THE UGLY LEGACY OF AMERICAN PLANTATION POLITICS IN THE 21st CENTURY...
“...To a number of Talladega alumni, the Dec. 30 announcement that the band would march in the parade was an insult to the very principles of the college, which was established two years after the end of the Civil War. The school is affiliated with the United Church of Christ, a liberal Protestant denomination that was deeply involved in the civil rights movement, and for decades it served as an incubator for theories and practices of social justice.Nikky Finney, a poet and Talladega graduate who is now a professor at the University of South Carolina, said in a statement this week that the band should not help celebrate Mr. Trump, who, she said, has maligned women and Mexican immigrants and has proposed barring all Muslims from entering the country. In an interview on Thursday, Ms. Finney, channeling a James Brown lyric, said the college had “sold out the history of Talladega College for chicken change” and “maybe a tin star on a hatemonger’s parade route.As of Thursday afternoon, an online petition calling for the band to withdraw from the inaugural parade had attracted more than 1,900 signers, some of them supporters of the college who have threatened to withhold future contributions..."...Up the street at a real estate office near the 1830s-era courthouse, Randy and Heather Roberts, a white couple who voted for Mr. Trump, raved about the Talladega College band and its performance at the Dec. 5 Christmas parade. Ms. Roberts showed a video of the band on her phone. “They were phenomenal,” Ms. Roberts said..."
U.S.
Ending Speculation, Black College Says Band Will Play at Inaugural Parade
by RICHARD FAUSSET
January 5, 2017
New York Times
January 5, 2017
New York Times
The marching band at
Talladega College featured on the front page of a local newspaper in
Talladega, Ala. The school has become the subject of an impassioned
national outcry.
Credit
Kevin D. Liles for The New York Times
TALLADEGA, Ala. — For a band at a tiny, little-known, historically
black college, it seems in some ways to be the gig of a lifetime: a
chance to march and perform at the Jan. 20 presidential inaugural parade
in Washington. Some of the musicians at Talladega College have been
excited to see the capital for the first time.
But because the
president-elect is Donald J. Trump, the school has become the subject of
an impassioned national outcry, with online petitions, threats to end
donations and a flurry of how-could-yous from alumni who feel that
performing in the parade would betray the values of an institution
founded by newly freed slaves 150 years ago.
On Thursday, after
days of speculation that the college administration might bow to the
pressure and remove the band from the parade roster, the president of
Talladega College, Billy Hawkins, issued a statement confirming the
participation of the band, the Marching Tornadoes, and argued, in
essence, that the 58th presidential inauguration is about something
bigger than Mr. Trump.
“We respect and appreciate how our
students and alumni feel about our participation in this parade,” Dr.
Hawkins said. “As many of those who chose to participate in the parade
have said, we feel the inauguration of a new president is not a
political event but a civil ceremony celebrating the transfer of power.”
Similar issues have been raised about other entertainers scheduled to
perform, among them the Radio City Rockettes and the Mormon Tabernacle
Choir. But because of Talladega’s history, the issues have been
especially intense here, with calls for the college to reverse its
decision to take part in the festivities.
And beyond Talladega,
the controversies raise tough questions for Mr. Trump’s most ardent
critics as his presidency dawns: What is the proper response to a
president as polarizing as Mr. Trump? Should the office of the president
be honored, no matter who fills it? Or should there be four years of
pure rejection and defiance?
And if Mr. Trump’s opponents refuse
to participate in his presidency, can critics on the right do the same
thing to some other president-elect in the future?
To a number of
Talladega alumni, the Dec. 30 announcement that the band would march in
the parade was an insult to the very principles of the college, which
was established two years after the end of the Civil War. The school is
affiliated with the United Church of Christ, a liberal Protestant
denomination that was deeply involved in the civil rights movement, and
for decades it served as an incubator for theories and practices of
social justice.
Nikky Finney, a poet and Talladega graduate who
is now a professor at the University of South Carolina, said in a
statement this week that the band should not help celebrate Mr. Trump,
who, she said, has maligned women and Mexican immigrants and has
proposed barring all Muslims from entering the country. In an interview
on Thursday, Ms. Finney, channeling a James Brown lyric, said the
college had “sold out the history of Talladega College for chicken
change” and “maybe a tin star on a hatemonger’s parade route.”
As
of Thursday afternoon, an online petition calling for the band to
withdraw from the inaugural parade had attracted more than 1,900
signers, some of them supporters of the college who have threatened to
withhold future contributions.
The campus of Talladega College on
Wednesday. To a number of alumni, the announcement last month that the
band would march in the parade was an insult to the principles of the
college. Credit Kevin D. Liles for The New York Times
But a
second petition, which had nearly 300 supporters, argued that the parade
was not about politics but “about seeing firsthand the process of a
transition” and giving the students a chance to be a part of history.
“We are not one-track thinkers and believe everyone is entitled” to
their own beliefs, it stated. “However, we are in support of the United
States of America.”
As the debate heated up this week in online
forums for students and alumni, the leadership at the private, four-year
college hunkered down to consider how best to proceed. The campus
police ordered reporters off the 50-acre campus.
Brief interviews with a few band members on Tuesday evening revealed a group divided.
Jerome Haynes, 18, a freshman who plays the snare drum, said he hoped
politics would not get in the way of an exciting opportunity for the
band.
In contrast, Ronald Peterson, 21, a sophomore who plays
cymbals, said he was going to talk to the director about staying home.
“I feel that those who are not Republicans should not have to play for
it,” he said.
On Thursday afternoon, some students said the administration had done the right thing, despite the protests from alumni.
Antonio Phillips, 24, a senior and a drum major, welcomed the exposure.
“We’re musicians, so this is a good platform for us to showcase our
talent in front of the world,” he said.
His friend Ken Randolph,
20, a junior who is not in the band, said the concerns of alumni like
Ms. Finney “weigh heavily on the students of Talladega.” But he said Mr.
Trump might benefit from the exposure to a black art form. “This is a
part of our culture,” Mr. Randolph said. “With it being on his front
doorstep, he might be able to apprehend the vibe and the culture.”
That drama in Talladega, a city of 15,000 about an hour’s drive east of
Birmingham, played out as black activists, including the N.A.A.C.P.
president, Cornell William Brooks, were arrested on Tuesday in Mobile in
a civil-disobedience action at the office of Senator Jeff Sessions, the
Alabama Republican nominated to be attorney general in the Trump
administration. Mr. Sessions, who is white, was rejected by the Senate
for a federal judgeship in 1986 after he was accused of making racially
insensitive statements.
To some Talladega alumni, the possibility
that policies long opposed by African-Americans could now be enacted by
a Republican-dominated Congress and executive branch was what made the
notion of a black band marching for Mr. Trump seem so distasteful.
“There’s a great deal of fear in this country that the Voting Rights
Act is going to be abolished, that the Affordable Care Act is going to
be abolished, that Planned Parenthood is going to be cut off from
funding, that Medicaid is going be cut off from funding,” said J. Mason
Davis, a Birmingham lawyer who graduated from the college in 1956.
“Don’t you understand why we have a fear of the man?”
“I don’t
think they should go,” said Curt Welch, owner of a barbershop. “They
might get shot at.” Credit Kevin D. Liles for The New York Times
Donavon Jackson, 24, a former trumpet player in the band who graduated
last year, said performing as part of the inauguration would be
particularly special for a college of about 1,000 students whose band
program is only about five years old. The school does not have a
football team, which makes parade invitations all the more important.
“I’m honored to go to a school that can say they marched in an
inauguration parade,” said Mr. Jackson, who received a chemistry degree
and now lives in Houston. “Not necessarily for the person — and that’s
not necessarily saying he’s a bad person.”
In the statement on
Thursday, school officials said they still faced the “challenge” of
raising more than $60,000 to cover expenses for the trip.
The
population of the city of Talladega is divided about evenly between
blacks and whites, and to a visitor, it can feel like a place where
racial harmony and discord coexist on seemingly parallel planes. Whites
speak with pride about the historic black college downtown — though one
white person was overheard on Wednesday warning of a liberal plot to
foment a “race war” so that President Obama might declare martial law
before the inauguration.
While some residents said the band
should stay home, and others said it should attend the event in
Washington, a few spoke harshly of Mr. Trump while hoping the
inauguration would help the band get noticed — something the city, which
was bypassed by the interstate highway system, has struggled with in
recent decades.
Bonquita McClellan, 26, manages her father’s
restaurant, Big Mac’s Open Pit BBQ, near campus. Ms. McClellan, who is
black, said the disdain for Mr. Trump among her African-American peers
was universal. “If anybody would have had us in concentration camps,”
she said, “it’d be him.”
But she also said the band should go and
make a name for itself in the nation’s capital. “How often,” she asked,
“does Talladega College get a chance to play for the president?”
Up the street at a real estate office near the 1830s-era courthouse,
Randy and Heather Roberts, a white couple who voted for Mr. Trump, raved
about the Talladega College band and its performance at the Dec. 5
Christmas parade. Ms. Roberts showed a video of the band on her phone.
“They were phenomenal,” Ms. Roberts said.
Ms. Roberts, 41, said
she grew up with black and white friends. Mr. Roberts, 48, said he and
his wife were pleased to cater to their multiracial clientele.
But when they spoke about politics, the couple sounded like people who
knew something was broken but did not know how it might be fixed.
“It is not going to be pleasant for the next four years,” Ms. Roberts said. “It is going to be a battle.”
U.S.
No Regrets From Dylann Roof in Jailhouse Manifesto
CHARLESTON,
S.C. — More than six weeks after killing nine members of a black
congregation here in 2015, Dylann S. Roof wrote extensively in a journal
about his purpose, emphasizing that he hoped to incite others to join
him in fomenting a race war.
“I
did what I thought would make the biggest wave,” the then 21-year-old
white supremacist wrote, “and now the fate of our race is in the hands
of my brothers who continue to live freely.”
Page
after page from the journal was read aloud on Thursday afternoon in
Federal District Court here, where jurors will decide, perhaps as early
as next week, whether to sentence Mr. Roof to death. The journal
provided a startling extension of the manifestoes Mr. Roof wrote before
he opened fire in the fellowship hall of Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015.
Seemingly
aware that he faced the likelihood of at least a life term in prison,
Mr. Roof wrote that he “would rather live in prison knowing I took
action for my race than live with the torture of sitting idle.”
Mr.
Roof’s choice to represent himself in the penalty phase of his trial,
and to reject a defense based on mental incapacity, has raised questions
about his desire to avoid execution. But in the aftermath of the
attack, at least, he saw a continued purpose for his life.
“I
want to live now,” he wrote in the journal, most of which was read from
the witness stand by a Charleston County Sheriff’s Office official,
Lauren M. Knapp. “I want to see a future. I want to help make the way.”
He
began by explaining that he wanted to complete the rambling racist
thoughts included in an online manifesto that he began before the
massacre, which he said he “was unable to finish before because I was in
a hurry to get to Charleston.”
In
a dizzying blitz of insults and stereotypes, predictions and perceived
problems, Mr. Roof railed against Jews, Hispanics, African-Americans,
gays and Muslims. He said that Adolf Hitler would someday “be inducted
as a saint,” and he warned that unless white people “take violent
action, we have no future.”
Prosecutors
used the writings, which were confiscated by jail officials on Aug. 3,
2015, to bolster their contention that he had opened fire with
“substantial planning and premeditation,” which the authorities argue is
an aggravating factor in Mr. Roof’s capital case.
The
reading of Mr. Roof’s journal and Ms. Knapp’s accompanying testimony
took less than an hour on a day that was otherwise focused on four of
the shooting’s victims: the Rev. DePayne Middleton Doctor, 49; the Rev.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45; the Rev. Daniel Lee Simmons Sr., 74; and
Myra Thompson, 59.
Family
members and friends of the dead repeatedly walked to the witness stand
and recounted anecdotes of vacations and holiday meals, final
conversations and funerals.
“DePayne
was a stickler for the truth, and she was a stickler for rules and
order,” said Bethane Middleton-Brown, a sister of Ms. Middleton Doctor.
“She governed her life according to the word.”
Mr. Roof and his court-appointed lawyers have grown frustrated with the hours of testimony about the victims of the shootings.
“If
I don’t present any mitigation evidence, the victim-impact evidence
will take over the whole sentencing trial and guarantee that I get the
death penalty,” Mr. Roof wrote in a motion that was unsealed on
Thursday.
One
of Mr. Roof’s lawyers, David I. Bruck, argued that some witness
testimony had been improper for the trials’ sentencing phase. “This is
sentencing,” Mr. Bruck told Judge Richard M. Gergel on Thursday morning.
“It is not a memorial service.”
Although
Judge Gergel rejected Mr. Bruck’s request that he be allowed to object
to testimony, he cautioned prosecutors against calling an excessive
number of witnesses. Julius N. Richardson, a prosecutor, said that the
government expected to rest its case on Monday.
Mr. Roof has said that he does not plan to call any witnesses.
January 4, 2017
Dylann Roof Himself Rejects Best Defense Against Execution
January 1, 2017
