United States Republican smears murdered George Floyd

This 31 May 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

Racist Mississippi mayor attacks George Floyd. John Iadarola and Ana Kasparian break it down on The Damage Report.

“A Mississippi [Republican party] mayor is facing serious backlash after posting several comments on social media platforms concerning the death of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died in police custody Monday evening after an officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.

In videos of the fatal encounter that quickly went viral, a white police officer was shown sharply pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck while he was handcuffed and not moving on the pavement. Various cries protesting the officer’s conduct can be heard, all of which went ignored.

Floyd, who is black, was suspected of using a forged $20 bill on Monday evening. He could repeatedly be heard crying out, “I can’t breathe”, before he eventually lost consciousness.

The officers involved in the horrific incident were fired on Wednesday, but mayor Hal Marx of Petal, Mississippi, took a different approach, defending their actions.

This music video is called Nina Simone – Mississippi Goddam (Live in Netherlands).

Mississippi, USA, Trump’s ICE raids

This 9 August 2019 video from the USA says about itself:

Mass ICE Raids in Mississippi After Workers Fought for Better Conditions Leave Kids Without Parents

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swept through seven poultry processing plants in Mississippi this week and arrested 680 people. It was the largest single-state raid in U.S. history. The mass arrests also came on the first day of the school year, and some children walked home from school only to find their doors locked and their family members missing. Wednesday’s raids targeted chicken processing plants operated by Koch Foods, one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S. Last year, the company paid out $3.75 million to settle an Equal Employment Opportunities Commission class-action suit charging the company with sexual harassment, national origin and race discrimination, and retaliation against Latino workers at one of its Mississippi plants.

Labor activists say it’s the latest raid to target factories where immigrant workers have organized unions, fought back against discrimination or challenged unsafe and unsanitary conditions. We speak with Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and L. Patricia Ice, legal projects director at the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance.

This 9 August 2019 video from the USA says about itself:

ICE raided 7 Mississippi poultry plants after workers fought for their rights

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided seven Koch Foods poultry plants in Mississippi this week, resulting in 680 arrests. Labor activists believe these mass raids were a direct response to a class-action lawsuit filed against the company last year, charging them with sexual harassment, national origin and race discrimination, and retaliation against Latino workers at one of its Mississippi plants. The company was forced to settle for $3.75 million. ICE provided no prior notice to local government officials, leaving schools scrambling to help children who returned home on the first day of school to find their parents missing. We spoke with L. Patrice Ice, legal projects director at the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, and Chokwe Antar Lumumba, activist and mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, about the time leading up to the largest single-state raids in U.S. history and the lasting impact these mass arrests will have on their community.

This 9 August 2019 video from the USA says about itself:

Is Trump a white supremacist? Chokwe Antar Lumumba says yes

Seven Mississippi poultry plants were raided this week in the largest single-state raid in U.S. history, resulting in 680 arrests. These raids followed closely behind the massacre in El Paso, Texas, where a white nationalist released a manifesto citing a “hispanic invasion of Texas” before killing 22 people in a Walmart. “America is infected with a disease and that is called racism,” says Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

“Some kids are hiding in their house, Anne Frank-style”. Residents compare trauma of Mississippi ICE Raid to Hurricane Katrina: here.

ARRESTED MIGRANTS GET LITTLE MERCY Immigration and Customs Enforcement  arrested 680 workers in Mississippi at the beginning of the month. At least one of the workers was still breastfeeding when she was detained. Instead of cultivating the workers as sources of information as promised, the Trump administration is prosecuting dozens of them.  [HuffPost]

Trump supports racist Republican in Mississippi election

This video from the USA says about itself:

Mississippi Special Election: Can Democrat Mike Espy Pull Off an Upset Victory for the US Senate?

26 November 2018

“Mississippi voters do not like to be embarrassed”, says Professor Gerald Horne while analysing the upcoming special election between Democrat Mike Espy against incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith

By Patrick Martin in the USA:

Trump campaigns for Mississippi Senate candidate Hyde-Smith as Democratic challenger shifts to the right

27 November 2018

President Trump traveled to Mississippi Monday in a last-minute effort to save a long-held Republican seat in the US Senate. The runoff election between Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Mike Espy takes place today. The two finished one-two in the November 6 election, but the runoff was required since neither received 50 percent of the vote.

Trump held rallies in Tupelo and Biloxi. He spent far more time than usual pleading for votes for Hyde-Smith, in contrast to his rallies before the November 6 vote, when he generally focused his praise on himself and sometimes ignored the candidates he was supposedly promoting.

The two rallies were hastily scheduled after state Republicans warned that Hyde-Smith was in danger of losing, and appeared both badly organized and poorly attended. It was particularly notable that Trump’s effort to center the rallies on the question of immigration and trade protectionism did not arouse much enthusiasm, even among his own loyalists.

At times, Trump appeared to be merely going through the motions, denouncing the Democrats as the party of “radical socialism and open borders,” although the White House is now engaged in detailed talks with congressional Democratic leaders on a federal budget that gives the lion’s share to the military, and billions in additional funding for “border security.”

The US president appeared with Hyde-Smith, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, who appointed her to the Senate seat, and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Hyde-Smith was challenged by an ultra-right Republican, State Senator Chris McDaniel, and by Espy, a former Democratic congressman and cabinet official in the Clinton administration. Hyde-Smith won 41 percent of the vote November 6, Espy 40 percent, and McDaniel 17 percent, eliminating McDaniel for the runoff. McDaniel’s supporters were expected either to vote for Hyde-Smith or sit out the election, but not vote for Espy, an African-American Democrat.

Given the uncertainty about voter turnout, and Hyde-Smith’s visible deficiencies as a candidate and public speaker, Republican state and national officials have openly expressed concern that the runoff could produce an upset victory for the Democrat, like that won by Doug Jones in Alabama a year ago, when he narrowly defeated the ultra-right Republican nominee Roy Moore.

Moore’s political standing was undermined by a series of media reports alleging predatory conduct against teenage girls more than 30 years ago, when he was a local prosecutor in his late 30s. Hyde-Smith has suffered a similar political slide over the past two weeks based on statements and conduct linking her to Mississippi’s long history of brutal racial oppression.

Several of her comments were made just before the November 6 vote but not widely publicized until afterwards. This included a declaration that she was so loyal to one of her prominent supporters that “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” This was widely understood as a casual reference to Mississippi’s long and gruesome history of lynching, which took the lives of hundreds of black men in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

There was a backlash when this statement became widely publicized, and numerous big corporations that had sent campaign contributions to Hyde-Smith asked for their money back, including Google, Walmart, AT&T, Union Pacific, Pfizer and Boston Scientific.

At a campaign event at Mississippi State University November 3, Hyde-Smith expressed support for efforts to suppress voter turnout on other campuses—i.e., the historically black colleges and universities in the state, outside the two main public colleges, MSU and the University of Mississippi. “There’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools that maybe we don’t want to vote,” she said. “Maybe we just want to make it a little more difficult.”

Hyde-Smith refused to apologize for either statement, declaring that she had been joking on both occasions, but then declined all interview requests or further comment on the subject, until she was forced to address it in her lone debate with Espy. Then she issued an apology to “anyone who was offended”, without indicating that there was actually anything to cause offense.

There were also reports in the local Mississippi newspapers that Hyde-Smith had attended a “segregation academy” as a high school student, one of many such institutions established after court-ordered school integration finally came to the state in 1969. Even more damaging was the report that Hyde-Smith had sent her own daughter to a similar “whites-only” institution decades later.

The Democratic candidate Espy has reacted to the unexpected possibility of actual election to office by shifting even further to the right, in an effort to reassure the Mississippi business elite that he will faithfully serve their interests if he wins the runoff.

Espy has his own skeletons in the closet. He resigned from the Clinton cabinet over corruption charges, although he was eventually acquitted on all counts. …

At the debate with Hyde-Smith, Espy embraced the slogan “Mississippi first”, a transparent tribute to Trump, declaring, “Mississippi first means I value Mississippi over everything else — over party, over persons, over everybody. I am an independent person and I will be an independent senator,” he said. He also called for a “strong immigration policy.”

Nooses were found hanging from trees outside the Mississippi State Capitol — a day before a runoff election to decide whether a black man will represent the state in the U.S. Senate for the first time since the 1880s.

LAWMAKERS CLASH OVER TRUMP’S RACISM Tensions boiled over in an argument about racism during Cohen’s testimony. The exchange between Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) concerned Meadows’ presentation earlier in the day of black HUD official Lynne Patton as a political prop to suggest Trump is not racist. [HuffPost]

WHITE SUPREMACIST REPUBLICAN SAYS RACIST THINGS White supremacist Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) told The New York Times that he doesn’t mind that the American population includes a range of races ― as long as the culture stays white and European. “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” he asked. [HuffPost]

STEVE KING RUNNING FOR ANOTHER TERM Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said that he plans to run for a 10th term in Congress despite his history of support for white supremacy. [HuffPost]

Racist United States politician against poor people

This 26 November 2018 video from the USA says about itself:

Rev. Barber: MS Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith Jokes About Hangings, But Her Policies Will Strangle the Poor

Mississippi voters will head to the polls Tuesday in the state’s hotly contested runoff senate election, as incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith faces off against Democrat Mike Espy. In a state that Donald Trump won by 20 percentage points two years ago, Espy is attempting to become Mississippi’s first African-American senator since Reconstruction.

His opponent, incumbent Sen. Hyde-Smith, attended and graduated from an all-white segregationist high school and recently posed for photos with a Confederate Army cap and other Confederate artifacts. Earlier this month, a viral video showed Hyde-Smith praising a campaign supporter, saying, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”

Mississippi was once considered the lynching capital of the United States.

We speak with Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach. He recently traveled to Mississippi to get out the vote.

New American film on Emmett Till

This video from the USA says about itself:

15 October 2017

Kevin Wilson Jr. talks “My Nephew Emmett” at Woodstock Film Festival 2017.

By Joanne Laurier in the USA:

3 January 2018

In December, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Short Films and Animation branch selected its shortlist of 10 live-action short films (out of 165 submissions) to contend for Oscar nominations.

After January screenings, branch members will narrow this down to the final five nominees. Nominations for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced January 23. The ceremony will be held March 4 this year.

In the age of the $200 million blockbuster, short fiction films hold no interest for the box-office-obsessed media. However, such works may demonstrate considerable artistry and insight. Like the short story, the short film is capable of isolating and treating a dramatic moment with great intensity and resonance.

My Nephew Emmett

The brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on August 28, 1955, in Mississippi, horrified millions and helped ignite the Civil Rights movement. At the time, Till, an African American boy from Chicago, was visiting family in Money, Mississippi. Four days before his murder, Till stopped at Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, encountering Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. At the time Bryant claimed Till flirted with her. Years later she admitted this was a lie.

Based on Bryant’s mere accusation, her husband Roy and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, seized Till from his great-uncle’s house, forced the young boy to carry a 75-pound cotton-gin fan to the bank of the Tallahatchie River and take off his clothes. They then beat him, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river.

Till’s killers were acquitted by an all-white jury, all of whose members had been visited and threatened by the Ku Klux Klan, although there was little or no question about their guilt.

Written and directed by Kevin Wilson, Jr., My Nephew Emmett recounts the hours leading up to the atrocity. Emmett (Joshua Wright) is visiting his great-uncle Mose Wright (L.B. Williams) and great-aunt Elizabeth (Jasmine Guy) in rural Money. Emmett returns from a Saturday night excursion in good humor, but Mose is worried that the boy is naïve about the town’s racism.

Mose’s most disturbing fears are realized when there is an incessant pounding on his door at 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Three men, two white and one black, force their way into Mose’s home, demanding to know “where is the nigger who whistled at my wife?”

They push Mose aside, drag Emmett out of bed, and punch him, saying, “Don’t ever look a white man in the eyes again.” Mose pleads for Emmett’s life, begging to be taken in the boy’s stead. My Nephew Emmett ’s final scene shows a petrified Emmett being thrown into the back of a truck.

“Three days later, Mose Wright identified the body of Emmett Louis Till at the Tallahatchie River”, the movie’s postscript informs us. Movingly, there is a short video clip of the real Mose Wright.

The murder of Emmett Till and the freeing of his killers was a seminal event in the history of the struggle against racism, galvanizing opposition to Jim Crow segregation and racist terror. Furthermore, the decision by Mamie Till Bradley, Emmett’s mother, to have an open-casket funeral so the world could witness his mutilated remains, left an indelible mark.

Last Thursday, the Associated Press reported that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) had reopened its investigation into the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American from Chicago who was murdered while visiting relatives in Mississippi: here.

WHITE NATIONALIST FLAG SEEN AT NEW EMMETT TILL MEMORIAL A group carrying a white nationalist flag tried to film a video in front of the recently installed memorial for Emmett Till over the weekend, according to security footage captured at the site. The group seemed to be making some sort of propaganda video. [HuffPost]

WHY EMMETT TILL’S STORY REMAINS UNDER THREAT Emmett Till was 14 when he was lynched by two white men in 1955, a horror that catalyzed the Civil Rights Movement and cast a light on the unspeakable brutality inflicted on African-Americans in Mississippi. Today, family members, local officials and others are fighting to keep Till’s memory alive — even as others attempt to erase his story. [HuffPost]

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Deportation, pollution in Donald Trump’s USA

This video from the USA says about itself:

2 March 2017

Daniela Vargas, who was brought into the US by her parents at age 7, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after speaking out about her family’s story.

By Elise Foley and Dana Liebelson in the USA today:

Dreamer Arrested After Speaking To Media Will Be Deported Without Hearing, Attorney Says

“ICE’s assertion that her detention is ‘routine’ is absurd and seems anything but,” one lawmaker said.

WASHINGTON ― A 22-year-old undocumented immigrant arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Jackson, Mississippi, on Wednesday after speaking to the media about her family’s detention is set to be deported without a court hearing, her attorney said on Thursday.

Daniela Vargas, who came to the U.S. from Argentina when she was 7 years old, previously had a work permit and deportation reprieve under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Her DACA status expired last November, and because she was saving money for the renewal — which costs $495 — her new application wasn’t received until Feb. 10.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for ICE said Vargas would go through court proceedings to determine whether she is eligible for some type of relief, adding that the agency would take no further action until those proceedings were completed.

But Abby Peterson, Vargas’ attorney, said ICE agents told her on Thursday that they would instead pursue immediate deportation without a court hearing or bond because Vargas entered the country through the visa waiver program, which allows certain foreign nationals to enter the U.S. for under 90 days without a visa. (Argentina was previously part of the program, although it no longer is.) Individuals who use the visa waiver program have no right to a hearing or to contest their removal unless they are seeking asylum.

Peterson argued that the facts of Vargas’ case should be considered, including that she received DACA relief and had reapplied to the program.

“She was 7 years old at the time [she came to the U.S.],” Peterson said. “She didn’t waive those rights, her parents waived those rights. And now she’s an adult trying to assert her own rights.”

An ICE spokesman said the agency has no additional comment on Vargas’ case and directed The Huffington Post to the statement it made on Wednesday.

Vargas’ father and brother were detained on their way to work on Feb. 15. After her father was apprehended in the driveway, Vargas hid in the house for hours until ICE agents came in with a warrant, wielding guns. Agents questioned Vargas about her DACA status — an ICE official claimed she said she had it — but let her go.

When HuffPost emailed with her on Tuesday, Vargas — who was planning to go back to school to study to be a math professor — said she was moving around because she was “afraid to stay in one spot and be taken back to Argentina.”

Vargas talked to news outlets about ICE picking up her brother and father, and on Wednesday, she appeared at a press conference about immigrants’ contributions to the community. She was pulled over and arrested by ICE after leaving the press conference that day.

Vargas’ plight has drawn the attention of numerous immigration advocates, inspiring several social media hashtags — including #FreeDaniela. United We Dream, an immigrant rights group, also started a petition asking DHS Secretary John Kelly to grant her protection from deportation, which had received more than 11,000 signatures by Thursday.

Several lawmakers have raised questions about Vargas’ detention. “ICE’s assertion that her detention is ‘routine’ is absurd and seems anything but,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement on Thursday. “Those like Ms. Vargas just want a better life for themselves and their families.”

Vargas is currently being held at an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. She asked Peterson to share her message that she wants a chance to contribute to the U.S.

“I strongly feel that I belong here and I strongly feel that I should be given a chance to be here and do something good and work in this economy,” Vargas said, according to Peterson, who recorded their conversation.

“I don’t understand why they don’t want me. I’m doing the best I can. I mean I can’t help that I was brought here but I don’t know anything else besides being here and I didn’t realize that until I was in a holding cell last night for 5 hours. I was brought here. I didn’t choose to be here. And when I was brought here, I had to learn a whole new country and leave behind the one that I did know. And I barely knew that one.”

This video from the USA says about itself:

Trump Seeks Ease on Restrictions for Polluting Drinking Water

2 March 2017

Research shows regulations cause virtually no layoffs, says Environmental Integrity Project’s Tom Pelton

From the League of Conservation Voters in the USA:

A few days ago, Donald Trump signed a new executive order to gut critical drinking water protections President Obama and the EPA put in place to protect our health, our economy, and our environment.

Now we’re getting word that the Clean Power Plan, our nation’s biggest step in the fight against climate change, is next on his chopping block and it could be rolled back at any moment.

Only a month in, Trump has already signed executive orders advancing the dangerous Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines, put fossil fuel industry insider Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA, and threatened to remove the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement. Enough is enough!

We may not be able to convince Trump’s hardcore base — or his polluter pals in Congress — to value climate action, but we know how thin-skinned Donald Trump truly is, and we know he pays attention to what people say about him. Right now, Trump’s approval numbers are awful. This is our moment to show him that the people are angry and demand action!

STAND TOGETHER: Don’t let Trump and Big Polluter insiders to get away with their awful plans for the environment.

There’s no sugar coating it: Trump and his administration are a menace to everything we’ve worked for. And with Scott Pruitt now officially confirmed as the head of the EPA, the forces working against us are even greater.

But we will not give up. When the EPA first proposed the Clean Power Plan, LCV supporters sent in 420,000 comments to the EPA supporting the plan. And we joined over 800,000 people in calling for drinking water protections under the Clean Water Rule. We need that same energy again right now!

People who care about breathing clean air and drinking clean water, who are worried about the dangers of climate change, and who want to save our planet are rallying together and fighting back harder than ever!

LCV is putting all our resources to build a network of engaged citizens that will prepare for the long fight ahead and push back against Trump’s radical agenda.

Clean air and clean water are fundamental rights! Don’t let Trump get away with his attacks on our environment.

Let’s build a people-powered movement to protect our environment from Trump’s disastrous plans! Thank you for standing up to Donald Trump’s dangerous, anti-environment agenda.

Petition to Donald Trump:

The overwhelming majority of Americans want safe drinking water and action on climate change to protect our health, our economy, and our environment. I urge you to see reason and STOP attacking our bedrock environmental protections.

ADD YOUR NAME here.

Sincerely,

Kristin Brown
Director of Digital Strategy
League of Conservation Voters

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Noose around black student’s neck in Mississippi, USA

This 1960s music video from the USA is called Nina Simone: Mississippi Goddam.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

United States: Black student has noose placed around his neck

Wednesday 26th October 2016

ANTI-RACISTS in Mississippi are demanding a federal hate crime investigation after a black student had a noose put around his neck by four white students.

“No child should be walking down the hall or in a locker room and be accosted with a noose around their neck,” civil rights body NAACP president Derrick Johnson told a news conference on Monday.

“This is 2016, not 1916. This is America. This is a place where children should go to school and feel safe in their environment.”

The NAACP said that the incident had happened during a break in football practice and that the noose had been “yanked backward” while on the student’s neck.

Police Captain Ray Boggs said that officials believe something close to what the NAACP described did happen but he’s still investigating.

He said that everyone involved is younger than 17 and he expects any charges to be filed in youth court, where records are closed to the public.

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School segregation in Mississippi, USA

This video from the USA says about itself:

Mississippi District Ordered to Desegregate Its Schools

22 May 2016

Though segregation was officially ended in America decades ago, unofficially the problem persists. A US Circuit Judge recently had to step in to combat segregation in Mississippi. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.

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Remove Confederate emblem from state flag, people in Mississippi, USA say

From the Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi, USA:

Notable Mississippians join chorus to change state flag

Jerry Mitchell

5:54 p.m. CDT August 15, 2015

In a letter appearing in a full-page ad in today’s Clarion-Ledger, author John Grisham, actor Morgan Freeman, legendary quarterback Archie Manning, “The Help” author Kathryn Stockett and others are calling for removal of the Confederate emblem from Mississippi’s state flag.

With other states removing their Confederate battle flags, Mississippi remains the last with the Confederate emblem flying over the statehouse.

“It is simply not fair, or honorable, to ask black Mississippians to attend schools, compete in athletic events, work in the public sector, serve in the National Guard, and go about their normal lives with a state flag that glorifies a war fought to keep their ancestors enslaved,” the letter says. “It’s time for Mississippi to fly a flag for all its people.”

Former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale and Mississippi business leader Jack Reed Sr. signed the letter. So did music legend Jimmy Buffet, former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Ford, Grammy-winning producer Glen Ballard, Basketball Hall of Famer Bailey Howell, former Gov. William Winter, baseball legend Boo Ferriss and a host of others.

The letter is the latest in a growing wave, from House Speaker Philip Gunn to Mississippi’s SEC football coaches to the great-great-grandson of Confederate President Jefferson Davis — all saying the Confederate battle flag belongs in a museum.

“The tide is turning with business leadership saying it hurts our ability to recruit corporations and with coaches saying it hurts our ability to recruit athletes,” said state Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson. “The flag is a turnoff.”

…

Gov. Phil Bryant pointed out that voters spoke on the matter in 2001.

Author Greg Iles, who signed the letter, said 14 years is a long time.

“Think of America in 1931 and then in 1945 — that’s 14 years, and a tectonic shift in national identity. Think of 1961 and 1975,” he said. “The Confederate flag is no longer a viable state or national symbol in 2015.”

He believes that “clinging to the past through symbols is hurting Mississippi now,” he said. “And it has the potential to cripple economic development going forward.”

Bryant says he has no plans to call a special session on the matter.

If the governor were to call a special session later this year for economic development, Horhn expects the flag issue to be raised.

In a survey conducted by The Clarion-Ledger, 64 of Mississippi’s lawmakers said they supported changing the flag, 24 opposed it, nine said they were undecided, and 96 wouldn’t respond or give an answer.

Of those that did respond, most Democrats supported the change, while most Republicans opposed it.

…

On June 17, white supremacist Dylann Roof allegedly walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and killed the Rev. Clementa Pinckney (who was also a state senator) and eight other members.

On a website authorities found, Roof talked of wanting to start a race war.

In one photo, he posed with a U.S. flag set on fire. In another, he posed with a Confederate battle flag, wearing a T-shirt that said “88,” a reference to “Heil Hitler.”

In the wake of that massacre, Republican Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley took down Confederate flags on the statehouse grounds, and Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley successfully lobbied the Legislature to remove the Confederate flag flying over their statehouse grounds.

“It is a new day in South Carolina, a day we can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state,” Haley said.

…

“We must always remember our past, but that does not mean we must let it define us,” Gunn said in a statement. “As a Christian, I believe our state’s flag has become a point of offense that needs to be removed. We need to begin having conversations about changing Mississippi’s flag.”

…

Across the nation, discussions have begun over what to do with Confederate emblems.

Wal-Mart, Sears, Amazon and eBay have all nixed the sale of Confederate flags, and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has ordered the Confederate flag no longer appear on license plates.

Last week at the University of Texas in Austin, President Gregory Fenves announced the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis would be moved from the campus’ Main Mall to an exhibit in the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.

Horhn said it would be a terrible tragedy if the Confederate emblem remained in the state flag at the time the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum opened to the world in December 2017.

“It would diminish the impact of the museum and how far we have come in Mississippi to have the flag still there to officially represent our state,” he said.

In a number of Mississippi towns, city councils have voted to remove the state flag from city buildings. The city of Greenwood is expected to take up the issue Tuesday.

“There were 4 million African-American slaves under this (Confederate) flag,” said state Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood. “To us, it’s just as bad as the swastika.”

…

Grisham said the change is “simply the right thing to do, and at the right time. The war is over. Let’s preserve its history and heritage but get rid of the symbols that continue to divide us.”

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Being homeless, a crime in Oxford, England?

This music video from the USA says about itself:

Richie Havens – Oxford town 1972

Richie Havens (January 21, 1941 — April 22, 2013) was an American singer-songwriter guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul, and rhythm and blues. He is best known for his intense and rhythmic guitar style, soulful covers of pop and folk songs, and his opening performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.

Bob Dylan wrote the song Oxford town, about racism in Oxford, Mississippi in the USA.

There were not only serious problems in Oxford, Mississippi in the USA in the 1960s.

There are some problems in Oxford, Oxfordshire in England today as well.

By Paddy McGuffin in Britain:

Oxford rough sleepers face council fines

Friday 12th June 2015

Activists slam plan to criminalise the homeless

A LOCAL authority is facing pressure to ditch “unlawful” plans which, it is claimed, would effectively criminalise homeless people and buskers.

Human rights charity Liberty has written to Oxford City Council calling for it to scrap plans to introduce new Public Spaces Protection Orders.

If given the green light, the orders would ban sleeping in public toilets and “persistent begging” — defined as begging “on more than one occasion.”

The orders would allow council officers to issue on-the-spot penalties of up to £100. If those in breach were unable to pay, they would face prosecution and a fine of £1,000.

But Liberty argues that the proposals would breach the council’s code of conduct for busking and street entertaining in Oxford and its duties under the Equality Act 2010.

The charity accused the council of persisting with the proposals despite its own eight-week public consultation, which found that most people opposed the plans.

Liberty legal officer Rosie Brighouse said: “If somebody is forced to beg or sleep in a public toilet, that’s not anti­social behaviour, it’s poverty.

“Oxford City Council should focus on finding ways to help the most vulnerable people, not slap them with a criminal record and a fine they can’t possibly afford to pay.

“These plans are unlawful and Liberty will try to challenge them if the council does not see sense.”

Homeless charity Centrepoint also condemned the plans, warning that, in seeking to combat antisocial behaviour, the council would also end up punishing some very vulnerable people.

Centrepoint head of public affairs Paul Noblet said: “At the very least, they should take seriously the drawing-up of a comprehensive code of conduct for enforcement officers to ensure that people sleeping rough can be referred to other parts of the council and local charities for support rather than being given fines they won’t be able to pay.”

Such measures have been tried elsewhere. Hackney Council introduced an order banning “antisocial activities” but removed rough sleepers from it after a petition signed by more than 80,000 people.

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