good evening, everyone. i'm don lemon. you're in the cnn newsroom. a rising star holding a news conference to tell the world he's gay. but that's only half the surprise. and one fell swoop, paul babeu publicly came out, left his role as state co-chair for the mitt romney campaign and denied claims he threatened to deport a former boyfriend. he has become nationally known for his tough stance on illegal immigration and he's running for congress from arizona's 4th district but they report that he

wanted his ex to sign a confidentiality agreement to keep their relationship a secret. the ex refused and said he was threatened with being deported. these are photos he gave the times and he is saying he was accessing computers without permission. the sheriff denies any wrongdoing. >> i'm here to say that all these allegations that were in one of these newspapers are absolutely completely false. except for the issues that refer to being gay. because that's the treu, i am gay. >> i spoke with monica alonzo, the reporter from "the new times" and asked her how it came to life. >> part of the intimidation came from -- they both agreed they would not contact each other. through their attorneys they would just cease all contact with them.

after jose moved he got a christmas card from paul babeu even though he moved to an apartment, didn't leave any forwarding address so he felt that was babeu's way of letting him know, i know where you're at and there was pressure for him to sign something that he wouldn't disclose any details about the relationship. >> okay. so and paul to your knowledge, paul babeu in the community is not out. >> no, not before the story, no. >> okay. is there -- what is the evidence that babeu was going to threaten to deport him if he made their relationship public? >> the evidence comes from the attorney who received those threats from paul babeu's attorney. as they were discussing this document they wanted jose to sign and she made it clear that her client wasn't interested in doing that, that's when they started raising questions about his visa saying that it had

expired, saying that he was in the country illegally. >> that's where the threats and the accusations of abuse of power are coming from that. >> yes. >> so you're saying he's not out in public. he's saying he is gay and said it in front of cameras. he's not out. there are pictures of him there with allegedly with jose. there is a shirtless picture that's online with him that he's taking in a mirror and also -- >> right. >> -- a profile from the gay website of him and his personal information and shirtless that's allegedly him. why is any of that important? >> well, it's important because it goes to judgment. here is a sheriff of pinal county and when it comes to illegal immigration he's making a run for congress also, so i think the reason they're important is it talks a lot

about the credibility or judgment that somebody has in posting photos like that or e-mailing photos of themselves and those were the more tame ones, the other ones are maybe a little more explicit. >> monica alonzo, the reporter who broke the story. i talked about this with elsie granderson and senior writer at espn and cnn contributor will cain. they just don't see eye to eye on this one in the slightest. >> the thing i find most interesting and don't want to get into whether his story is correct. but he resigned from mitt romney's campaign but still running for congress so i'm trying to figure out why would you resign from mitt's campaign but still have your own. either you are qualified to continue on as a co-chair for mitt romney or you're not. >> wait, hold on. hold on. i think that will lead you to be able to run for congress. >> why isn't the jose part important? he could be making this up. we don't know. if we're going to take jose at his word we have to take mr

mr. babeu at his word, as well. why isn't it important to you that jose's side of the story? >> it's not important to me because right now it's all rumor and conjecture that he said/he said story so it's important we concentrate on what are the real facts. that is he is elected to resign from mitt romney's campaign. i'm curious as to why. does he feel that coming out disqualifies him from being able to serve with the republican candidate because if that's the case, then we have a much larger issue to be talking about besides a lover's quarrel. >> he was out in the first place do you think this would be an issue? >> if he was out in the first place, would mitt romney have him as a co-chair for his state? his state campaign? that's like the real question, right? why is he resign offing? did he feel he had to resign because he couldn't continue on as an openly gay volunteer? if that's the case that says something horrible about mitt romney's campaign. >> okay, will, before i ask you my question do you want to respond to anything lz has said.

>> lz andry friends and the viewers should know that and have had a lot of conversations offline about generalizations and he almost invariably opposes generalizations when it comes to sexuality and race but he made a broad sweeping generalization about the gop and its hypocrisy about this. i think they should be judged as individual circumstances. lz, by your own standard i don't know how you apply a broad generalization and apply hypocrisy. i don't know how you can do it by your own standard. >> i could give you a long list of examples but i don't think we can take up don's show like that. plenty of examples in religious front as well as a political front who happen to be gop candidates who happen to be anti-gay or linked to anti-gay organizations then we find out later that they are somehow either wrestling with sexual

orientation -- >> i don't know what broader conclusion we're trying to witch with that. >> will cain and lz began serson. tomorrow night anderson cooper has an exclusive interview with paul babeu. president barack obama's top security aide is visiting israel gauging our ally's appetite for preemptive attack on iran. national security adviser tom donilon's visit comes as they're hopeful iran will renew talks on their nuclear program. that might not be enough for israel. there's talk that top israeli officials are pushing to are a strike to destroy their capacity to build a nuclear weapon. as cnn's fionnuala sweeney explains whether israel would actually dare to launch such a strike is the million dollar question. >> reporter: according to one israeli newspaper, tom donilon expected to urge the israeli government over the last couple of days to wait and see if the newly recently applied tougher sanctions on iran will work.

by the european union and the united states, of course, israel is saying that the time for sanctions in a sense is over, although ehud barak speaking in tokyo said that only crippling sanctions could now bring tehran to the negotiating table. so it really is as far as israel is concerned really a question of timing. we don't know if any decision has been taken as such formally for otherwise to launch a strike against iran but it is certainly the topic on anyone's minds here. >> that was fionnuala sweeney reporting from jerusalem. they aren't backing down in the north rebels are slowly coming together learning the discipline they'll need to win their country. as our ivan watson learned many feel they don't have any other choice. >> reporter: the commander is a former syrian army general who defected six months ago. like many of his fighters, he covers his face for safety. he calls syria's 11-month-old uprising the orphan revolution

because unlike the revolts in egypt, libya, tunisia and yemen, he says, the syrian rebels haven't received any foreign support. with no outside help the men of this community turn to a higher power. friday prayers in a packed mosque in the rebel-held town of binish. condolences for a man killed by a sniper's bullet in a nearby city turn into a full-throated chant of "god is great." the crowd marches into the town square and performs a weekly ritual of defiance against bashar al assad. there's no, sirrian government presence in this town but assad's tanks are never far away. >> one kilometer away from here. >> reporter: the syrian army. >> yes, the syrian army. >> reporter: will you fight in the syrian army comes here. >> yes, because we were for 10

months peaceful but now there is no other solution. >> reporter: you have to fight? >> yeah, we have to fight. >> that was cnn's ivan watson reporting from northern syria. rick santorum is in the spotlight this weekend lashing out not at just his gop opponents but the man he wants to battle this fall, president barack obama. we'll talk about it straight ahead. yeah, i'm married. does it matter?

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doesn't doubt the president's christian faith but was a curious choice of words. i talked about it with lz granderson and cnn contributor will cain. so, will, rick santorum said he wasn't questioning the president's christianity, so why did he use the word theology? he's been around for awhile. he knows what he's doing. >> it's inappropriate. i don't know why he used it, don, but i do think it's an inappropriate use of verbiage. whether or not it's intended or not, it is going to have those implications for a broad rank of people out there. did he know that? i just can't get inside his mind. i can't be that strategic about it. i don't know but the bottom line is people will hear someone invoking religion in a way that is a non christi-christian reli context to say -- to suggest president obama isn't a christian. that's the bottom line. it will imply that president obama is not a christian. >> i think that's the way most people are reading it.

lz, do you think it was strategic? will says he's not sure if it was. >> well, i tipdz to think that it was strategic. it was just another code word he's using to remind people he's not like us. or he is different from us. >> i got it. i got it. so, lz, santorum said insurance companies shouldn't be required to cover prenatal testing because certain tests lead to abortion. are these calculated moves on his part? >> whenever he says things like this, i wish people in the area would ask themselves or safk santorum what do you base this on? what facts are you using? did you interview a bunch of doctors or patients and this is what they told you? he says a lot of things like this to challenge president obama. he doesn't get challenged himself on the facts and i think that's really disturbing and skews away from the larger conversation about health care. >> will, if you want to weigh in quickly. >> yeah, i just would love to put this comment about prenatal

care in context. he is opposed to amniocentesis. whatever reason he is, he opposed to it. he doesn't want the government to ban prenatal testing. he's not trying to seek that out but what he is opposed government forcing private employees to include it for free in their health plans. i and many conservatives are opposed to the government forcing employers to provide many things in their health care plans, this should be a matter of choice and volunteerism between an employer and empl employee. >> the obama re-election team isn't buying santorum's critique. santorum's comments in the word of robert gibbs don't belong in our politics. three people are dead in washington state after an avalanche roars through a ski area and it could have been much, much worse. the story is straight ahead. do your lashes want volume or length?

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well, three people were killed in an avalanche near seattle, washington. it happened in a remote part of the stevens pass ski area in the cascade mountains. the area received 19 inches of snow in the last 24 hours, king county sheriff officials say that all skiers have now been accounted for. >> typically you're going to have the more experiences skiers, if they choose to ski the area which they do so at their own risk, they're skiing, the avalanche happens, at this point almost all of them

probably up to 12 are buried in the snow. then they manage to dig themselves out of the know. at that point then they look and find that three of these skiers are suffering from medical issues. they begin cpr and unfortunately they were not able to resuscitate the victims. >> well, stevens pass ski patrol dealt with a second avalanche at roughly the same time. no one was injured there. if you live in the western half of the u.s., brace for a double dose of winter. two strong storms may make your morning commute a really big mess. jacqui jeras here with outlook for monday. hey, jacqui. >> don, we have three storms that we're tracking, the first one here into the mid-atlantic is pulling off the coast. we'll only have residual effects for that, mainly the temperatures will stay below freezing so roadways will be icy in the morning especially if they haven't been treated. second storm here pulling out of the rockies will have a big impact on the plains. this will be a huge windmaker then in the west there you can see another storm pushing in there and this is going to keep

that avalanche threat by the way elevated and the upcoming days. here's the week ahead. we're really going to take you through midweek and this is the storm we'll watch closely looking for some snow and this system is moving so fast that i don't think the snowfall totals will be terribly incredible but it's really the wind impact and whiteout conditions from time to time as it heads into the plains where we're mostly looking at rain but you will see the snow and even sleet mixing in in the dakotas and minnesota but should be able to count the number of inches on one hand. tuesday, we'll see impacts in chicago and then heading into detroit and eventually the system pulls off the coast, as well. all right. tomorrow's commute, tonight i know it's a holiday but some of you have to get up and get out there. city number five, portland, oregon, looking at rain for you, city number four, denver, colorado, snow in the morning and windy conditions expected all day. ty number three, amarillo, texas, winds could gust as high as 60 miles per hour with blowing dust and you know the interstate running right through

there, very high traveled area. kansas city, looking for rain and winds around 30 miles per hour and city number one, don't look down, ooh, you just looked. we have a tower cam. no live shot? oh, we had a tower cam of san francisco. >> i can tell you the live shot looks like atlanta where jacqui jeras is in the cnn severe weather center. am i right? >> it was of the bay bridge. >> all right. jacqui. >> we'll get it for you another time. >> thank you very much, jacqui. coming up, we take a look back at our week as we said good-bye to whitney houston from when the terrible news broke to when she was finally laid to rest. that's next. but first the president's big announcement on reforming the corporate tax code comes out in the next few weeks but it does contain a fix the current code. does it? cnn's ali velshi takes a look at this. >> reporter: david k johnston is a columnist and author and won the pulitzer prize for

uncovering loopholes and inequities in the tax code. it's out of the era as well as the hand cranked vi eed victrol players. unfair or not pro-growth, what would you do to change it. >> well, fundamentally i think we need to recognize we have a tax system that is allowing companies to earn profits in america and then siphon those profits out of the country as tax deductible expenses and hold the money offshore untaxed. that's what that 1.4 is o offshore. it's just owned offshore. companies shouldn't be able to take money out of their american pocket that's profit and put it into a liechtensteiner or cayman island system that has no taxes. we need to encourage investment and especially investment in manufacturing and creating

things and there's something we can do outside the tax system that would be far more profitable. lowering the value of the dollar relative to other currencies which would lead to more exporting and less importing and would have a dramatically beneficial effect. >> thanks. i'm ali velshi and that's "mastering your money." announc] what if you had thermal night-vision goggles, like in a special ops mission? you'd spot movement, gather intelligence with minimal collateral damage. but rather than neutralizing enemies in their sleep, you'd be targeting stocks to trade. well, that's what trade architect's heat maps do. they make you a trading assassin. trade architect. td ameritrade's empowering, web-based trading platform. trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up to $600 when you open an account.

it was a little more than a week ago when we got word that whitney houston had died in a beverly hills hotel. she was buried next to her father today at a cemetery in west field, new jersey, bringing an end to a week full of pain,

grief, inspiration and at times even joy. i covered this story from start to finish from this newsroom to los angeles and then new jersey. it's a week that none of us will likely ever forget. >> this is cnn, breaking news. >> you know, every once in a while you have to report something that you thought would be the worst thing that could happen and it was going to happen and now it has. singer whitney houston, one of the greatest voices of our generation, cnn has gotten confirmation from a representative has died. whitney houston has died. grammy winning entertainer, 48 years old. >> she was found in the bathtub and that was put out by beverly hills pd i believe somebody removed her from the bathtub and the paramedics did cpr on her. >> when i spoke to the coroner not long ago he said there weren't that many prescription drugs found. it wasn't really that out of the ordinary. he said, i have more

prescription drugs at my house than were found in that room. so let's take a big step back about all of this. >> and they said they don't know as of yet if it was death by drowning, so they're waiting for the toxicology report, six to eight weeks, piers and that's what we know right now. according to the funeral home handling the body and hamming the arrangements it's going to be a private service at new hope baptist church which is whitney houston's childhood church which is where she grew up singing in the choir. this is the latest information, that new jersey governor chris christie intends to order the state's flags thrown at half-staff during whitney houston's funeral. they're saying she was seen ordering and consuming considerable quantities of alcohol before 10:00 a.m. guests on both days overheard houston loudly complaining that her drinks were being watered down. investigators are confirming that they are aware that whitney houston was partying the night before she died.

the source also confirming that xanax found in her hotel room. there were other prescription medications found this that hotel room. from coast to coast from east to west they've subpoenaed pharmacies and doctors. it's a death investigation. they don't believe there is anything criminal about it now. no one official ever saw her in the bathtub or in the bathroom. >> no one at all? >> no, the person who found her and who tried to -- pulled her out of the tub, the taff member and the person tried to revive her in the beginning saw her. the fire department didn't see her. she was face up on her back in the hotel room. there's vast amounts of information they are dealing with. >> according to our police sources they said that bobby and could not be accommodated. when he couldn't be accommodated, he chose to leave. ♪ i will always love you

>> that whitney left us about this time a week ago but her music will last a long time and she has had an impact beyond -- >> remembering whitney houston. what a week. what a week. coming up, what you can expect in your week ahead from the white house to wall street and hollywood. that's next. also a romney campaign leader in arizona resigns embroiled in controversy. we're going to take the gloves off in our no talking points segment coming up next. you don't want to miss it. for a limited time, passages malibu

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life well planned. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. now to the big stories in the week ahead. our correspondents tell you what you need to know. we begin tonight with the president's plans for the week. >> i'm dan lothian traveling with the president in everett, washington. fast forward to the end of this week on friday, president obama welcomes the prime minister of denmark. he'll talk about a null of issues including the upcoming nato summit in chicago. on thursday, the president will hit the road to miami, florida, for what the white house describes as an official event. then on tuesday and wednesday, the president and the first lady will focus on black history

month including a blues concert at the white house. >> i'm elise labott in washington. hillary clinton holds a global business conference with over 100 organizations and top executives from american companies. they'll be discussing ways to promote u.s. business overseas, attract investment here in the u.s. and create american jobs. later in the week she'll travel to tunisia where she'll meet with over 64 ministers as part of the friends of syria group trying to stop the violence in syria, put pressure on the assad regime and deliver humanitarian aid to the syrian people. >> i'm poppy harlow in new york. markets are closed monday for presidents' day but investor also still keep a close eye on greece as european lead remembers set to vote on a $170 billion bailout package for that debt-ridden country. later in the week housing will be in focus with reports on both new and existing home sales coming out for the month of january and on the earnings front retailers like walmart, target and sears will all report

numbers. we'll see how the market resp d responds and track it. >> i'm a.j. hammer. here's what we're watching. music legend roberta flack will bring her personal account of whitney houston's funeral and showbiz road to gold. hollywood's "a" list goes head to head. catch "showbiz tonight" at 11:00 p.m. on hln. >> thank you, guys. time now for no talking points. gay skeletons in the conservative closet. who knew there was any room left in there? i don't mean that in a snark ki way. here's a few examples of many. first a high-profile denial. >> let me be clear, i am not gay. i never have been gay. >> that was former republican

senator larry craig denying wide stance allegations of slitting an undercover cop in a minneapolis airport men's room. now, a high-profile rationization. >> it's an innocent thing going back and forth. you know, i wasn't out soliciting people on the internet. i mean, this is not that kind of arrangement. >> former republican congressman mark foley admitting he was gay only after he was exposed for improperly flirting with young male congressional pages in person and through racy text messages. he resigned and went to sex rehab. so you've seen the denial and the rationization. time now for the high-profile admission. >> i'm here to say that all these allegations that were in one of these newspapers are absolutely completely false except for the issues that refer to my being gay.

because that's the truth. i am gay. >> so to be fair to arizona sheriff paul babeu, to our knowledge he has never denied being gay or to our knowledge has he ever pushed for anti-gay measures. but he's now a congressional candidate with a tough stance on illegal immigration and only came out after becoming the subject of an abuse of power scan cal revolving and ex-lover who happens to be a former staffer and who happens to be a mexican national named jose who he says he threatened to deport him if he made their relationship public. babeu denies it all. here's a no talking points point, none of this would be necessary or scandalous if the sheriff had acknowledged he was gay in the first place. if he had just come out, there would no need to allegedly coerce jose into signing a nondisclosure agreement to keep a gay relationship quiet. this picture and other more revealing ones might never have become public. just ask former conservative

puerto rico senator robert ar g arango. he said he didn't remember taking these pictures that en d ed up on a gay sex site. he resigned just because. there were others that were pushed out of the closet. why are there so many more examples of gay conservative closet cases? perhaps the gop's own repressive platform is the very thing that forces gay members to live a lie. and wouldn't it be easier and a whole lot less embarrassing to just come out? and that's tonight's no talking points. straight ahead a powerful report about slavery in america and may not have ended when you think it did right after the civil war. a pulitzer prize-winning journalist explains. first, jobless claims reached a four-year low but home foreclosures are still a problem. here's alison kosik with this week's "getting down to business."

>> unemployment claims fell last week as strong signs that the slougish job market may be improving. the number of americans filing for first time unemployment claims dropped to 348,000. economists say this could mark a turning point for job seekers. watch for another initial claims report on thursday. it's a mixed bag for the housing sector. more new homes were built this january, up 1.5% but the number of foreclosures is also on the rise. according to realtytrac, foreclosures jumped 3% since december, still significantly lower than a year ago. look for a report on existing home sales wednesday. hollywood's biggest stars are getting ready for the academy awards but a new survey shows americans don't go to the movies as much as they used to. more than half ofgoers admit to going less often since the start of the recession and six in ten

adults say they rarely or never go. that's this week's "getting down to business." i'm alison kosik. [ horn honks ] hey, it's sandra -- from accounting. peter. i can see that you're busy... but you were gonna help us crunch the numbers for accounts receivable today. i mean i know that this is important. well, both are important. let's be clear. they are but this is important too. [ man ] the receivables. [ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. [ male announcer ] for a better-looking tomorrow. vicks nyquil cold & flu. the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, best sleep you ever got with a cold...medicine. ♪ it's got 10 speeds, my friend.

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journalist douglas blackman says it continued well into the 20th century ending as recently as 50 or 60 years ago. blackman's book is titled "slavery by another name" turned into a feature documentary and shown at the sundance film festival. i had a chance to talk with him in tonight's "what matters" segment. why would you quite honestly a white man from the south take on this particular topic? >> well, i grew up in a place in mississippi that was -- where there were more black people than there were white and went to schools that were overwhelmingly black in public school in the 1970s primarily and for whatever reason from early on in life, i was sort of possessed with trying to understand why were things the way they were, why were all the black people i knew facing such greater difficulty in their lives than i faced in mine and so i began to write about civil rights and questions of race at a very early age and been doing

it for a long, long time. >> your book is an investigation of american corporations using slave labor after slaves were free. what did you learn? >> i learned that after the civil war after a period of time right after the civil war when the emancipated slaves were indeed free for a period of time, they were in tough times but they were authentically free but began this great campaign all across the southern states to essentially reenslave large numbers of african-americans and over the ensuing decades, a whole new system of slavery emerged partly through the criminal justice system but also just through the terrible means of economic exploitation of african-americans in the rural areas of the deep, deep south but it was a return of slavery and real kind of slavery in which they were bought, sold and abused terribly. >> people will say what does that mean today? >> well, what it means is that slavery didn't end 150 years ago and so that any time you're in a

conversation when somebody says to you, why are we still talking about all this stuff and why are we still having conversations and why are black people still complaining about disparity? it's been 100 years since slavery ended. why can't they get over it? it's fundamentally untrue. slavery didn't begin to recede from american life on a big scale until more like 50 or 60 years ago. in many respects there were vestiges that continued right up into the '60s right up to the -- our lifetimes and for sure there are elderly african-americans born on farms in south georgia or south carolina who were born into slavery in their childhoods and for us to deny that is to deny one of the most important aspects of american history in the past 100 years. >> tell us about a couple of descendants named tonya grooms and susan banore. who were they and your influence on them? >> in the case of tonya she is a

descendant of the main character in the book and the main character in the film that -- whose name was green tottenham. he was an african-american man who was arrested on a specious charge in 1908. he was sold into slavery in a coal mine and died there under terrible circumstances. susan is a white woman and she's the great granddaughter of a man named john williams who lived in georgia and who in 1921 after there was a brief investigation into that he was holding large numbers of african-american men as slaves to try to avoid prosecution, he murdered all of the black men who were on his farm and there were at least 11 bodies found. and so these two women who come from -- whose ancestry goes back to the opposite sides of this terrible chapter of american history both came forward and they both have these beautiful

perspectives and wonderful ways of discussing exactly what you've been asking about and that is what does this matter in modern life. >> it's fascinating. the documentary fascinating, the book, thank you, douglas. >> thanks for having me. up next those two women we just spoke about join me in the studio. you'll hear their compelling stories this their own words. [ woman ] my husband, hank, was always fun. never took life too seriously... till our son was born. that day, he bought life insurance. now there's no way i could send our boy to college without it. if there was one thing i could say to hank, it'd be "thank you." you're welcome. hey, hank. [ male announcer ] life insurance you can use while you're still living. you are one lucky lady. mm-hmm. [ male announcer ] learn more from your state farm agent today.

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before the break we told you about slavery by another name.

it looks at african-americans freed after the civil war but later reenslaved. two women share emotional stories about their relatives on opposing sides of the slavery controversy. susan banore, the great granddaughter of a slave owner who murdered 11 to hide evidence. tonya grooms discovered her great grandfather was a free man falsely arrested and made a slave until he died. we begin with tony talking about her great grandfather. >> cunningham represents these people but for the detailed research would have disappeared completely. people were being reenslaved on a large scale, they were working for companies as leased labor but in the case of my ancestor, vague began si which proves i can't prove i have a job. if you couldn't, you could be picked up any time, forced into labor where the they're department or the courts may receive payment for your worth but you never do and oftentimes

it was brutal and unfortunately in the case of green cottonham, he does not survive. >> john williams murdered 11 black workers, he was essentially using them as slaves and their bodies to avoid prosecution. right? >> uh-huh. >> i want to play a powerful moment from you in the film. >> i just got so emotional, i think about not just the fact that these men were murdered but the cruelty which it was carried out. that's what's hardest for me to imagine and hardest to accept. >> so, susan, it's decades later. do you have any guilt about that at all? how do you feel about that. >> i can't say that it's guilt, because it was 90 years ago long before i was born, before even my father was born, still it's just -- it's a horrible thing to know about your family, however,

i've known this about my family for white a while. >> and people shouldn't be guilty because as we said this is american history. >> yes. >> if there's any shame in it it's not to know it and accept and talk about it. >> that's what was so remarkable about this book and this film that i already knew my family's history, but i didn't know how widespread this problem was. i didn't know that it really is a big part of american history. >> yeah, so what do you want people to get out of this, susan? many would say why dredge this up. we know this is so painful. why do this to yourself and us? >> we don't dredge it up or i don't dredge it up because of anything good for my family. it is very painful to read about these things and talk about these things but i think it's important for the country. i think it's important for our education system that they include this information because all of us growing up never knew this, never knew this problem that existed for so many years for thousands and thousands of people. >> ignorance is not bliss,

right? >> no, it is not. we sort of rehabilitate the reputation of the, you know, 20th century african-american because these people worked extremely hard. your chase was to work hard or die and people didn't even know what happened. a lot of times these people would disappear and you wouldn't know what happened to your relatives. that's how they were lost in our own history and during the course of the book our family is mott only -- we discover this ancestor who probably disappeared. first cousin of my great grandfather. you can imagine even though they was one person how horrifying it would be to live under that fact but the beauty of it is that these people and i did talk to a lot of my older ancestors, they weren't broken, they weren't pitiful so instead of me seeing them as victims but as survivors. >> did you ever have a chance to talk to each other before this project at all? did you -- >> no. >> you didn't know each other. >> we met through the project.

>> then what happened? tell me what happened. >> it seems like we met and immediately had a connection. we have a lot of things in common. even though our stories about this particular project come from totally different positions. but we just hit it off and hanging out so -- >> thank you, ladies. i appreciate that. coming up here on cnn, britain and france will be cut off from iran's oil supplies. no sign yet of price s in the u.s. will be affected. fore! no matter what small business you are in, managing expenses seems to... get in the way. not anymore. ink, the small business card from chase introduces jot an on-the-go expense app made exclusively for ink customers.

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here are headlines at this hour. iran says it is cutting off oil sales to britain and france and won't have any problem of

exposing of excess oil. the oil provides for half of their revenue, more than a third goes to china and india. pope benedict xvi celebrated mass with 22 freshmen cardinals among them timothy dolan of new york and the 22 new princes of the chump as they're known to catholics will be eligible to vote for a new pope when benedict dies and also-eligible to become the next pope. i'm don lemon at the cnn world headquarters in atlanta. thank you for watching. we'll leave you with a look back from the memorial services for whitney houston. good night. ♪ she was born in newark ooh she was heaven sent ♪ >> we are here to mourn our

loss, but to celebrate her life. one of our angels, whitney houston. ♪ a long time coming oh but a change had to come ♪ >> so what i know about her is that she loved the lord and if there was a grace that carried her through it was the same grace that carried her home. ♪ but i know she wasn't afraid to die ♪ >> so say whatever you want, god was for her and she is resting singing with the angels. god bless you, family. god bless you, god bless you, whitney. we loved you so much ♪ whitney understood somebody is waiting beyond the sky ♪ ♪ it's been -- >> a lot of leading men could have played my part.

a lot of guys. a lot of guys could have filled that role. but you, whitney, i truly believe you were the only one that could have played rachel marion at that time. she told god she was going to be like aretha, like her famous kusen dionne, like her beautiful mother cissy. no doubt she has joined their ranks and as the debate heats up about the greatest singer of the last century, as the lists are drawn it will have little meaning to me if her name is not on it. >> without knowing of her love of music, her passion and her absolutely natural genius in interpreting songs, you certainly don't know all of whitney houston. personally all i can say is that i loved her very much.

everyone in heaven including god is waiting and i just know you're going to raise the roof like no one else has done before. ♪ and no more whitney, no more do you have to cry ♪ ♪ you'll always be a ribbon in the sky ♪ >> don't grieve for me. for now i'm free. i'm following the path god laid for me. ♪ i look to you >> god wanted me now. he set me free.