 2022 midterms, including a new “red state fund” to put Republicans on the defensive in traditionally Republican-leaning states.
The commitment to state parties has drawn praise from people like Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic Party chair, who praised Harrison’s personal relationships with the committee’s large delegation of rank-and-file members and state party leaders. He noted that Harrison served as the South Carolina Democratic chair and then as a senior DNC aide before become the national chair, which allowed him to develop connections to members across the country.
“He has the backing of the membership and the trust of the membership,” Buckley said. “But we certainly are aware that when you have the White House, there are different challenges. You’re not a free agent.”
Meanwhile, Harrison has not lost sight of the big picture: History suggests that Democrats will soon lose their House and Senate majorities. But he insists there is hope for his party.
“We can buck history. We can make our own history,” he said. “The question is whether we can get all together in order to do so. That is the real question.”
Wisconsin braces for Kyle Rittenhouse trial outcome with 500 National Guard members
Closing arguments are set for Monday in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of killing two people and wounding a third during a protest over police brutality in Kenosha last year.
That’s when the jury could begin their deliberations. The city of Kenosha has already started bracing for the outcome.
While Kenosha has not seen any protests or demonstrations as the trial has gone on, the state isn’t taking any chances. Gov. Tony Evers sent in about 500 members of the Wisconsin National Guard for active duty to help local law enforcement.
The defense rested its case Thursday afternoon and after a long weekend, the court is set to resume Monday for closing arguments.
The jury will then begin deliberating after listening to two weeks of passionate and emotional testimony.
Rittenhouse, now 18, is charged with intentionally killing Anthony Huber, but prosecutors want jurors to also consider charges similar to manslaughter, and something as low as reckless endangerment.
He testified that he acted in self-defense.
Kenosha residents shared their thoughts as closing arguments approach.
“I just hope we can all come together,” Tyrone Brooks said.
Kaitlyn Knodel raised concerns about her divided community.
RELATED: Kyle Rittenhouse trial: Jury likely to weigh some lesser charges in case; closing arguments Monday
“I just feel like it’s been real tense in the city. A real draw between the two. One side wants him locked up, the other side that doesn’t want him,” Kaitlyn Knodel said.
After closing arguments tomorrow, names will be drawn to decide which 12 jurors will deliberate and which ones will be dismissed as alternates. Eighteen people have been hearing the case. The panel appears to be overwhelmingly white, like Rittenhouse and those he shot.
The protests were set off by the wounding of Jacob Blake by a white police officer in August 2020.
Rittenhouse went to the protest with a rifle and a medical kit in what the former police and fire youth cadet said was an effort to protect property after rioters set fires and ransacked businesses on previous nights.
The case has stirred fierce debate over vigilantism, self-defense, the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the unrest that erupted throughout the U.S. over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other police violence against Black people.
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