well, well, well, we are here on the lovely 11th floor of 30 rockefeller center, now the comcast building. hopefully you re watching this somewhere with a chilled beverage in your hand, with people you love ready to enjoy a long weekend. we have this elaborate setup that may encounter a weather-related incident since it s sprinkling a touch. we got food out. i ve been thinking about the last two weeks we ve had of a crazy news cycle. the horrible tragedy in charlton and amazing grace in the aftermath of that, huge supreme court decisions, the president s eulogy and an emotional whirlwind and got me thinking about america and what i love and i thought maybe we should do a show the night before this patriotic weekend what we love about america, so that s what we ll do. josh barrow, national correspondent for the new york times and lorella has been a guest on our show many times. she s the latino out reach director for hillary clinton s presidential campaign, before that was
james tyson who helped her pull it off. they were both charged with defacing a monument and now face up to three years in jail. after all of that less than an hour later it was back up and flying. they are out front tonight. thank you both of you for coming in. you want the flag down? yes. a lot of people want the flag down. why did you take such drastic measures then to do it yourself? i wanted to highlight just the unjust nature of the entire situation. i mean the reason why south carolina has been so held up in terms of removing their flag whereas you have seen in alabama, they took the flag down right away is because there was this series of laws that were passed in the 60s and in the year 2000 to protect the symbol of hate this symbol of treason. so the fact that the legislature or the governor can t even move to remove the flag as reverend
but it also must represent equality in all its constructive forms. president obama in response to those questions, what must we do and who will do it? but the responses we heard from all of our elected officials were still mostly talk. yesterday another group of people responded with action. early saturday morning, the confederate flag on the state house grounds did come down not by executive order or legislative process but at the hands of one woman in a courage, conviction and upper body strength. that is activist brie newsome, scaling the flag pole and accomplishing the work of more than five decades in a few minutes. after removing the flag she and fellow activist james tyson were arrested and charged with defacing a monument. but two of them were not acting alone. the dramatic moment was the end result of a planned non-violent direct action an organized strategy from a group of
flag she was not alone. when she began her 40-foot climb, she was not alone. someone went with her every step of the way, spotting her, helping to ensure her safety waiting below when she sdenddescended with a flag of hate. that person was arrested also along with brie. his name was james tyson. while america spoke in disgust at the violence in their names, while many stood in solidarity with the black people in their week of mourning the question was asked, what should white people do? joining me on my panel now is whitney dow, director and producer of the whiteness project. we were all loving mr. james ian and his spotting of the black woman as she led this action but i thought, hey by the
doctor. we have word that vice president biden is in attendance. as they continue to deal with their unimaginable grief, the nation continues to question us in the wake of this week s deaths. where do we go from here? how do we emerge from this better than we were and who will be the receivers of that change? the confederate flag was first flown atop the state house in 1961 to commemorate the start of the civil war, and maybe also in a way of responding to the civil rights movement. there it remained until 2000 when a compromise with activists pushed for its removal. the confederate flag was moved from the top of the capitol dome to a less prominent space on the courthouse grounds, and later, less seen as a symbol of heritage and hate, thazhas crystallized to a symbol of the man who took their lives. calls for a complete removal of the flag has intensified as its presence on taxpayer-funded state grounds has become untenable. in a watershed moment in south carolina populist p