k. so you can spend less time doing paperwork. and more time doing paperwork. ink from chase. so you can. this morning, my question. is it time to repeal stand your ground laws? plus, a letter to the woman who has inspired me all week. and the surprise comment from the president that has serious implications for voting. but first, the sentence that said it all. trayvon martin could have been me. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. yesterday, president obama shocked everyone when he appeared unannounced in the

white house briefing room to speak about trayvon martin and his own experiences as a black man in america. >> you know, when trayvon martin was first shot, i said that this could have been my son. another way of saying that is trayvon martin could have been me, 35 years ago. >> powerful words from the most powerful man in america. the president went on to say how, despite the office he holds today, he has been seen by strangers as a potential thief, a violence criminal. >> there are very few african-american men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. that includes me. there are probably very few african-american men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of

cars. that happens to me, at least before i was a senator. there are very few african-americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously, holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. that happens often. >> the president did not announce a major new legislative agenda yesterday. he did not launch a new presidential commission. but what he did was groundbreaking. and let me offer why. democracy is an entirely unique way of governing. it relies not on the raw power of the state to enforce and maintain order, but on the consent of the government. democracy begins with the assumption that the reason governments exist, the only legitimate basis on which they can exist, is for the good of the people. the promise of democracy is that the people, all of us, will be seen and recognized as unique individuals, not as stigma or

stereotypes, but as people. recognition is a promise unfulfilled for african-americans. and that is what the president argued in such clear and personal terms yesterday. to be a black man is to be misrecognized as a criminal, as a threat, as a danger. when perhaps you're just a worker, a father, a kid on the way home with a bag of candy. more than a hundred years ago, w.e.b. dubois called misrecognition a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, by measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. so on friday, when the world's first black president stood at the podium of the white house briefing room and spoke as both president of the united states and as a black man, at the same time, he knit together that double consciousness. he did something that no other president has ever done so

fully. he saw us and he demanded that the rest of the country recognize the black specious as valid, as real, and as worthy of recognition and discussion. >> when you think about why, in the african-american community, at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, i think it's important to recognize that the african-american community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away. >> these experiences are real, he said. this happens, and it hurts. and here's the breathtaking part. it matters that black people hurt. when we fail to see, we corrode the very basis of democracy. ton friday, president obama told

america, trayvon martin could have been me 35 years ago, but what went unsaid is this. perhaps in 35 years, trayvon martin could have been president obama. but we will never know, because trayvon was misrecognized, assumed to be a criminal, when he was just a kid trying to get home. joining me now, ohio state senator, nina turner, val nichols, who this week wrote a column for msnbc.com on his own experiences as an african-american man. tim wise, an educator and author of dear white america, and khalil mohamed of the shamberg center for research in black culture. i actually want to start with you. because when i heard the president say, trayvon martin could have been me, i thought, of course, immediately, of your piece that you wrote this week, saying, i could have been trayvon martin. >> yeah, he's always stealing my stuff. yeah, the interesting thing

about that, the trial, was those incidents where i faced police guns as a teenager were buried. i had forgotten all about them, for years and years, for decades. and as this trial came up, it was like, oh, you know what, i remember that. i remember twice looking down barrels of police guns only because, you know, somebody thought i was suspicious. and it was a life-defining experience, because what i realized at that point was that the color of my skin was not only going to invite racism and other things, but it could actually get me killed or jailed. and that was an interesting realization at 17, 18 years old. >> this point, khalil, was the thread that president obama was trying to weave into this story, to talk about the daily slights, the not getting a cab, the sense of lack of belonging, can sometimes be seen as just racial

grievance. well, like, you know, everybody's got problems, get over yourself. but when you connect it to the life-and-death consequences, when you connect it to trayvon martin, suddenly it becomes something bigger. >> well, i think, not only is that the key thread here, but i think this reference to these microaggressions also work in two ways. they work from the standpoint of ill l eliciting this kind of backlash, oh, stop whining. but they also function a way that's kind of like, well, black people get what they deserve, because they put themselves in a position to live poor lives, to perform less well in school, to live in dangerous neighborhoods. and ultimately, it essentially says, we have no responsibility for even the slights, because the slights are reasonable. >> yep. >> one of the things that's most telling about this moment, and we keep hearing so much about post racialism isn't the era of the obama age, that we're not in a post-race age, that a hundred years ago when dubois was

writing that, one of the things that he was writing against in that zeitgeist, in that particular moment was the steen that whites had said, we've done everything we can do. >> right, we're talking about turn of the 20th century! >> passed civil rights amendments, we have solved the problem of race in america. now the states are back to doing what they're -- >> we're 50 years past slavery, what are y'all whining about?! >> exactly. so dubois is actually bringing to bear a response to an earlier post-racial zeitgeist, that is trying to unravel the complexities of being black in america. >> look, this point for me is so critical. because it is a reminder that this isn't just post-jim crow, post-civil rights movement. that this is always the response back. i'm going to ask you, because part of what i found fascinating about this response, was the ways in which it was quite different from 2008. i want to listen to a moment in the 2008 race speech in philadelphia, where the president talks about racial profiling, but he talks about it in the context of his white grandmother. let's listen for a moment.

>> i can no more disown him than i can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street. >> so it feels to me, in a way, part of what he was trying to do in that scripted, sort of save the campaign speech, was to talk about the black experience, but also the white one. and this time, it was all, let me explain to you how this feels. >> and i think the difference is, there's a tragedy that precipitated the need for this answer, so it's got to be more heartfelt. it's not a political damage control speech, which the philadelphia speech, for all of its supposed grandeur, was. i think what we as white folks have got to deal with in this, it can't be for president obama to call out these realities alone. we have got to begin to be honest, finally. because not only is white america in denial, i think, by and large, with the exceptions

dually noted about racism in 2013. as we just said, they were in denial in dubois' day in the early '60s, even before civil rights laws were passed, 80, 90% of white americans said there was no problem, black folks are treated equally, what are you complaining about. if we are unable to see black reality for what it is, then we're not going to be able to move forward. it's one thing to disagree about a verdict. it's quite another to look at black people and say, you know that thing that you think is happening? it's not. you're crazy! you're hallucinating. that's fundamentally arrogant. and to the extent it has a racial element to it, it's fundamentally racist. >> to me, that's so useful. an acknowledgement of the black experience does not mean agreement on the verdict. it means an agreement about the ability to speak to your own experience. nina, i just have to ask you before we go to this break, the president talked about things that had happened to him in the past. he said, before i was a senator, i experienced these microaggressions. but, also, this is the president who was asked to show his birth

certificate. who basically experienced that sense of, what are you doing here, kid? show me, boy, that you belong here. and i wonder if he sees it that way, or, like, certainly, it came to mind for me, that birtherism. >> and it's true and the president really captured the essence of what it means to be black in america. and although he is the president of the united states, he can have a flashback about his journey as an african-american boy and now an african-american man. i have a son who's 23 years old. he could have been trayvon. can you imagine birthing a child in the world and knowing from the moment, when i experience pleasure because he was healthy, b but at the same time, in that birthing room, saying that my son is going to have to carry the burden of his blackness. god, please bless him. >> yes. and that -- that piece -- >> yeah. painful. >> painful. and all the -- he was asking was, this pain matters. just recognize. just acknowledge, acknowledge

that it exists. we'll be back on this topic in just a moment.

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so folks understand the challenges that exist for african-american boys, but they get frustrated, i think, if they feel that there's no context for it. and that context is being denied. and that all contributes, i think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different. >> that was just a little bit

more of president obama's unexpected and deeply personal remarks given yesterday in the white house briefing room. so what are the primary barriers to having the kind of conversations that the president was calling for yesterday? >> well, i can only speak to the barriers for white folks, because that's my people. >> what is wrong with -- >> and we speak for all white people, me and chris matthews. >> chris was on fire this week. >> one of the barriers is we're not willing to reflect on our own experience. even as we talk about racism, we talk about it as a black issue, as a latino issue. we have to be honest about what the president just said, it might have been different. i can tell you, it would have been difference, and from my own experience. in new orleans, i was 23, just graduated from tulane, you will either appreciate this or recognize the story, at least, being in new orleans. i locked myself out of my car. had to get a coat hangar to break in. keys are in there. i'm in a t-shirt, cutoff shorts, flip-flops, trying to break in,

the nopd, the police officer comes up, sees me, trying to break into a vehicle, he does not ask me for a license or proof that it's my car. in fact, he proceeds to say, you're doing that wrong. he said, you're breaking into that car the wrong way. let me show you the right way. he couldn't get in, because apparently to the 1988 toyota turcell is the hardest car to steal. he says, we ought to just throw a brick through it. so i have a police officer helping to, as far as he know, steals a vehicle. to think that a black 23-year-old would have had that experience is so deluded that we cannot have a conversation anything like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, because that is so obvious. we can't just talk about the downside of racism for those of color, which is quite real. we've got to be talk about the advantage, the upside for people who don't have to ever ask themselves, could i have been

that young man, because we wouldn't be. >> this is the -- if president obama can say, trayvon martin could have been me, this is the point that, in fact, trayvon martin could -- i am not trayvon martin if i am in another kind of body. >> right, george zimmerman could have been me or a lot of other white folks. >> and i want to add to this fact, because it has deep historical roots. the president makes reference in this speech to statistically, trayvon martin was more likely to be killed by a peer than by george zimmerman, which is his way of sort of grounding it in a way so that he doesn't go too far off the reservation. but the larger history that this relies upon is essentially that statistically, trayvon's not likely to be the president. so statistically, we should treat trayvon like the potential suspect that he is, rather than him being like the president. and essentially, the violence of the racial quantification of black life. this way in which we essentially say, we don't have to use the "n" word anymore.

all we have to say is young black male, 14 to 21, likely suspect, and craft a whole set of policies around that to statistically predict that most of them are likely to be in trouble, so not likely to be president. >> and the other side of the story, it is true that statistically, he is more likely to have been shot by a peer. it's also, however, statistically, much more likely that george zimmerman would have been shot by a peer. violence is intraracial for all -- intra -- for all groups. so the violence against white people is typically white on white violence. >> but the history of it -- here's where history matters. so a hundred years ago, those statistics really didn't exist. so the statistics come into use a hundred years ago to separate out deserving and undeserving, worthy and unworthy. and essentially, a hundred years ago, one of the leading racial demographers in america said, when black men come into competition with white men, they have two roads out of their dilemma, the road to prison or the road to an early grave. 1896. in other words, we have set up history, so when president obama talks about history, a history we don't know very well,

essentially, we have stacked the deck to end up with statistical proof, to reinforce a lie from the beginning, that black men are likely to end up in prison or dead, so why should we bother creating pathways of opportunity for them to become president. >> i want to read quickly what trayvon martin's parents said in response to president obama, and then have you play off of that and anything else here. let's take a look for a moment. because they wrote, "president obama sees himself in trayvon and identifies with him. this is a beautiful tribute to our boy. trayvon's life was cut short, but we hope that his legacy will make our communities a better place for generations to come. we applaud the president's call to action, to bring communities together and encourage an open and difficult dialogue." >> and that's what it's going to take. but the pain of losing a child, then to have to go out on public display and to grieve, and then to say what the president has said about our son is a tribute. i wish that trayvon martin was alive, so that tribute could be

given to him. even on the cover of the "daily news" here, to see the juxtaposition of the president, the young barack obama, next to trayvon martin. >> and drudge made a picture, put -- so drudge immediately, last night, made an image where they put young president obama's face on to -- on to trayvon martin in that hoodie picture. >> but a point i want to follow up, remember, ice cube had some lyrics that said, my skin is my sin. we need to understand that. and to tim's point, dealing with racism or bigotry or -- see, we've all been socialized, whether we're black, white, latino, asian, doesn't matter what our ethnicity -- we have all been socialized in a society that says that black life is less. and not only does it say it, it follows it through in laws in this country. it follows it through in deeds. so what ice cube had to say, there's something profound and eerie about saying to the world, my skin is my sin. we've got to deal with that.

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unscripted. the president caught us all off guard. so what led up to this. what happened a nearly a week after the verdict in the trial of george zimmerman that spurred president obama to speak at length about race in america at that particular moment? and for that answer, we go to the white house and nbc's kristen welker. nice to see you. >> reporter: nice to see you, melissa. you know, i think this president is so deliberative, you know. so he, according to white house officials, has been carefully watching and monitoring the reaction to the george zimmerman verdict, ever since it came down last weekend. both within the african-american community, but also sort of throughout the country. and because there were such strong emotions on both sides, he felt the need to speak out, as the nation's first african-american president. this is a decision that he discussed with his family. and then i'm told that on thursday, he called senior advisers into his office and he told them, this is what he was thinking of doing. some of them were skeptical, i am told.

but once he talked about his thoughts and what he wanted to say to the nation, there was sort of a unanimous agreement that he should, in fact, address the nation. so that is what happened on friday. you talked about the element of surprise, melissa. that was by design. the president wanted this to be unscripted. and the white house didn't want reporters sitting around, thinking about what he was going to say and start to speculate about what he was going to say. they wanted the focus to be on his remarks. and that's really what happened. and i can tell you, it was so striking. i've covered this beat for more than two years. we usually do get a heads up. this is the first time that we didn't. so it really was stunning for that reason. but also, melissa, because he was so personal. he talked about the fact that he could have been trayvon martin 35 years ago, as you've been discussing throughout your show. it was really, to some extent, a bookend to the speech that he gave back in 2008, when he was a candidate. but this was a very different tone. as a president, i think he was more deeply personal and freer with his thoughts.

>> it's so funny that you say that about, that maybe it was about making sure that reporters weren't sort of overthinking it before it happened. because we were all sitting around upstairs in nerdland, prepping for today's show. and one of the producers said, oh, the president's on. and i thought, maybe he's going to talk about detroit. and when he said, i'm here to talk about trayvon martin, i was just -- we were all just speechless in that moment. >> reporter: i think that is exactly what happened here at the white house. when we saw him come out, he immediately started to say, what is he going to talk about? it must be detroit. and a lot of people thought that this white house had moved on from the issue of trayvon martin, because, remember, he did release a paper statement last week. he called for national calm in the wake of this verdict, which, by the way, both in his written statement and in his remarks yesterday, he said that the nation should respect the verdict and said that the judge had handled the case professionally. but i think you're absolutely right. the fact that he started speaking about trayvon martin, no one saw it coming. and it really allowed the nation

to focus, i think, on his words and to really listen to what he was saying. i think it was a message to the african-american community, but really to all americans, to say, you know, this reaction that we are seeing comes within an historic context, that we need to remember. it is not going away. and that was sort of the power of his remarks. and also his call to action moving forward, in terms of restarting a national conversation about race relations. >> it was, in fact, a very powerful moment. now, kristen, just before i let you go, i do want to just mention the news, that veteran journalist and longtime white house correspondent helen thomas has passed away at the age of 92. for so many years, she was a staple there in the front row of the white house briefing room, where this historic thing occurred yesterday. speak to me for just a moment about what kind of figure helen thomas was. >> reporter: well, i think that every journalist and correspondent who has worked inside this briefing room has been inspired by helen thomas. certainly, i have. just the other day, i was

looking at her front row seat in the briefing room and saying, i wish i could have been there when she occupied that seat. she was a pathfinder, she was a first in so many ways. of course, she retired in 2010 after making some controversial comments about the middle east peace situation. but, melissa, she has covered every president from eisenhower, through the first two years of president obama. and just a point about the first, she was the first female president of the national press club, the first female president and member of the white house correspondents association, and the first female member of the gridiron club. andti i'm going to give the fin word to another pioneer in this industry, andrea mitchell, who's, of course, our colleague. she tweeted out, helen thomas made it possible for all of us who followed, women pioneer journalist broke barriers, died today, would have been 93 next month, rest in peace. >> and certainly we were reminded this week of how important it can be when bodies that are normally shut out of spaces, in fact, find themselves

there. it's quite a bookend on this moment. kristen welker at the white house, thank you so much. >> reporter: thank you. up next, we will continue on this conversation. i'll bring back my panel. because i want to talk about the president's message to the trayvon martins around the country. ing older... waiting to look younger? don't wait. [ female announcer ] get younger looking skin fast. with new olay regenerist micro-sculpting cream. the next generation with 2 new anti-aging ingredients. it penetrates rapidly. visible wrinkle results start day 1. and you'll see younger looking skin before you even finish one jar. ♪ new olay regenerist. the wait is over. new olay regenerist. and didn't know where to start. a contractor before at angie's list, you'll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare written by people just like you. no company can pay to be on angie's list, so you can trust what you're reading. angie's list is like having thousands of close neighbors, where i can go ask for personal recommendations. that's the idea.

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of the lexus performance vehicles, including the gs and all-new is. ♪ this is the pursuit of perfection. this isn't to say that the african-american community is naive about the fact that african-american young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they're disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. it's not to make excuses for that fact, although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. they understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around

the country is born out of a very violent past in this country. >> that was president obama on friday, explaining that in african-american communities, we are well aware that much of the violence experienced by african-american men comes at the hands of other black men. but he went on to point out that some of that violence is the result of the country's difficult and violent history. the president was, perhaps, responding to claims that those who expressed frustration over the not-guilty verdict in the george zimmerman trial were not sufficiently outraged by the everyday murders of african-americans by african-americans. what do you make, not so much of the president here, but that the critique of the outrage over the zimmerman verdict meant that we didn't care that hadiya pendleton, for example, had been killed, or other young african-americans. >> one of the things that i think causes all of this, that's kind of the root of all of this kind of turmoil on this stuff is the idea and particularly with barack obama, that suddenly, we

need to be a color blind nation. that barack obama, since he's been elected, now everything's color blind. and i think the idea of color blindness separates us even more. even in this trial when we're talking about it, we won't talk about racial profiling, we won't talk about this, we won't talk about that. when race was the elephant in the room. and i think as long as we keep striving to be color blind, i'm a black man. when you look at me, i'm a black man. he's a white man. when you look at him, he's a white man. and i -- color blindness says to me that you're going to treat me like a white person. and i don't need or want that. all i need to be treated is like the black asian native american mutt that i am. >> so i want to ask you a little bit about this -- we went back, because it occurs to me, this is not the first president to talk about race and to talk about it personally. we went back to look at lbj when he was trying to pass civil

rights legislation. and as he spoke about it, he says, as a man whose roots go deeply into southern soil, i know how agonizing racial feelings are. so planting himself there. so then we take a look at bill clinton, also a southern white man, who also in his conversations about race in 1997, when he called for a conversation on race said, but back home, i went to segregated schools, swam in segregated public pools, sat in all-white sections at the movies. he went on to say, and traveled through small towns in my state that still mark restrooms and water fountains, white and colored. and president carter was asked during a town hall, if you fell in love with a colored woman, would you be willing to marry her? and he said, as far as interracial marriages are concerned, i have never been in love with any woman except my wife, but i would hope that in the spirit to have true equality and in an absence of racial prejudice, that i would not let the color of a woman's skin

interfere with my love for her if i felt that way and marriage, of course, would be part of that relationship if the circumstances should permit. >> but only when spepeople of cr speak about that issue is it's divisive. this whole deflection to black on black crime. first of all, we shouldn't call it that, because we don't wall white on white crime that, even though it's two and a half times more prevalent numeralically. >> what's wrong with you people! >> and finally, to bash civil rights folks, for not sufficiently, in their mind, because, fft, they do talk about these issues, but not sufficiently talking about violence in black urban communities communities is like blaming mothers against drunk driving not having an adequate campaign for folks who die on the road for not using seat belts.

more people die from not wearing a seat belt than drunk driving, but that doesn't mean it isn't appropriate to deal with drunk driving. this is a classic deflection technique for people who don't want to deal with the reality of racism and resent the fact that the targets of racism insist that we continue to deal with it. >> and tim is absolutely correct on this. we come from a place and a space in this country. we need to acknowledge it. we need policies. i mean, disproportionately, african-american men, for example, have the highest unemployment rate. did they create that unemployment rate? you know, i haven't met any child, whether they be black or white, but we're talking about black children right now, who say, and especially black boys, who say, when i grow up, i want to go to prison. i'm looking forward to that. i want that to be my experience. i want to be racially profiled. you know, my husband was a former police officer, and he talked to me coming home from work about ladies clicking their doors, or -- now, this is a law enforcement officer, that if you needed help, would be there to help you, but because of his skin color, you automatically

assume that he is somehow a criminal. from birth, african-american people, children, male and female, particularly males, they carry that burden every single day. we have got to do something about that in this country. >> you know, your point here is so key. and i'm thinking about the president in that moment thinking, we've got to wring bias out of ourselves. and also that point about color blindness. and we've just -- we're just in the midst of this amazing moment around lbgt issues, right? this amazing moment where we are seeing, for the first time, our friends and our loved ones, who are gay and lesbian, and we are beginning to change policies -- like, and it is one of the most extraordinary stories of this epic of american history. that we could, at the same time, be beginning, just beginning, to do the work of recognition there. and then failing, continuing to fail, on the recognition on the other side. no one wants blindness, right? the whole point is to see, not to be blind. thank you to val nichols. and i want to let viewers know that they can read your full column right now online at

msnbc.com. up next, we've got more. but we're going to switch gears a little bit. as activists prepare to hold vigils in a hundred cities around the country today, president obama says it is time to take a stand on stand your ground. [ command center ] this is command center.

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before the death of trayvon martin became a national story, stand your ground had already become a big deal. first passed in florida in 2005, the law is now on the books in some two dozen states. if you have followed the trayvon martin/george zimmerman story at all, by now you know that stand your ground reinterprets self-defense to allow a citizen to use force, even deadly force, when that citizen feels threatened. but this is important. george zimmerman's lawyers did not use stand your ground as part of their case. before the case even went to trial, there was so much talk

about stand your ground that this detail may have been lost. but, in fact, zimmerman's lawyers chose not to argue stand your ground. and they didn't have to. florida circuit court judge, b debra nelson, essentially did it for them. listen to the instructions she gave the six-member jury ahead of deliberation. >> if george zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony. >> yesterday, president obama made it clear that he feels stand your ground laws need to be reconsidered and re-examined here in america. >> and for those who resist that

idea, that we should think about something like these stand your ground laws, i just ask people to consider, if trayvon martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? and do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting mr. zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened? >> more about other stand your ground cases also in florida, after the break. it's delicious. so now we've turned her toffee into a business. my goal was to take an idea and make it happen. i'm janet long and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. [ robert ] we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. go to legalzoom.com today and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side.

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the not guilty verdict in the george zimmerman trial has sparked new discussions about and protests of the stand your ground law that originated in florida in 2005. since then, the stand your ground law has been invoked in more than 200 cases in florida, where charges were dismissed or defendants were acquitted or not even charged at all.

one case that doesn't fit that description is melissa alexander. she is the 32-year-old jacksonville, florida, mother, who in 2010 fired a single bullet that lodged in her kitchen ceiling. alexander says that she fired a work shot to scare off her husband, who was confronting her in a rage over some text messages on her phone. her husband later admitted to previous domestic violence against alexander, but no matter. despite claiming that she stood her ground and acted in self-defense, alexander received a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence in may of last year, for shooting a ceiling. joining us from jacksonville, is democratic congresswoman, kareen brown, one of the alexander's most vocal supporters. joining us in new york is ari melber and corrina sworn. you have been such a fierce advocate for marissa alexander. tell us in your eyes why this

case is so important. >> first of all, i want to tell you that your father is correct. 50 years later, each one of us still have to continue to work to make things better. >> yep. >> so the fight goes on. first of all, this female, a warning shot, the day that it happened, the day that it happened, it was a restraining order against her husband. >> yeah. >> she was beaten when she was pregnant and put in the hospital by her husband. >> yeah. >> and the way stand your ground works, the officer write it up, so the judge decide. and so if you have an officer writing it up, that's not trained, it's a problem. >> so let me ask -- >> and let me tell you, though, the week before, someone was convicted of murder, got 15 years. so, i mean, the disparity and the discretion there on how the prosecutor charged is totally unacceptable. >> that's exactly what i wanted to ask you about, representative

brown. it's not just some prosecutor out in this world, it is angela corey, the exact same prosecutor who made a decision, despite the fact that there were six women on the zimmerman jury, to not even bother to prosecute zimmerman herself, to send the other folks, that's you talking there with miss cory, but she aggressively went after marissa alexander. why the disparity? >> i cannot tell you that. but if you look at jacksonville, we have a 50% direct filing of youth -- direct filing. that means we are filing them as felons. that is the new slavery. they will never be able to get a decent job. the person that was the prosecutor before, harry shostein, he had a program that we worked with youth in our community. and this is what happens when people do not go to the ballot box, clearly. you need to ask the right

questions and make sure that you are electing people that are going to work with the community. >> representative brown, hold for me for one moment. christina, i wanted to ask you a question. why would marissa alexander would have even needed stand your the ground? she was in her home, which is castle doctrine, which is law in all 50 states, right? why does she even need stand your ground? >> well, i'm not sure whether she needs stand your ground or not, but i do know, what seems to have happened in this case, a judge says, based on her behavior around the time she fires the shot, it doesn't seem like she was afraid. it doesn't seem like she was acting in fear for her life. and i think what is lost in that conversation is, aside from the issues of race, is this history of abuse. >> yes. >> of this woman, right? >> and the baby was eight days old! >> right, right. that's what i'm saying. the president yesterday said, we have to understand context. and we have to look at a situation in the context of history. marissa alexander's judgment in that moment -- >> an abused woman. >> has to be viewed through the

lens of the abuse she sustained through the course of that relationship. and i don't know miss alexander, but i don't know whether there's a family history of abuse. so she's making a judgment, from a history of abuse from this man, as to whether or not she was in mortal danger. that was just completely absent from the analysis of what happened here. and that was a mistake. >> representative brown, yes? >> let me say, she had a master's degree. she worked her way through school. she had no priors. so this was her first offense. >> yep. >> and we have sent this woman to jail for 20 years. and you said it, but i don't want the audience to miss it. when all of this happened, when the man who has admitted that he has abused this woman -- >> as well as others. >> and others. >> this woman and four others. >> that there was an 8-day-old baby was in the home. >> that's right. >> and we have sent her away for 20 years! >> that's right. but what was offered to her was, we will give you three years, you become a felon, and you give

up the custody of your child. help me, somebody! >> that was her plea bargain option? >> that was her plea bargain. and so when i had mentioned it to her, she said, well, i offered her three years. i said, three years is not mercy and 20 years is not justice. >> i want to bring nina turner in here. i want nerdland to be part of this. but when representative brown said, you must vote, you know, i heard you respond to that. and it does feel like -- i keep feeling like, is angela corey running for office? and does she think there's a reason why the prosecution of marissa alexander and not the prosecution of george zimmerman is the right thing to do? >> representative brown is right on about, we have to elect people, better people, people who understand that these types of laws are not the way we should go in this country. we all have the power in that case. and that's what i don't want us to lose here. if we ever want to do something about the proliferation of these stand your ground laws and other laws, whether it's voter suppression or whatever it is, we have to elect people who have

a consciousness. for her to have to prove her worth as a human being, there's not an american who doesn't -- who can understand that concept. that you have a group of people who are purely american, born in this country, that have to prove their worth, generation after generation, in this country. how -- rapists get less than this mother who was trying to protect her life and her child got. this is a dr. martin luther king moment. injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. >> and congresswoman brown, that's why your advocacy on this has been so important. thank you so much for joining us from florida. and coming up, the next major test for the strand your ground law. we'll talk to the father of slain teenager, jordan davis. and my letter to the woman who inspired me and so many others this week. but first, a quick programming note. this week, the legendary stevie wonder announced that he will not perform in florida until it abolishes the stand your ground

law, or in any state where the law exists. so for the next hour, you're going to be hearing all stevie throughout our show. more nerdland at the top of the hour. wait a sec! i found our colors. we've made a decision. great, let's go get you set up... you need brushes... you should check out our workshops... push your color boundaries while staying well within your budget walls. i want to paint something else. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. glidden premium interior paint, starts at a new lower price at $18.94 a gallon.

welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. one week after the george zimmerman not guilty verdict and one day of president obama's extraordinary comments on the case, we are bracing for yet another racially charged test of stand your ground as a law. soon we're going to have another trial of a white shooter in florida, claiming self-defense in killing an unarmed 17-year-old black boy. seriously, i'm not kidding. it is already scheduled for late september. that's when this man, michael david dunn, will go on trial, alleging he was only standing

his ground when he shot to death a young man who was sitting in the backseat of an suv with three of his friends. jordan davis and his buddies were parked in a jacksonville parking lot last november when dunn got into a fight with them over the volume of the hip hop music they were playing in their suv. after an exchange of words, dunn allegedly fired his weapon eight or nine times at close range, striking only jordan two times, fatally. davis died that -- excuse me, yes, jordan davis died that night, and dunn now faces charges, first-degree murder and attempted murder, to which he has pled not guilty. he claims he opened fire after one of the teens pulled out a shotgun. no weapons were ever recovered from the scene. joining me now from jacksonville, florida, are ron davis, jordan's father, and his family's attorney, john phillips. they're going to be with us in just a moment. but let me come out first to the panel and ask this question, should we be expecting to see

similar reactions in the jordan davis case, as we have seen in the trayvon martin case? >> i think so. i mean, this righteous indignation about what's going on -- i mean, the notion of stand your ground, even if the ground is soiled with blood, we need to come to grips with that in this country. >> and you're going to have white folks do the same thing too. well, he felt threatened. because apparently even if you're black and don't have a gun, the mere fact you might have have a gun, there are studies on this, that when you show white evacuates a video and it's a black person with something ambiguous in their hand, they're more likely to think it's a gun, even though, oh, it's a cell phone, oh, it's a wallet. in that sense, this case needs to be understood, not as only representing this shooter, but as the large psyche of an awful lot of folks in this country who just see a young black man, assume there's a gun, open fire, and then claim, i was afraid. and there are going to be people who are going to defend that fear. i have no doubt about it. >> and part of what's been

stunning for me, over what's happened post-zimmerman verdict is the sense that we now still need to sort of decimate the character of trayvon martin. so, i think that there are very reasonable positions on which one can disagree about the verdict. but the idea that we now need to go back and take this kid's character apart. and i'm just sitting here, kind of just, oh! the idea that they're going to do this again to jordan davis. sitting and listening to hip hop music. >> i think you're sitting and listening to something very deep. that we listen to stories, but we get confused by only looking at individual stories. so we have a very special moment. when the president of the united states has very personally inserted himself into the story. people who work in civil rights and law and black people know exactly what that's about, if i could speak directly. there's a lot of parts of the country that don't know exactly what that's about. some of them will turn it off,

but the power is some will listen and hear something. so when we talk about trayvon martin or jordan davis or marissa alexander or sean bell, every one of them is is story. some of those trials may be resolved on evidentiary issues, that don't go directly to systemic issues, but you stack up the stories and you get statistics. what the president did was insert himself in those statistics. when he talks about being profiled as a black man, before he was in the senate, he's talking as a black man who was a harvard law educated university of chicago professor, published author -- >> married, father of two. >> all of that, upstanding member of the community. he's talking about having a level of success and being profiled, which doesn't even speak to people like trayvon mart martin, who are systematically disappeared at every step of the process. that's why you go, when you talk about a teachable moment, it's more than a teachable moment, it is a larger chance to actually

understand where these stories fit in. >> i want to listen to the president talking about the stand your ground laws for just a second and then ask you about one part of it. >> and for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like the stand your ground laws, i just ask people to consider, if trayvon martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? and do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting mr. zimmerman, who had followed him in a car, because he felt threatened? >> i'm going to ask you about that justification in just one moment. but we do now have, joining us from jacksonville, florida, ron davis, jordan's father, and his family's attorney, john phillips. mr. davis, i want to start with you, because i assume that the zimmerman verdict is something that is especially impactful for

you. can you tell me how you've been responding this past week? >> it was very heartbreaking when i heard, and i texted sybrina and tracy and my heart goes out to the family. and i've been following it very closely. and i just think that, you know, the way the law is set up, that i just can't believe that the jury instruction was enough to humanize trayvon, to let them know, and let them have a connect, because i heard one of the jury members say that they had a misconnect with trayvon, they didn't know who he was. and that should have been the first thing that they did, was make sure that we knew who trayvon martin was. and it was too much zimmerman this and zimmerman that. and they knew who he was, but they didn't know who trayvon was. >> attorney phillips, this is actually such a lovely point. and a hard one, undoubtedly, given that mr. davis is now facing a trial where his own son will either be known or not

known. should we expect a similar kind of demonization of jordan davis to occur that we have seen and continue to see around trayvon martin? or are there reasons you think this will be quiet different? >> it will be quite different. the difference is, and absolutely, my heart goes out to sybrina. and i mean no disrespect. but the difference is, at least there was interaction between trayvon and michael -- and george zimmerman. michael dunn, you know, what jordan was doing before this, jordan's character has nothing to do, because he was just sitting in a car and got ten rounds unloaded on him. so there's really no past that's any relevance, whatsoever, to this incident. >> so, let me ask you, christina, so that's the most hopeful reading of this that i can imagine, but then i just, you know, defense attorneys put on a vigorous defense for their clients, as the system says they should, and when i hear my president say, hey, ask

yourself, would this kid have been allowed to stand his ground, i worry that, in fact, we will see, despite the legal irrelevance, this kind of discourse about jordan davis as well. >> you know, it almost doesn't matter what the discourse is, because what we know is that there is an extraordinary link in the country's psyche between race and criminality, right? no matter what jordan did, no matter what trayvon did, when you look at a young black teenager, 17 years old, doing nothing wrong, the automatic instinct is that that person is a criminal. and when you look at a white guy like mr. dunn, the automatic assumption is that he's not. and those judgments come into a courtroom whether or not there's evidence put on or not. >> and the stand your ground heightened that in many ways. part of what i'm asking here, is if tomorrow we could wave our magic progressive wand, make alec go away and take with them all of their laws and one of them would be stand your ground, would that change the dynamics of what is occurring in this courtroom? or are these like embedded

racial psychic moments, so powerful that it wouldn't change what a jury sees and does? >> you know, i think there's a lot in there. mr. dunn, you know, it's almost shocking that he would claim self-defense under these circumstances. let's just begin at the beginning, right? i mean, this guy unloads a gun on a car load of teenagers. he leaves the scene, right? he doesn't call 911. he does exactly nothing that is reflective and expected from a person who has acted in self-defense. this guy is at home, sitting on his couch, watching tv, after he's killed a child. you know? and so the hubris of that is stunning and it's hard to not think that in that is there's this empowerment, right? that the stand your ground law says, i can shoot someone and i can walk away, because i have the right to do that. whether i invoke the defense or not, that's in my head, right? because i've been told, i can meet force for force. >> mr. davis, yeah, mr. davis, i want to --

>> to take that point further, in concealed weapons permit classes, you sit in there for four hours, pay $170, have to shoot one bullet in your lifetime. most of that four hours is teaching the grey area of stand your ground and how to get away with situations where you kill somebody. they're empowering these people in these classes. >> so that's part of what we heard, actually, come out in trial about mr. zimmerman, was this idea that he had an awareness of this. mr. jordan, one of the things that has been, i think, hardest and most compelling for so many of us who have been watchers of the zimmerman case, is the parents that you talk about as your friends, as sybrina and tracy, mr. martin and miss fulton. what have you all talked about as parents, about the legacy of your children, no matter how these individual cases go? >> well, the first thing i want the panel to realize, when you go on all these shows, you know, and i do welcome the discussions, but people that call on the show, they have to

be mindful that sometimes the discussion, when they start tearing apart the victim, tearing apart the children, that sometimes it's even worse than the trial. and i want everyone to be mindful of that. that, you know, to you, as a panelist, it might be part of the show or whatever the case may be and part of the discussion of the discourse, but you have to understand, behind that, the parents are laooking t you, the sisters and brothers, the aunts and nieces of that victim. they're looking at you on that show. and i want you to be mindful of that. that sometimes you tear apart the family member and it hurts worse than the trial itself. >> mr. davis, that is a compelling and important point. and i thank you for making it. and i also thank you for joining us. and we will all have our eyes and our hearts with you as you move forward on this trial. to mr. ron davis, father of jordan davis, and davis' family attorney, john phillips. everybody else, stay right here, because up next, there are a hundred vigils expected to take place across the country a

little later today. there's one demonstration already well underway. the florida students taking a stand against stand your ground right outside the governor's office. humans. we are beautifully imperfect creatures living in an imperfect world. that's why liberty mutual insurance has your back, offering exclusive products like optional better car replacement, where if your car is totaled, we give you the money to buy one a model year newer. call... and ask an insurance expert about all our benefits today,

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florida is where stand your ground laws began eight years ago. and right now a group called the dream defenders wants stand your ground to end in florida. specifically, in republican governor rick scott's office. at this moment, the group consisting of young and old, hailing from all over the state, is continuing its lengthy sit-in that began this week inside the florida capital. earlier, they were demanding to meet with governor scott, historically a supporter of the state's stand your ground law,

and scott actually did take time to meet with the group on thursday night, the third day of the protest. he still backs stand your ground, but called for tomorrow, sunday, to be a day of prayer for unity throughout florida. the governor can meet the dream defenders of the florida capital to pray, because it's clear that those folks aren't going anywhere. so nina turner, you said to me, in the break, you were like, oh, yeah, it didn't quite start in florida. actually, alec brought it to ohio first. >> oh, yeah, the bill was just introduced in the ohio house a couple of weeks ago, stand your the ground, in ohio. and it just baffles my mind that you have members who are elected to serve the people and create avenues of opportunity, but they use all of that political power to introduce bills like this. it is just gut wrenching. >> and i just want to show the audience the map, ari, of where stand your ground is right now. because, you know, we were just talking about stevie wonder

choosing not to play in these states. and soon, he will be just like hanging out in -- >> in duluth. >> right. in toronto. ari, when you look at this and when you see sort of this catching fire, what does this tell you about where we are right now? >> i think it tells you, number one, we have a fascination with guns, elevated well beyond anything that makes sense in our traditional criminal code. some members of the republican caucus were talking about the verdict in this week's discussion, in the context of gun rights. there is a right to bear arms, according to the supreme court, whether you like it or not. you also could argue that you have a right to liberty and to move around and drive a car. the right to drive a car is not a right to vehicular homicide. it's pretty basic. so the right to have a gun in your home, particularly if someone comes at you or harms you or does great bodily harm to your family is quite different than running around the streets, with a gun, lacki ilooking for looking for fights.

and we do know, just in the domestic violence context, the presence of that gun, more often than not, creates more severe violence rather than repels it. there is not a great deal of evidence, particularly outside the context of rural home invasion, which, with all due respect to the rural areas and their own needs, is not the majority. outside of that context, there isn't a lot of evidence of people on the streets using guns to positive ends to avoid violence. >> this point is something an important one, because you started with sort of our american national obsession with guns. it extends, so many people are -- again, live in louisiana, guns are pretty -- >> i grew up in a gun owner house. >> but it's our piece, the obsession with fear, and the fear that this is group, an identic identifiable group that's going to come after us. >> i think stand your ground would be problematic, even if there was no racism or history of racism in the country. but when you attach fear to color and race, that gets ramped up even more. so now people who already had

biases, maybe conscious, maybe subconscious, about black folks and particularly young black men, now have a legal avenue above regular self-defense, which already existed, castle doctrine, et cetera, they have another avenue now by which to say, i was really, really afraid. and you have to ratify my fear, because the law says, i have the right to do this, really, if i perceive that you pose a significant threat to me. objective facts don't matter, subjective interpretation does. that would always be scary. but when you have a country where fear is so connected to race, it makes -- >> and it substantiates that fear. it allows a jury to actually say, your fear is the relevant fear here. >> and that goes to how the legal framework of that works in most context. you can have a judge finding at the beginning of immunity, for those who stand your ground. but then it comes back in into jury instructions, potentially, right? and that is where you are having a jury being told, here's whether you can assess whether this was a justified killing. and i think the second-degree murder charge was always difficult because of the mens

rea, the mental elements you have to prove. the general, you know, manslaughter charge, not as difficult, doesn't go as much to mental state. but, what you had was the jury assessing, as a subjective standard, whether this individual felt in his mind or heart that he was under the kind of danger that necessitated force and didn't involve running away. most people, and especially as we've been discussing in police interactions, most black men, feel the desire to run away from the threat of violence. this is an instruction to a jury in these states often. and jury instructions can be altered, so i'm generalizing, but it's a jury instruction that often results in the jury going, huh, well, did he feel threatened? which is very different. so one area is to say, you need some kind of judicial finding at an objective level of what works, right? because, obviously, as you've been reporting, for marissa alexander, her level of threat, it seems to me, at a minimum, you could incorporate, at a legal standard, the notion of the prior threats from the

aggressor in the situation. >> the existing stay-away order. >> so that goes beyond these individual cases and says, huh, if you have a woman who has been attacked repeatedly, that might be a judicial finding, which is different than a child who's never met this adult before, and the child is unarmed and the adult has a weapon. >> let me ask one last question here. part of what the president did in his discussion was to say, i'm not suggesting a big federal program. so, if we look at that map, we see these are state laws, stand your ground has been moving across the state, so i guess i wonder, is there a role in this moment for the federal government? maybe not in the zimmerman -- i mean, the doj is going to decide about that, but is there a role for the federal government on the question of stand your ground laws, or is this just such a state and local, we're never going to get there with the federal standard. >> the laws are state-based, that is clearly the case. but i do think there is something more here. what we have, i find it hard, i guess, to accept that we can show these numbers, we can show

these disparities, and we can say, oh, well, right? that we can say, there's no accountability. we owe nothing to this. that there's nothing that can be done to respond or correct this. and the president also talked about engaging about how the federal government and training of local law enforcement, right, in talking and engaging sort of the federal law enforcement with local law enforcement around issues of race, implicit bias, right, and all these things. and i think that's critical and the federal government absolutely needs to do that. and i think it has to go, though, beyond training, to accountability. it's not enough to say, we taught you how to do this, right? we have to have something that says, if we taught you to do it right, and you're still doing it wrong, then you're accountable. >> then there's accountability. and you have to be held accountable for that. and when only black men are being killed and are not being allowed to assert their right as citizens to self-defense, then there's something wrong and

there has to be accountability. >> thank you so much, christine, and thank you to tim, who's going to come back and join us tomorrow. up next, my letter of the week. hi, i'm terry and i have diabetic nerve pain. i worked a patrol unit for 17 years in the city of baltimore. when i first started experiencing the pain, it's, it's hard to describe because you have a numbness... but yet you have the pain like thousands of needles sticking in your foot. it was progressively getting worse, and at that point i knew i had to do something. when i went back to my healthcare professional... that's when she suggested the lyrica. once i started taking the lyrica, the pain started subsiding. [ male announcer ] it's known that diabetes damages nerves. lyrica is fda approved to treat diabetic nerve pain. lyrica is not for everyone. it may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new, or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior.

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it's been 18 months since trayvon martin went from a florida teenager, just trying to get home from the store on a rainy night to one of the most recognizable faces in america. right alongside him, almost from the very beginning was another face, with whom we have recently become intimately familiar. front and center, the regular presence at george zimmerman's trial. sybrina fulton, trayvon's mother, was the very picture of grace and poise as she shared her quiet grief with the nation. so this week, i wanted to address my letter to her. both the public figure who has been a conduit for a community in mourning and the private

person, a mother surviving after her own personal loss. dear sboybrina, it's me, meliss. thursday night, you and trayvon's father sat down with reverend sharpton to talk about your thoughts and feelings in response to the trial of the man who killed your son. and when i saw that you were here on 30 rock, i immediately went to the studio where you were being interviewed, because i wanted to be in the room with you. over the past year and a half, i have written and spoken so much about your son. i have thought about and questioned and analyzed the issues raised by the way he died, the events that followed his death, and what it all says about how our nation failed your boy. the ongoing interest and attention that i, that all of us, really, have paid to your son's story are due in large part to your tireless efforts and advocacy on his behalf. when you were cast into the part no woman wants to play, the grieving mother seeking justice for her child, you took on your role admirably.

you stepped on to the national stage, alongside the women who came before you, carrying our collective sorrow on your shoulders. coretta after she lost martin, myrlie after medgar was taken away. maney, who like you, was robbed of a beloved son when she lost emmett. when we were overwhelmed by our emotions, the sadness, the anger, the helplessness, they, you, were what we needed you to be. a enroll of strength and endurance. a sign that you and we could carry on. but sybrina, i want you to know that i see you, not the symbol or the sign, but the human being, the mother who lost her son, the woman knitting herself back together during every commercial break on thursday night, steeling herself to go on, who when asked by reverend sharpton what you would say to george zimmerman, found the faith that you have turned to so often and said this. >> i would tell him my favorite

bible words, which is proverbs 3, 5, and 6. and i would tell him how i felt, which is, you shed innocent blood and you're going to have to account for that. and i would pray for him. i really would. >> so, i looked up your favorite verse, proverbs, chapter 3, versuses 5 and 6, which reads, "trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. in all your ways, acknowledge him, and herbal direct your path." sybrina, the grace you showed with your message to george zimmerman is beyond anything i can imagine. but what i can comprehend, what i can conjure when i look into the face of my own precious child, is just some idea of how it would feel in those private moments, when the cameras aren't on, when you have taken an entire movement off your shoulders, where there is just you in that little room next to the courtroom where you retreated when it all got to be too much, when you needed to let

go of your composure, when you needed to just cry or rage against the injustice of it all. and i want you to know, sybrina, that it is okay. and i want you to know that when you go by yourself into that private place, you do not go lan, because all of our love goes with you. and i have no doubt that you will some day hear the words of matthew 25:21, well done, my good and faithful servant. sincerely, melissa.

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a very long time. by the way, we have to fix that. >> yes, he's going to have to fix that. the need to fix our electoral system became even more urgent when the supreme court justices took a hatchet to the voting rights act, and in their decision, told the u.s. congress, you need to fix that. this week, both the senate and the house got to work doing just that. both houses of congress held hearings to begin figuring out how, if at all, to update the formula to determine which states need federal preclearance before changing their voting laws. still here is ohio state senator, nina turner, who is one of the vocal opponents of voter i.d. laws advanced in her state. and ari melber, co-host of msnbc's "the cycle," who has been covering those hearings all week in washington, d.c. joining us at the table and ryan haygood, director of the political participation group for the naacp legal defense fund. and also back with us, khalil m mohammad. ari, i loved the piece you

wrote, where you made a decision about how to fix this. it's your two strikes and you're in. explain this. >> two strikes and you're in is a piece i wrote for reuters that looks at the situation we have. john roberts says some of this data is old and that's not fair to the states. we are going to put aside for the moment whether the states are more important than the people, according to the 14th and 15th amendment, which say it is the people and not the states. because that's what the reconstruction amendments were about. we'll take the law seriously and say, okay, what we need to do is have a formula that can keep eligibility for this kind of voter supervision over the whole country, if necessary, and nowhere. so my idea was to look at local judicial findings of discrimination, which come in under section two, and use those as a trigger. if you see two of those over a certain amount of time, you bring those areas into the supervision. if they're in shelby county, and we know they are from the data, then shelby county will be covered. but if they're in new york or

ohio, because there are some very important states that are at the table, that have these problems, and that weren't part of the original section 4 formula, has defined by literacy tests, then they come in. and that is something that i think the lawyer's committee for human rights, which i worked for this week on one project and some other groups are open two. there's more than one way to do it. but i think what we should do, and the essence of this, and by the way, on a personal note, it's an honor to be at a table with people and organizations that work on this, forever, since the beginning of this fight. but i think that we have to do is exactly what the civil rights movement did, which is to take the constitution more seriously than the judges of the time. so when people say to me, and i'll close on this, because so much to hear from other people. when people say, well, this isn't going to happen because i don't trust john roberts or the republicans, that's not the point, right? martin luther king talked about a promissory note that we would make america on, okay? we have to take it seriously, we have to look at what john roberts said. he tried to call out congress.

we have to get congress to call him out and punch this through. >> speaking of calling out congress, what i appreciate is the sort of, all hope is not lost. so we actually saw congress actually doing something this week. and john lewis testified, before the senate judiciary hearing, and i want to play this and ask you about what is left of the vra. so let's listen. >> section four and five are the heart and soul of the voting rights act. the day of the supreme court decision broke my heart. it made me want to cry. the burden cannot be on those citizens whose rights were or will be violated, it is the duty and the responsibility of congress to restore the life and soul of the voting rights act. and we must do it and we must do it now. we must act. and we must act now. >> so, four and five, he says, are gutted, but what's left? two is left. what else are left? >> there are a few provisions that remain of the voting rights

act. there's section two, a provision that allows for private litigants and for the department of justice to pursue discriminatory changes to methods of elections, and the hopes of other discriminatory voting measures as a provision that allows for jurisdictions that have intensely discriminated to be bailed in to coverage, where they have to submit their voting changes for approval. but i like the point that congressman lewis made about how the supreme court's devastating, and really, disgraceful decision broke his heart. and to ari's point, i think there's a moment now where congress can recognize the way in which its heart has also been broken. you know, congress in 2006, when it sought to reauthorize the voting rights act, did its homework. it held more than 20 hearings over ten months, heard from 90 witnesses and amassed a 15,000 page record, which spoke to the persistent nature of voting discrimination in the places where section five operated. and so as we receive the outrage in this moment, as we recognize the place where we are celebrating many milestones, the 50th anniversary of the march on washington, the 50th anniversary

of the assassination of medgar evans, the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act, and two years of the voting rights act, it's a moment for us to recognize that those watershed moments are ones that fundamentally changed the course of america, influenced the way we live today, but at the same time, the core provisions to the protection of our voting rights, like section five, are now falling. so congress should receive in this moment the challenge that is presented to it, as it has this week, to fix what the supreme court did in shelby county. >> i want to appropriate a legal question just a little bit more. so two strikes and you're in. so if we see some violations, do it twice, you're in on the preclearance, no matter where you do it in the country. and your point about the capacity of section two, to continue to serve as a basis for litigation. let me ask this. how do i know a discriminatory voting policy, when i see one? is desperate impact enough? or like the zimmerman case, do i have to have in my head, as i'm writing this law, that i want to keep black people from the polls? >> and so i think one of the real things that we lost in

section four is the ability to come to know of voting changes when they are proposed by a jurisdiction. so, for example, the way that section five really operated, most forcefully, was in those local and those city and local jurisdictions, where a jurisdiction, for example, would propose to move a polling place in advance of an election or change from district votings, at large voting. and we now are relying on folks in impacted places to tell us about changes as they come available. so for example, a quick story about kill michael in mississippi. it's a small city, a remote city in mississippi, about 1,000 people. in 2000, the census showed, that african-americans had become a majority of the city, and they were poised for the first time in history to elect their candidates of choice to the city council, which had previously been all white. but instead of holding the election in which african-americans would exercise they political will, the city canceled the elections. and because it was then covered by section five, right, it's

bananas. >> you've got to raise the game. this is -- this is a recent example. >> they're like, you know what, we're not going to have elections. no, we're done. that democracy situation, not so much. wow. >> but because then they were covered by section five of the voting rights act, the department of justice said, actually, you have to submit that for preclearance to ensure it's not discriminatory in advance before it takes root. and then the election was held, in which, of course, african-americans exercised their political will, elected for the first time in history, an african-american mayor, and several members of the city council. so now -- >> that's an amazing story. >> in this moment, people in mississippi are vulnerable to go back to that. >> that is a stunning story. when we come back, it is all me and nina turner, when we come back. what if we took all this produce from walmart and secretly served it up in the heart of peach country. it's a fresh-over. we want you to eat some peaches and tell us what you think. they're really juicy. it must have just come from the farm. this right here is ideal for me. walmart works directly with growers to get

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so call now to request a free decision guide and learn more. after all, when you're going the distance, it's nice to have the experience and commitment to go along with you. keep dreaming. keep doing. go long. if you need a reminder of the ongoing need for the voting right act protection, look no further than this lovely lady. regular watchers of this week in

voter suppression will remember 93-year-old philadelphian and great-great-grandmother, yvette applewhite. she has voted in nearly every election for the last 53 years. but miss applewhite is one of hundreds of thousands of people in the state of pennsylvania that don't have the documents that according to the state's voter i.d. law that person must have in order to vote. last october, a judge temporarily blocked the law from going into effect, just a few weeks before election day. but on monday, pennsylvania's voter i.d. law went on trial before another judge who may be deciding its permanent fate and the fate of miss applewhite. she is the lead plaintiff. pennsylvania, ohio, not covered under section five. >> no, and that's why ari's two strikes and you're in works for me. i mean, we have a proliferation of these types of laws or bills being introduced throughout this country. and it should cause all of us pause. one of the things we hold dear as americans, we don't like the

game to be rigged. let's play head to head in all fairness. but what you find in states like ohio and pennsylvania, if they don't like the outcome, they try to rig the game. and that happened in ohio. the very laws that were there, with early voting and all of the things that went right in 2008, under a democratic secretary of state, all of a sudden, after the election of president barack obama were no longer what ohioans needed. so trying to rig the game in the middle. we have two great equalizers in this country, as i see them. one is access to a high-quality education for all of our children, no matter where they hail from, who their parents are, or not, but the second one is the ballot box. because it says, one woman, one man, one vote, and your social economic status doesn't matter. you have access to the ballot. and to the extent that we have people elected, particularly on the state levels of government, that want to try to take away that most fundamental point to our democracy, something is wrong, and we should all be outraged. >> and you know, i would be less

outraged if this was the great idea of the people who were elected. if they ran on it and they were elected, as outrageous as it would be, i would be like, well, sometimes people in democracies have bad ideas. but these laws are important. i think it's so important, what you just said about education and the vote. and given everything we just talked about, stand your ground, because there's actually a little group that is exporting education laws that are limiting our public education access, that are exporting these voter i.d. laws, and that are exporting these stand your ground laws. and it's all aleck. >> but in ohio in our budget, thank god it came out in the senate, in a bipartisan way, the house republicans actually put a provision in our budget that would create a relationship between college students and universities, saying that if a college, if a university gives an out of state student the documentation that they need to then go register to vote in ohio, you would have to lower their tuition. that would have cost ohio universities upwards of $370 million. and then when they were questioned, they had the pure,

unamitigated gal to say it was about lowering tuition, when we know in fact that was about voter suppression. and our current chief election officer, when asked, do you think this is about voter suppression? oh, no, it's about mitigation. and there's something wrong with that. whether they're african-american, hispanic, working class people, do not have unfettered access to the ballot. our democracy cannot stand for that injustice. >> let's just be honest. we are in a third moment of needing a reconstruction period, right. we've already arrived at the second reconstruction, which is the civil rights movement. we are fighting over the future of this country. and as much as we all, at this table want to agree, what we believe america stands for, we talk about democracy and we talk about education, which is not guaranteed by the constitution, frankly. and two, we talk about voting rights, which we had to fight for, which is enshrined in the

original amendments of the constitution as property of white men. this is a work in progress. and this work in progress moves backwards at times. we are in a moment of moving backwards. >> i so appreciate your point that we are in a nadir. it helps me to understand why i feel bad. and actually gives me some sense, then, that we can climb back out. state senator nina turner, ari melber, ryan haygood, and khalil mohammad, thank you so much. after the break, if only this black teenage's story got as much attention. our foot soldier is next. [ male announcer ] they say it was during an arm wrestling match that mr. clean realized the way to handle bigger, tougher messes was better leverage. that's why he created his new magic eraser handy grip. it has a handle that firmly attaches to the eraser so you get better leverage and more oomph with less effort.

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the worst nightmare. your child goes missing. just ask the row ha family of lancaster, pennsylvania. last week it happened to them. their 5-year-old daughter was playing in the front yard and

then she was gone. all that remained in the yard was the little toy she was playing with. neighbors began scouring the area searching for the girl asking passersby if anyone knew where she was. one of the people the neighbors spoke to is this week's foot soldier, a 15-year-old young man named tamar boggs. along with a few friends tam ar was helping an elderly neighbor move a couch when the group was approached by the search party. tamar and his friends didn't think twice. without hesitation they jumped on their bikes and began a 30-minute search around the neighborhood for the 5-year-old girl. they returned empty handed and found the neighborhood swarming with police and television crews. then tamar said he had a gut feeling that he was going to find this little girl. he and his friend chris garcia jumped back on their bikes and decided to ride around some more. tamar noticed a maroon car driving in a way that made him suspicious. the car quickly turned around when nearing a group of police officers and began driving around the neighborhood on to

and out of side streets. here is how tamar described it. >> every time i went down the street he would turn back around and then go back. we'd follow him. >> tamar peddled hard for 15 minutes trying to get a close look at the passengers in the car. he saw an older man and little girl matching the description of the missing child. tamar and his friend continued to follow the car. police speculate that the boys on their bikes scared the kidnapper because then this happened. >> he stopped at the end of the hill and let her out and she ran to me and said she needed her mom. >> thanks to tamar and his friends the little girl is back safe with her family. the suspect is under arrest. tamar didn't even see himself as a hero. he told reporters, quote, i'm just a normal person who did a thing anybody else would do. the next time you see an african-american teenager hanging around your neighborhood, will you see a potential criminal or someone who could save a life?

for jumping on his bike and riding to the rescue and reminding us that true heroes walk and sometimes bike among us, tamar boggs is our foot soldier of the week. that is our show for today. thanks to you at home for watching. tomorrow we have another packed program. please be sure to join our segment growing up trayvon and much more on race in america. there is one last thing before we go today. it's a personal note. for the past 18 months every time you welcomed my voice into your homes on weekend mornings i hear one voice in particular. it's the voice of our senior broadcast producer. there is hosha, the steady voice that guides the live program that is the mhp show week in and week out and, sadly, today is his last day with us. mosha and his family, hey, they have decided to embark on an exciting new adventure. they're moving abroad. on behalf of everyone in nerd land, we are wishing mosha and his family well.

just so this moment doesn't get too serious allow me to share with you how we celebrated mosha's ten years at msnbc on thursday night. here he is on the mechanical bull. i still -- i can hear him telling me, wrap, wrap! wrap! we are going to miss you. i'll see you tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. now it's time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> you know, we did the war overnights when it first began over a decade ago. this guy has been everywhere. we're all going to miss him. also thanks to you, melissa. i'd like to have you please join me. cross the studio set here. i want your reaction to president obama making those surprise and very personal remarks at the white house about race and what it's like being a teenage african-american man. we are going to discuss the timing and the tone of his message. plus, vigils across america calling for federal civil rights charges expected to start in just a couple minutes. we have live reports from across the country. how did one of america's greatest cities fall into bankruptcy and how can san antonio, texas help?

the oppressive heat wave is taking an unprecedented turn. is relief in sight? don't go anywhere. i'll let you know. i'll be right back. all your important legal matters in just minutes. protect your family... and launch your dreams. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side.

100 cities, thousands of voices, rallies and vigils under way across the nation right now as part of national justice for trayvon day. we have a live report ahead. >> trayvon martin could have been me 35 years ago. >> one voice that could change the conversation. wide-ranging reaction today to the president's remarks about trayvon martin. the demise of a great american city. is there a detroit comeback story to be told? two writers from the motor city with perspective on that. a new documentary on killer whales in captivity. sea world calls it misleading but the film's director is firing back. i will talk with her. hello everyone. high noon in the east.