that there were african-american police officers, african-american elected officials, and an african-american national guard unit, and there was no way that these pinkerton detectives were going to take the african-american editor of the newspaper of that community anywhere. the pinkertons were toso frighten bed thees incurrenter the put ed wright on the payroll for several decades until he passed away. i think it's a great incident to bring up because it shows the strength of chicago community that the chicago community really was behind this newspaper in a way that i don't think you would find in another community. >> i brought it up because i think it also shows how "the defender" selected their news coverage, and kind of did two things. illustrates the fears and the concerns that african-americans in the south had, like the grandfather who decided to flee, and those concerns were very real and very much alive. so they were able to -- that only just gives voice it to but put it in a context for african-americans. so, thank you for sharing that story. >> sure. >> natalie in your book, you t

african american, african culture -- go down the list. it is quite impressive. my colleague at the university of maryland, elsa barkley brown, our lead author of our discussion today. will try to put a frame on what we would like to talk about. ,ylan penningroth next to elsa and at the end, cleanup for us white.is deborah gray they will appear in that order. according to the instructions that we have been given, that i have been given, according to the instructions i have been given, everybody has 10 minutes or thereabouts. a generous 10 minutes, but not that generous. and we are going to try to leave plenty of time for audience participation in what should be a really interesting session. so thank you all for coming, for getting up early this morning. .o be here at 8:00 i take it most of you just stayed up all night. [laughter] prof. berlin: so that is good. and i will introduce elsa. do you want to talk from there, or would you like to calm up. -- come up here? brown: goody morning. who makes up or what makes up black america? to discuss it in ways in which my

and a lot of people associate fashion with african american. -- african american hip-hop. and you learn about the person accreted jackie kennedy's wedding dress. you will learn about arthur mcgee, one of the first fashion designers to break the color ba rrier. england about the all-black world of fashion -- and you will learn about the all-black world of fashion during segregation. they had harlan fashion week. fashion designers who are household names within the communities. if you look at the top of the poster, it should look familiar to you. is a sculpture of a craftsman whose work is renowned for the area of africa in a generic, no prescribed worship. they hold of platforms and kings one of the it is source of that inspired the shape of this building. it is there to speak to how much stilln traits are existing here the night states. and a source for racial pride as they secrete music and poetry, you'll see examples of that. do, if i would like to you want to talk about your gallery? >> you can go ahead. >> i come here and hang out. a circle. -- it is so cool. >> i can

she does just about everything, african-american, african culture, native american culture. go down the -- go down the list. it's quite impressive. my colleague at the university of maryland elsa barkley. elsa barkley brown will lead off our discussion today. try to put a frame on what we would like to talk about. dylan penningroth, next to elsa. and at the end, will be batting clean-up for us is deborah gray white. they'll appear in that order. according to the instructions that we have been given -- according to the instructions i have been given, everybody has ten minutes or thereabouts. we'll give a generous ten minutes but not that generous. we're going to try to leave plenty of time for audience participation in what should be a really interesting -- really interesting session. so thank you all for coming, for getting up early this morning. to be here at 8:00. kind of dial back there. i take it most of you just stayed up all night. so that's good. and i'll introduce elsa. you want to talk from there or would you like to come up here? >> good morning. >> good morning. >

to morphed into african-americans. there are some of those people that got free. we talked about the difference between free and slave. there were differences between people who lived on plantations and farms. people who lived in urban areas. this is the just the beginning of those distinctions which took place in different forms, not the least of which, of course, distinctions between men and women and distinctions of gender. we are not guiloing to talk abo all of distinctions today but we'll deal with this question of who's black and some way set the table for the rest of the sessions during the next two days. my colleagues on the platform, most of you know who they are. they a their bios are in the program. miles, just to the left of me at the university of michigan, sheshe does just about everything, african-american culture and native american culture and going down the list -- it is quite impressive. my colleague at the university of maryland. elsah barkley brown will lead off our discussion today trying to put a

afric african-americ african-americans, and i said this to you guys when we were talking about world war i. african-americans have served valiantly in every single war or conflict this country has ever been part of. and certainly, world war ii was no different. the figures for the numbers of african-americans who served in world war ii are these. first of all, prior to, say, 1941, there were fewer than 4,000 african-americans serving in the military. and only 12 -- 12 -- african-americans had become officers. by 1945, more than 1.2 million african-americans were serving in the united states military, in the pacific, in europe, and on the homefront. yeah? in 1945. by 1945. we all have seen those images of what happened to recruiting stations after pearl harbor, haven't we? after pearl harbor, after the united states was attacked by japan at pearl harbor, every young man, old man, middle age man, just about every man that could possibly do so went to a recruiting office and signed up. you don't get to attack us. young men lied about their ages and got in. old men lied about their ages

from the beginning of this country's history, women and first africans and then african-americans, have always been limited in their mobility. war helped to change that. war was very much a doorway through which women ventured out of the homes where they had been, and for african-americans, it was a way to overcome the racism, at least temporarily. now i'm not trying to suggest that, ah, thank god there was a war because now african-americans and women have an opportunity to bust out and gain some equality. it was just the effects of war. it was a byproduct of war. keeping in mind this idea of it is all about perspective and this idea that in order for us to truly understand world war ii, to truly understand the impact the total war impact of the war, we have to look at individuals. now, we could spend the entire semester doing this. we could spend weeks and weeks talking about the impact of world war ii on japanese americans and an entire semester talking about the impact of world war ii on african-americans and certainly another semester talking about women. and we're going to in a cl

from the beginning of this country's history, women and first africans and then african-americans, have always been limited in their mobility. war helped to change that. war was very much a doorway through which women ventured out of the homes where they had been, and for african-americans, it was a way to overcome the racism, at least temporarily. now i'm not trying to suggest that, ah, thank god there was a war because now african-americans and women have an opportunity to bust out and gain some equality. it was just the effects of war. it was a byproduct of war. keeping in mind this idea of it is all about perspective and this idea that in order for us to truly understand world war ii, to truly understand the impact the total war impact of the war, we have to look at individuals. now, we could spend the entire semester doing this. we could spend weeks and weeks talking about the impact of world war ii on japanese americans and an entire semester talking about the impact of world war ii on african-americans and certainly another semester talking about women. and we're going to in a cl

259 african-americans. this was last updated april 5, 2016. so for the panel, with these numbers, hearing these numbers, what do you think will be the best solution to get -- i know that you talked about the publishers and that the consumers need to go out and get in touch with publishers and request different books and things of that nature. javaka's an author, he's been writing for many, many, many years, and he knows what it takes for him to get his books published. stacy, you are a publisher, so you're hearing from the panel in terms of what needs to be done. and, of course, as a librarian, you heard what, you know, what librarians do to get books on the shelves. so i want to direct this question back to stacy first as a publisher x then i'll go around. with the numbers -- >> what about them exactly? >> what about the numbers, and you also talked about the study that you had done as well. i want to talk about, you know, about what's being studied and who's putting out the studies and what's going on. >>

african-american, caribbean, african hispanic. i put books on my shelves in my department that -- so there's a brooklyn writer who wrote a book about the crew being girl and it's not something you see all the time, and when the book came in was on one of my displays. it was focused on africans in the caribbean experience. all of these different aspects of things that are in our community. [inaudible] i put try to put titles that even if it's not written by a black author, if it does well, for example. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] this is a book that maybe my younger brothers have experienced so that's also things i try to incorporate into my service to let our teens know, we care about right they read, we also care about their cultures. and they can find these things here at the library. >> so thank you stacy how do you get your books into bookstores, libraries,. >> i actually wanted to first address what was being said about being a teacher because that's actually what i found in books is that i actually acquired it back i

pleased to see the african-americans that are here.n the state gave their nomination for donald trump, there was probably fourur or fie states that had african american women announce for their states, and i am proud of that. click my name is calvin tucker. philadelphia and dam a delegate. >> i just read a washington post article that talked about this of being the lowest number of african-american delegates in about a century at the republican convention. your thoughts about the lack of diversity, especially with african-americans? >> i mean, there are african-americans here, delegates and alternates delegates. i do not know the number specifically. but we have to do our work in the african-american community. there are some deep-seated problems in our community. this process has been run for a long time. i do not know why that is a case. but we need to get the solutions to go farther. i think the donald trump, who is a builder, who understands how to create jobs, and the job is as illusions to many of the problems that we face. so i

it of course speaks to the fact that african-americans and africans have had a common -- have had a common enemy and have had a shared -- a shared experience. all of which complicates our understanding of the question of who is black and those of you who are here last night when our discussion kind of mobilized and moved to notions of identity, the question of exactly what blackness means clearly grew and became on the floor. now, we know this from a historical perspective, we know the people who were dragged across the atlantic, started off as -- not as africans, but as could think goes and ang las and mandays and mandingos. somewhere on that trip across the atlantic sydney mince and richard price tells us something called ship mates began to arise with people with a common experience. by the time they got to this side of the atlantic the distinction between those various africans began to morph into something we've calls creoles or african-americans. some of those people got free. we talked about the difference between free and slave. of course, there were differences between people who

this spans a huge expanse of african-americans. it has -- is as broad as a jackie robinson, but also includes figures like a whitney young of the national urban league or a jesse jackson of the rainbow coalition. >> you focus on the role of women within the republican party. in the time period we are looking at, 1936 to the present, how have african-american women tended to vote in presidential elections? prof. rigueur: one might describe african-american women as being the backbone of the democratic party. they are the most loyal of constituents and of voters for the democrats. we are releasing this over the past 80 years, since 1936 african-american women have cast their support for the democratic party and they have been instrumental in winning a number of different elections, most recently 2012 election. the interesting thing about this is that before the switch, the great switch from the republican party to the democratic party, black women were also the most loyal of republican party voters. we can see there is a political co

there are a lot of different ways of being african african-american and that's going to become more salient in the future. the other comment i make as an expert on white people, and that has to do with the beauty, i think the protectiveness of the community -- the black community -- i always tell my students, who is the black community? but we have a sense of a community identity. and i think that has been in some ways part of our persistence, our ability to survive. and i think what you see on the other side is that individualism has probably hurt white people in the sense of falling rates of longevity, of drug abuse and so forth. much talk now about white people dying off or poor white people dying off. and i have not seen a comment about individuality as a factor in morbidity. just two comments. thank you. >> my name is moses massenberg and i represent the association for the african-american life and history. 100 year old organization. i haven't heard the name of the association in the east basis but i want to say that. i have two questions about anti-blackness from two particular group

new, we visit the smithsonian national museum of african american history and culture. which stands on the national mall in the shadow of the washington monument and within the site of the white house. director leads a hardhat tour opens the doors soon. it will feature president obama on opening ceremony. >> what we're going to do today is give you an opportunity to see the museum as a work in progress. about 40% of all the exhibitions are now complete and we are working to make sure that he will be very ready on september 24. the reality of this is simple. .1 years ago we began we had no idea where the building would be, no sense at all of any of the collections. not a single object in the collection. we knew we had to raise a lot of money. we had no money. now, as a result of some the gifted stab you will meet and the thousands of people, we have raised enough money to complete the building and by september, we will be over our target number. we have collected over 40,000 artifacts of which 4000 will be in this museum. instead of two people, there are 200 people worki

the annual meeting of the african-american genealogical society, where more african-americans are been able to trace their roots back to this time that we are talking about. professor professor rosen, very interesting report on african-american women and the sexual brutality they suffered after the civil war. sometimes in studying history, we forget that 49.7%, according to my calculations, but the slaves were women and children. -- of the slaves were women and children. we have this erroneous perception that most of the slaves were men/ most of the abuse that she talks about was going on before 1866. black women were still continuing after the 1865 emancipation to suffer these brutalities. we still need some of you to do studies on african-american children because they have made up a tremendous percentage of those we call slaves. those enslaved, 280,000 people in tennessee. 4 million across the united states. we still don't know a lot about them and what happened to them. during and after slavery. now children's history is a subject that some historians like you are getting into to t

happening son hughes was an african-american -- langston hughes was an african-american poet. he was prolific from 1924 to, i think, 1967. and during that time he composed over 60 books, plays, musicals, poems, columns. he was a very prolific and important african-american writer, and he developed a lot of these styles and genres of literature, poetry such as spoken word that are popular today. he was influenced by the african-american culture. when langston came here, cleveland was starting to change. because you had waves of eastern european migrants here, immigrants coming here for factory work for the war, and you had the wave of african-americans who were coming here also seeking employment. prior to that there was a small african-american population in cleveland, primarily successful, and cleveland was always an integrated city. but with that second migration, that's when you started to see a shift in the racial relations in the city. during langston hughes' time here, he lived in about five different residence cans. he said he -- residences, he said he lived in a lot of

once african-american women got the right to vote along with other women, white women as well, most african-american women got the right to vote, they cast ballots for the republican party. saidafrican-americans farewell to the party of lincoln, black women were among andfirst to do that as well then became supporters of the democratic party. that has remained true to the present day, where they make up the back owner of the modern democratic party. >> when do you first start to see african-american women moving towards the republican party in this present time period? prof. rigueur: the interesting thing about women and political activism is even as they are incredibly loyal voters to the democratic party, we do see them come up occasionally in the republican party. when they do come up, they often have prominent roles during -- roles. black women were largely excluded from white women's republican activism. they formed their own organizations or join with black men to auxiliary organizations. in the 1950's, the republican women's order organization actually appointed a black woman who was in charg

african-americans are arrested at twice the rate of whites, african-american defendants are 75% more likely to be charged with offenses, carrying mandatory minimums. they receive sentences that are almost 10% longer than comparable whites arrested for the same crime. so that if you add it all up, the african-american and hispanic population, who make up only 30% of the general population, make up more than half of the incarcerated population. >> take a state like maryland, where blacks make up 29% of the state's population, but a staggering 72% of its prison population. something has gone wrong with the criminal justice system in america. i don't pretend there is an easy solution, but i do believe we need to all recognize that there is a bigger problem than we want to admit. one final point, we need to keep numbers and statistics in mind after one of these traumatic weeks, just as we do after a terror attack. you can feel safe in america today. law and order does exist. it does not need to be restored. the vast, vast majority of cops in the country do their very dangerous jobs admira

they were african-americans too, right? >> no. there were no african-americans in the league. it is a bit of a contentious subject. this is probably one of the best scenes in league of their own is geena davis who is there in the catcher's gear, missed a ball and the wall went past her. and two or they have american women were standing were standing off to the side and she ran and told the woman to throw it to her, instead she threw it past her and into the hands of someone who was standing behind her and realized what an incredible arm that woman had. if you ask any of the players they will tell you there were no rules about segregation necessarily. black women just didn't try out. segregation from cradle to the grave. no, no black women played in the league. however, there were a number of black women who did play successfully in the negro leagues with the men. tony stone was one. the all-americans did not have any african-american players. >> did other countries have -- did france or britain -- how did they treat their women compared -- >> great britain did have -- and i do

man is a dead black african man. when you have black on black crime, they say, and it is the same reason why you have police crime on black. them as worthless people who are poor, uneducated, and undeserving to live. that is why the commit this crime against them. kimberly: do you think there are any solutions for this? caller: huh? kimberly: do you have any solutions? caller: it is one that will never happen but is very simple. [indiscernible] do unto others what you would want do unto you. this country, the only thing they think and do is practice every day, discrimination, every branch, war. happen like never cannot -- going to happen. respect your neighbors, help others, and contribute to others, that is not what is happening. kimberly: so we have sheila colling and from philadelphia. good afternoon. your calling on the democratic line, i forgot to say that. caller: i am from philadelphia. i lived through the [indiscernible] administration. and one thing i saw was terrific. and i mean horrific. the abuse that was

or use violence against african from.ans,, state to state it differers.n chicago, you can be trained for 12 weeks, and then you are a rorookie on the streetets with a gun. there is a third issue. that is the amount of guns out there in the country. i don't even blame police officers to be very afraid, that they are being attacked at any arete, because there approximately 300 million guns out there in this country, so you cannot be sure. but of course, the issue of racism needs to be addressed. melinda: karen taylor, you said in your opening statement that racism has deep structural roots both in the u.s. and in germany. yet, if you look at the statistics on shootings, last year in germany, seven people were killed by police. this year in the u.s., it is already over 500. even accounting differences in the populations, that is a staggering discrepancy. isn't as much about guns, and some kind of pervasive culture of violence, as it is about racism? karen: i think it is about both. it is both in the u.s. outright racism in germany. if you look at the statist

i think it's clear that more than 90% of african americans who are killed are killed by other african americans. what i think is worth discussing even more is the percentage of african americans killed by cops compared to the number of whites killed by cops. what can you tell us? >> well, we talked about it yesterday that whites are killed, currently i believe now 562. of people killed by cops, 275 are white and 136 are black. the challenge you have is that whites outnumber blacks 3 to 1, that's a fact. what it doesn't take into account is the level of crime, black community, so when you add that in -- >> go ahead, kevin. >> when you throw in those numbers and i'm a mathematician, blacks are underrepresented in law enforcement in terms of what obama was talking about, traffic stops, detained by police, so on and so forth. so it is a misnomer to say more blacks are not being killed than whites, first of all, and per capita as relates to the amount of crime in black communities, unfortunately blacks are actually detained less. and it is substantially less. the only reason i bring it up,

the big surprise is that there are african-american women and prominent positions -- african-american women in prominent positions in the republican party. a number of these women. the other thing that surprised me is that a number of these women were willing to put aside issues to support candidates that we traditionally think of as conservative. even though gloria is a liberal air tocan, we see the she believeser and that she can influence them and push the direction of the platform and be a trusted the problem is that that the candidate is aggressively addressing policies and programs. >> did your research raise any research that you would like to pursue? >> there is lingering questions that came out of my research and one the most pressing issues is positionsh-profile and surrogates with the campaign that is supported by a number of surrogates and ted cruz uses a black woman to talk about anti-federalism. and we think about the and it isle roles important to think about how the republican party is using them. is not only racial issues. >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you for

in 1923, the african national congress was formed.d by the influence of a young nelson mandela, among others, and formed an armed wing called the spear of the nation. >> man: do you see africans being able to develop in this country without the european being pushed out? >> mandela: we have made it very clear in our policy that south africa is a country of many races. there is room for all the various races. ♪ >> anthony: in 1963, mandela was charged with sabotage and conspiracy and sentenced to life imprisonment on robben island. it would take another 27 years of violence and injustice before the inevitable would happen. >> man 1: do you believe in apartheid? >> man 2: i believe that according to god's will, that the white race should be preserved. >> anthony: with south africa's white minority under international sanctions, internal political pressure and the decline of the communist threat, mandela was released from prison in 1990. in '94, he was elected president of the new, free, south africa. there have been very few figures in

the group that's been hit hardest unden an african-american president are african-americans. >> i didn't see much at the republican convention where they addressed that very concern that you're raising. and i will say this. as an african-american male, i think i would be in more trouble at times had we more of the bush policies that we saw over his eight years than we do and the recovery of the economy under obama. but if i might give some historic context to the overall question. and this is really the cultural wars overshadows the economic interests. thomas franks wrote a book in 2004 th 2004 spoke to -- entitled "what's the matter with kansas and why are so many voters voting the cultural issues at their own economic insecurity and not voting for their economic interests and i think that's what nancy pelosi was speaking to. and awakening people to the fact that they need to think about their economic interests and that's what the docratic party is speaking to and spoke to through the last four days. >> so i want to take it to lisa. i'm trying to figure out, why would voting for donald

what is she doing to that african-american? bill: she is basically -- she is defending his right and basically challenging the constitution, which is what that sword is, and the man that has struck down the black man saying liberty and be achieved that way. how ironic and powerful is that? karen: tell me how you use the images collected in this book in workshops with police. bill: for example, bernard parks , who i was a fan of him when he was chief of police in los angeles, invited me to have a forum and symposium at the university of seven california. -- southern company. understand their perceptions of black people. on the flipside, when i deal with young people, i tried to get them to understand how important it is to appreciate, respect, and understand image of police. karen: it works both ways. bill: it absolutely works both ways. karen: what kind of feedback you get from the police? bill: i told police officers in los angeles that they were not aware -- i believe in elective bargaining agreement of the nba, national fest

the vast majority of african-americans when you're talking about funerals is african-americans that have been killed by other african-americans and you have street violence crushing this generation. we have to be honest about these factors. one thing that could help on the police side. it seems like we can't get easily the officers once they've done something bad, disciplined, demoted, fired, prosecuted, but why don't we start off on the front end and have better screening. we need to make sure every officer hired is screened psychologically, are they sociopa sociopathic? do they have deep bias? rather than focus on the firing, we should focus the hiring and do a much better job of making sure. you can't train people if they're deeply biased, and we are not screening across this country for sociopathic behavior, for gender bias and gender bias and maybe we can come together on that and at least make sure that the people coming in are coming in with their hearts in the right place. >> if i may, erin -- >> go ahead, bakari. >> no, i was going to say we can talk about demilitarization, de-e

we have seen instances where police have shut african-americans.ituations -- the nature of the incident of dallas, the biggest attack in law enforcement since 9/11, it is a test for the country. i try to be optimistic. voicesave been that have been discordant. we have to really come together. john: this is a particular test. over the course of the last 25 years in politics, polarization has been the defining feature, we have fallen into this easy way of talking about every controversy that happens in the country. you are in the red team, the blue team. this is one of the instances where the challenge for the country -- we will talk about the candidates -- for the country, to have a conversation about this and address the issues by taking off the jerseys and -- we have had black and white victims this week -- how do we have a conversation between the police and the community they serve that is not driven by the knee-jerk polarization. mark: on the most human level, the reality that every american has the think about now is if you are police officer

you have when you have two african-american men shot within one day of each other by police the african-americanty was outraged but i didn't see that outrage in the white community or in the police community, quite frankly. now you see a lot of outrage because five officers were tragically gunned down but also selective outrage so perhaps we can have this conversation collective outrage and move forward and do something about it. we've been divide on this issue for far too long. it's time for us to come together and try to figure out some way to move forward cohesively. >> and, matt, you too have traveled across the country. you've talked to voters and talked to people. you live in texas. you're also covering the presidential campaign and when you look at two leading candidates in both parties who have such very high unfavorability ratings, what is that mean? how does one of them bring the country together? >> well, i think it's very difficult at this moment but it is possible. i don't know if they have the capacity in themselves to do it. i disagree with what the president said which is i do th

, african asian or african. it said asian pacific or japanese but it just said white under caucasian. nothing to reference european or russian or anything like that. why do you think it's so hard for some caucasians to recognize there are also immigrants in this country that are quick to say this is their country? >> i think a lot of that has to do with the way history is taught as well. it creates a civics lesson and not a history lesson. it creates cynicism in terms of a very flattened narrative about how the cool and by whom and how the nation was founded, who built the nation, who created the railroads, who built the city's, who invented this, who invented that and if you go through those kind of standard textbooks, what you will find is very minimal discussion about anybody else. it is whites who have built america, whites who have sustained america, whites, whites who created america, whites are america. it's that framing in our textbooks from k-12 have really solidified this narrative. so we do get that w

southern africa was an attempt to escape the logic of decolonization and one person one vote and african majority rules. therefore you cannot begin to understand the tribulations, they fought against the formation of the united states of may recollect, they sided with london in the attempt to crush the slave rebellion just like the african did not accept the establishment of the new state of in november 1965 and when you fight a war in -- and lose, you can expect to be penalized until you are able to turn to tables against oppressors and one of the ways that we were able to turn the tables against oppressors was through haitian revolution which follows quickly upon the footsteps of the formation of the u.s. constitution and the first convening of congress, in some ways it was a rebute and why i start with george washington expressing reservation of the haitian revolution. in any case, what happens is that that the africans then known as espanola were able to succeed and establish this independent black republic in 1804. but as you might have surmised there was great constornation about t

ownership of the problem cannot simply fall on african-americans.rudy giuliani because he's one of the people that no matter police officers did always defend them. we see this with spokespersons for police unions. we want to hear from police officers and we want to come together and talk in the same way we have asked to take responsibility. >> no cop can control what another cop does but all cops will be judged by what another do we see this with what happens in minnesota and what does it do for normal cops just trying to do their job. >> first i ask folks not to rush to judgment on the incidents because we haven't seen the full investigation and the videos tapes are a snippet and snapshot in time so i'd wait for the investigation. i do think it's a difficult thing for the police to deal with. i'd like to go back and talk about the collection of data police shootings because i think it's important. first it's an embarrassment to our profession we have to rely on the media to collect that data and we have been working to develop a platform to captur

against african-americans, particularly.n a moment, yesterday's espe awards last night, james made an impassioned plea and was joined by fellow nba players, friends like carammelo anthony, chris pl and dwyane wade. >> the events of the past week have put a spotlight on the injustice, distraut and angered. >> the racial pro filing has to stop. the shoot to kill mentality has to stop. >> it's time to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, what are we doing to create change? >> and joining me now, dave ziren, sports writer for the nation. dave, you walk into cleveland's airport, you see nba championship t-shirts, alongside celebrating the fact this is the host city of the rnc. so it's only appropriate we're here. and the favorite son of ohio was on that stage, talking about this. it reminds me so much obviously of jim brown of the cleveland browns and what he was able to do. >> yeah, and there was that moment at the cleveland cavaliers' victory parade, where it was jim brown, who, of course, captained the last championship, lite

african-americans for their part do a number of things in response. in the rural south it's not just black churches and black schools that are lit aflame. there is a rash of barn burnings in the south. on large plantations you have barns, huge structures that were the symbols of agricultural capitalism in 1865, 1866. so what you see is a number of these things would go up in smoke. planters are furious that these symbols of their economy, practical instruments of aggregating, the economic wealth of the land at the time were being destroyed. this is in response to a wave of terror that had been going on from the first day of emancipation into the reconstruction era. african-americans began to repurpose buildings. it is this repurposing that i find interesting. back when i worked with folks at the university of richmond, we built a 3-d model of the city of richmond. right here is a structure that is commonly known as lumpkin's jail. robert lumpkin was a slave trader. one of the large slave traders. farther north than others, he likely stayed here in an

tension between police and african americans is not new. we decided to go to newark, new jersey, where 49 years ago this week, the city was engulfed in race riots touched off when a black taxi driver was pulled over and then beaten by white police officers. in the months that followed, protests and riots swept the country. today, newark is still struggling and people are still protesting. this week we heard anger and fear expressed at a march. there were also signs of hope and progress. we asked michael hill, a correspondent for new jersey public television, to put the story in perspective. >> what do we want? justice. >> reporter: a protest in newark against police brutality is nothing new. 49 years ago this week, new jersey's most populated city burned in rebellion. martial law was imposed and indelibly stained this city, and those who lived through it-- as i did in newark's north ward as an eight-year-old boy. i remember my mother repeatedly warning us not to look out the window for fear of being shot. but i managed to sneak a peek or tw

we have an african-american president who has been elected twice. we have a number of african-american men and women graduating from college, graduating from high school, more black women graduating from college than before, more african-americans working in corporate america. i think a great argument can be made on the other side. when you look at some of the basic metrics, economic metrics, including income, including household wealth, you certainly can make an argument that african-americans are not faring as well as they would like. now, the police violence and brutality and some of the misconduct and obviously the tragedy in dallas, i separate that from some of the other things. it is hard to fully embrace my former colleague's comments about this racism because indeed, the president has been elected twice. so if racism was as pernicious as one would suggest, he may not have won. are they a louder group, people are more public about their views, are incidents of racial organizations or organizations dedicated to sub lattios, are they louder tod

particular african-american men in sports get at this issue of acting white or not acting ite. i think we have to study success more v deficit standpoint and find out what the healthy peer groups, what are the healthy identities being formed in black communities. and one other short comment, the 1999 stanford football team had 12 african-americans on that team who played in wisconsin in the rose bowl in early 2000. they called all of them dr. martin luther king. we have to investigate other formations of reality. >> i don't want to use sports as the crowning achievement as success for blacks in america. we can go to the law and to entrepreneurship and there's all these success stories that defy is heing -- why don't we talk about them acting black. look at the way they're being influenced. rather we'd rather change the narrative to say blacks are acting white. sports does not do us success in the crowning achievement of what we call america. >> we make the mistake of acting white and attaching that to success. i think there are certain cultural norms, certain speech patterns th

on the heels of two african-american men killed this week. police departments nationwide on edge after the deadliest day for american law enforcement since 9/11. we're live from dallas with all the latest on the investigation. "nightly news" begins right now. >> announcer: tragedy in dallas, this is nbc "nightly news with lester holt" reporting from dallas. >>> police say the shots that turned the streets behind me in the killing zone, taking the lives of five police officers and wounding 11 others and a civilian. tonight the nation shares dallas's anxiety and shock at how a police protest against the death of a black man. as marchers rang in fear from the shots, police took cover and desperately tried to neutralize the attacker. tonight we have learned that the sniper is an army war veteran. >> reporter: the ambush was well planned, well thought out and evil, police say. hundreds of protesters caught in the cross fire, while officers were targeted in cold blood. >> i didn't see anybody else get shot, it was just the cops. >> reporter: tonigh