Podcasts about Scottsboro

This Day in Legal History: Scottsboro Boys ArrestedOn this day in legal history, March 25, 1931, nine Black teenagers were arrested in Paint Rock, Alabama, accused of raping two white women aboard a freight train. The arrests set off one of the most infamous legal sagas of the 20th century, exposing the deep racial injustices of the Jim Crow South. The teens, later known as the Scottsboro Boys, were quickly indicted and tried in Scottsboro, Alabama. Just twelve days after their arrest, an all-white jury sentenced most of them to death in a series of rushed, chaotic trials marked by inadequate legal representation.Public outrage and national attention, particularly from Black communities and civil rights organizations, led to multiple appeals. In Powell v. Alabama (1932), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the defendants' right to counsel had been violated, setting a precedent that effective legal representation is essential in capital cases. Later, in Norris v. Alabama(1935), the Court found that the systematic exclusion of Black jurors violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.Despite these victories, the road to justice was long and uneven. Several of the Scottsboro Boys remained imprisoned for years, and none received a full measure of legal vindication during their lifetimes. Their ordeal became a powerful symbol of the racial bias embedded in the American legal system and spurred greater attention to the rights of defendants in criminal trials. The legacy of the case continues to influence debates over due process, racial discrimination, and criminal justice reform.At a U.S. appeals court hearing on March 24, 2025, Circuit Judge Patricia Millett sharply criticized the Trump administration's deportation of Venezuelan migrants, suggesting they were given fewer rights than Nazis who were removed under the same legal authority during World War II. The administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act—a rarely used law last applied to intern Axis nationals during WWII—to justify deporting alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua without immigration court rulings. The court is reviewing whether a temporary ban issued by Judge James Boasberg on such deportations should remain in place. Government attorneys argued that national security and executive authority over foreign affairs justify bypassing normal legal procedures.Family members and lawyers for deportees contest the gang allegations, saying they are based on flimsy evidence like tattoos. One deported man was a professional soccer coach whose tattoo referred to Real Madrid. Judge Millett questioned whether the deported migrants had any opportunity to dispute the gang labels before removal, calling the process rushed and opaque.The deportations, carried out on March 15, sent over 200 people to El Salvador, where they are being held in a high-security prison under a U.S.-funded deal. The ACLU claims the administration defied Boasberg's court order by speeding up removals to preempt judicial intervention. The government has since invoked the state secrets privilege to avoid disclosing further flight details. The case is now a flashpoint over presidential power, immigration enforcement, and judicial oversight, with the Supreme Court Chief Justice issuing a rare rebuke after Trump called for Boasberg's impeachment.Nazis were treated better than Venezuelans deported by Trump, judge says at hearing | ReutersOn March 24, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over Louisiana's congressional map, which increased the number of Black-majority districts from one to two. The case pits efforts to comply with the Voting Rights Act against claims that the new map violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by relying too heavily on race. Louisiana officials defended the map, saying it was drawn to protect Republican incumbents rather than based on racial motives. They argued the redistricting was politically, not racially, driven—particularly to preserve the districts of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.Civil rights groups and Black voters countered that the map was a necessary remedy after a 2022 ruling found the prior version likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting strength. A 2024 lower court ruling blocked the updated map, saying race predominated in its design. The Supreme Court justices appeared divided, with liberal Justice Sotomayor skeptical that race had dominated the redistricting process, and conservative Chief Justice Roberts pointing to the odd shape of the second Black-majority district as potential evidence of racial gerrymandering.Justice Gorsuch challenged whether any consideration of race in map-drawing runs afoul of constitutional protections. The Court had previously allowed the new map to be used for the 2024 elections, but a final ruling is expected by June. The outcome could have broad implications for how states navigate the tension between addressing historic racial discrimination in voting and avoiding unconstitutional race-based districting.US Supreme Court wrestles with Louisiana electoral map with more Black-majority districts | ReutersThe Justice Department, under President Trump's direction, has launched an “immediate review” of law firms that have challenged his administration in court, wielding Rule 11 as a tool to pursue sanctions for allegedly frivolous litigation. The memo, issued March 21, empowers Attorney General Pam Bondi to target lawyers not just for recent cases, but for conduct going back eight years—reviving a rarely enforced mechanism that requires legal filings to be non-frivolous and not made for improper purposes. While legal experts note that courts are typically cautious about imposing Rule 11 sanctions, the administration's move is seen as a political shot across the bow of the legal profession.Trump has already threatened prominent firms with revoked security clearances and canceled federal contracts, but one firm, Paul Weiss, avoided penalties by agreeing to a $40 million pro bono commitment to Trump-aligned causes and an audit of its diversity programs. That deal, far from resolving the issue, may have signaled that capitulation invites more pressure. As anyone who's dealt with a bully could have predicted: surrender doesn't end the harassment—it encourages it. The only way to improve your position is to raise the cost of targeting you, yet many law firm leaders (and institutions of higher education, if we're being fair) seem to have missed that lesson the first time they encountered it.Now, those same leaders face the possibility of serious professional consequences for doing exactly what lawyers are supposed to do: advocate for clients and challenge government overreach. Trump's order also singles out individuals like Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias, whom the memo connects to the long-disputed Steele dossier, despite no formal wrongdoing. Critics warn that the DOJ's probe could evolve into a tool to intimidate or sideline legal opposition to Trump, reshaping the legal landscape by discouraging firms from representing those who stand against the administration.Legal scholars have labeled the move a dangerous politicization of Rule 11, pointing out that it essentially makes Bondi the judge and Trump the executioner. In weaponizing a procedural rule with ambiguous standards and rare enforcement, the administration isn't just threatening lawsuits—it's undermining the adversarial system that keeps government power in check.DOJ Launches 'Immediate Review' of Law Firms After Trump MemoCalifornia's new disclosure law on municipal corporate tax-sharing agreements is a welcome move toward transparency, but it's not enough to stop the ongoing drain of public revenue. For years, corporations have exploited the split in California's sales tax—where 1.25% goes to local jurisdictions—by striking deals with cities that offer kickbacks in exchange for routing sales through their borders. This has created a race to the bottom, with municipalities, especially smaller ones, effectively subsidizing some of the world's richest companies in hopes of boosting their own budgets. These deals don't create new economic activity; they just reshuffle where sales are counted and where tax dollars land.While the new law will finally shine a light on these practices starting in April, disclosure without action won't solve the problem. Cities will still have incentives to offer generous tax rebates, and many will rush to lock in long-term deals before limits are imposed. What we need is immediate legislative action to cap how much of their tax base cities can give away. A ceiling tied to a city's budget or economic profile would prevent reckless giveaways while preserving flexibility for true economic development.We should also require that any shared tax revenue be reinvested in local infrastructure or services, not handed over as corporate windfalls. Waiting for more data only gives cover to continue harmful deals that are already draining school, safety, and infrastructure funding. Policymakers don't need years of reports—they need the courage to stop the bleeding now.Transparency Alone Won't Fix California's Corporate Tax Drain This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

We're speaking with Distinguished Professor James Goodman, of Rutgers University, Newark, where he teaches history and creative writing. Our conversation focuses on what Goodman teaches his graduate students about writing, and how these lessons about form, voice, and pacing are rooted in his own writing experiences. Goodman has received fellowships and awards from NYU, Princeton, Rutgers, and the Guggenheim Foundation, and his book, Stories of Scottsboro, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact

Hello Interactors,Language shapes power, but it can also obscure and manipulate. Words like woke and decolonize, rooted in justice, are now tools for distortion by figures like Trump and Modi. In this essay, we'll explore how these terms connect to economic and political geography, tracing their co-opting, parallels to colonialism, and the need to reclaim their transformative potential. Let's dig in — and stay woke.STAY WOKE, START TALKINGAre you woke? It's a provocative question these days. Especially since this term was co-opted by the right as a pejorative since the Black Lives Matter uprising of 2020. Even last June Trump said regarding so-called woke military generals, “I would fire them. You can't have woke military.”And then there's Elon Musk. He's been increasingly waging a war on what he calls the ‘woke mind virus'. It seems he started abusing the term in 2021, along with other political rhetoric he's been ramping up in recently. The Economist reports a “leap in 2023 and 2024 in talk of immigration, border control, the integrity of elections and the ‘woke mind virus'.”Folks more on the left are also starting to distance themselves from the term or use it as a pejorative. Including some of my friends. Even self-described leftist and socialist, Susan Neiman criticized "wokeness," in her 2023 book Left Is Not Woke. She argues, as do many, that it has become antithetical to traditional leftist values — especially as it becomes a weapon by the right.According to the definition in the Cambridge dictionary, I am decidedly woke. That means I'm “aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality.” It worries me that people are eagerly running from this word. I'd rather they interrogate it. Understand it. Find it's meanings and question the intent behind its use. We should be discussing these nuances, not shushing them.Using the word in a sentence (in an approving manner), Cambridge offers hints at one of the original meanings: “She urged young black people to stay woke.” In 1938 the great blues legend Lead Belly also urged “everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there (Scottsboro, Alabama) – best stay woke, keep their eyes open." Those are spoken words in his song "Scottsboro Boys", about nine young Black men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama seven years earlier in 1931.Not a decade before, the Jamaican philosopher and social activist Marcus Garvey wrote in 1923, "Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa!" Fifty years later that inspired playwright and novelist Barry Beckham to write “Garvey Lives!”, a 1972 play that included this line, “I been sleeping all my life. And now that Mr. Garvey done woke me up, I'm gon stay woke.” #StayWoke was trending on Twitter the summer of 2020.In 1962, ten years before Beckham's play, novelist William Melvin Kelley wrote this headline for a piece in the New York Times Magazine: “If You're Woke You Dig It; No mickey mouse can be expected to follow today's Negro idiom without a hip assist. If You're Woke You Dig It.” The article, which is an uneasy glimpse of how mainstream media regarded Black people in 1962, is about how white people co-opt terms from the Black community. His target was white woke Beatniks of the 1960s.Awakening others to injustice in the United States may have originated with white folks inspired by Abraham Lincoln. In the lead up to the his 1860 election, the, then woke, Republican Party helped organize a paramilitary youth movement in the Northern states called the ‘Wide Awakes'. These activists, which included some Black people, were inspired by Lincoln's fight to abolish slavery and promote workers' rights.They took up arms to defend Republican politicians who brazenly awakened others to injustices in America in their campaign speeches. This armed aggression — especially armed Black men — in part is what woke the South to the dawning wokeness across the North. Frightened as they were, they organize their own paramilitary and soon a civil war broke out.RECLAIM, RESIST, REVIVEWords can have unusual lifecycles. The term "queer" evolved from a pejorative label for homosexuals to a term of empowerment. Particularly after the activism of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Stonewall Riots. Its reclamation was reinforced by academic queer theory, which critiques societal norms around sexuality and gender. Today, "queer" is widely embraced as a self-identifier that reflects pride and resistance against stigma.Christopher Hobson, of the Substack Imperfect Notes, suggested in a post about the word polycrisis, this progression of terminology:Proposed — A new word or meaning is introduced through individuals, cultural interactions, academia, or mass media.Adopted — A word or meaning is embraced by a community, shaped by social relevance and media influence.Spread — Diffusion occurs through social networks and media exposure, leading to wider acceptance.Critiqued — As words gain popularity, they face scrutiny from linguistic purists and cultural commentators. The appropriateness of a term can be questioned, highlighting the intent behind its dissemination.Institutionalized — Widely used words become institutionalized, appearing in dictionaries and everyday language as standards.Hobson adds one other stage that is particularly relevant today, ‘pipiked.' It's a term he ‘adopted' as ‘proposed' and I'm now ‘spreading'. It comes from Naomi Klein's book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. Hobson writes:"A useful concept she introduces is ‘pipikism', which she takes from Philip Roth's, Operation Shylock, one of the texts about doppelgangers that Klein engages with. She quote's Roth's description of ‘pipikism' as ‘the antitragic force that inconsequencializes everything—farcicalizes everything, trivializes everything, superficializes everything.' This captures the way in which the concepts and frames we use to help understand our world are rendered useless by bad actors and bad faith, caught in ‘a knot of seriousness and ridiculousness that would never be untangled.'" (3)This lifecycle certainly applies to the word woke, but let's turn to a term more closely related to economic geography that's also in the cross-hairs of being ‘pipiked' — decolonize.Like woke, the term decolonize began as a call to dismantle injustice, exposing the deep roots of exploitation in European colonial systems. It symbolized hope for liberation and justice for the oppressed. Over time, like many critical terms, its meaning shifted. Once radical, decolonize risks becoming performative as its potency weakens through co-optation, especially by bad faith actors.Narendra Modi exemplifies this, using decolonization rhetoric to promote Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist agenda. His government renames cities, revises textbooks to erase Muslim rulers like the Mughals, and marginalizes minorities, particularly Muslims, under the guise of rejecting British colonial legacies. This parallels America's own rewriting of history to reinforce a white Christian narrative. Protestant colonizers replaced Indigenous names and erased Native perspectives, reframing days like Thanksgiving, a time of mourning for many, into celebratory myths.DOCTRINES, DISSENT, AND DOMINIONEarly colonial educational curricula framed colonization as a divine mission to civilize the so-called savages. Native Americans were often depicted as obstacles to progress rather than as sovereign peoples with rich cultures and governance systems. Systems, like the Iroquois League, impressed and inspired the early framers of American government, like Benjamin Franklin.But it was Christian dogma like the Doctrine of Discovery, a theological justification for seizing Indigenous land, that was integrated into educational and legal frameworks. Slavery was sanitized in textbooks to diminish its horrors, portraying it as a benign or even benevolent system. Early 20th-century textbooks referred to enslaved people as “workers” and omitted the violence of chattel slavery.Early colonizers established theological institutions like Harvard University, originally intended to train ministers and propagate Christian doctrine. My own family lineage is culpable. I've already written about Jonas Weed (circa 1610–1676), a Puritan minister who helped colonize Weathersfield, Connecticut. But there's also the brother of my ninth Mother, Jonathan Mitchell (1624–1668). He was a Harvard graduate and Puritan minister who played a pivotal role in shaping the Protestant-oriented writing of American history.He promoted a Christian God-given view of history, framing events as manifestations of God's will. He emphasized covenant theology that cast Puritans as a chosen people. As a fellow at Harvard, he shaped the intellectual environment that influenced figures like Cotton Mather, who's Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) depicted New England as a "city upon a hill" destined to fulfill a divine mission. JFK ripped this quote from history, as did Reagan and Obama to further their campaigns but also to ingrain messages that started with people like Mitchell and Mather.Institutions like the church and universities advanced Christian-nationalist ideologies that justified colonial rule, marginalizing Indigenous, African, and non-European cultures by framing European Christian values as superior. European imperial powers reshaped local economies for their gain, turning colonies into sources of raw materials and markets for goods. Monocultures like sugar and cotton left regions vulnerable, while urban centers prioritized resource export over local needs, fostering uneven development.By the mid-20th century, America had risen to global dominance, cementing its power through institutions like the IMF and World Bank, which reinforced economic dependencies. Decolonization movements emerged in response, with nations in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean seeking justice and sovereignty. Yet many former colonies remain trapped in systemic inequalities shaped by imperial and American influence. While initiatives like the G-77 — a UN coalition of developing nations promoting collective economic interests and South-South cooperation — aim to reshape global systems, progress remains slow and resistance strong.Today, Project 2025 seeks to revive Christian-nationalist doctrines, echoing colonial practices. Signs of rising authoritarianism, white Christian nationalism, and silencing dissent are evident. The Levant, too, reflects another iteration of the colonial Doctrine of Discovery — seizing land and subjugating oppressed populations under theological justifications.Even in the early days of American colonization, there were woke voices. One of them happened to be another ancestor of mine. My tenth grandfather, Stephen Bachiler (circa 1561–1656) was an English clergyman and an early advocate for the separation of church and state. His life exemplified the struggles for religious autonomy in early American history, but also the importance of sustained critique of power and injustice.Educated at St. John's College, Oxford, he became the vicar of Wherwell but was ousted in 1605 for his Puritan beliefs. At nearly 70, he left to New England in 1632 to establish the First Church of Lynn near Boston. It was there it is assumed he cast the sole vote against the expulsion of Roger Williams — a proponent of equitable treatment of Native Americans and a fellow Separatist.Both men showed a commitment to religious freedom, tolerance, and fair dealings. While they were clearly colonizers and missionaries, each with their own religion, they were also relatively woke. They showed the importance of a sustained quest for liberty and justice amid prevailing authoritarian orthodoxies.Trump wields language as a tool to cement his prevailing authoritarian orthodoxies. He surrounds himself with figures who reduce substantive critical discourse to noise. His media allies, from Fox News to populist voices like Joe Rogan, amplify his rhetoric, diverting attention from systemic injustices. These platforms trivialize urgent issues, overshadowing genuine grievances with performative derision and bad faith gestures.When language meant to confront injustice is co-opted, maligned, or muted, its power is diminished. Performative actions can “pipikize” critical terms, rendering them absurd or hollow while leaving entrenched problems untouched — many rooted in centuries of European colonization. Yet Trump's alignment with a new breed of colonization deepens these issues.Figures like Elon Musk and JD Vance, champions of libertarian techno-optimism, feed into Trump's agenda. Musk dreams of private cities and space colonies free from governmental oversight, while Vance benefits from Silicon Valley backers like Peter Thiel, who pour millions into advancing deregulation and creating self-governing enclaves.These visions are the new face of colonialism — enclaves of privilege where exploitation thrives, disconnected from democratic accountability. They mirror the hierarchies and exclusions of the past, dressed as innovation but steeped in familiar patterns of dominance.In this age of populism — another word twisted and worn thin — vigilance is essential. Language must be scrutinized not just for its use but for its intent. Without this, we risk falling into complacency, lulled by superficial gestures and farcical displays. Stay awake. Words can preserve the power to transform — but only when their intent remains grounded in uprooting injustice and inhumanity.References:* Cambridge Dictionary. Definition of woke. * Economist. (2024). Immigration, border control, and the ‘woke mind virus': Tracking political rhetoric. * Hobson, Christopher. (Sep 13, 2024). Imperfect Notes: In conversation with Pete Chambers. * Klein, Naomi. (2023). Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.* Macmillan Publishers. (2023). Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy. * Neiman, Susan. (2023). Left Is Not Woke. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.* New York Times Magazine. (1962). Kelley, William Melvin. If You're Woke You Dig It; No Mickey Mouse Can Be Expected to Follow Today's Negro Idiom Without a Hip Assist.* Press, Eyal. (2012). Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.* Roth, Philip. (1993). Operation Shylock: A Confession. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.* Time Magazine. (2023). India's textbook revisions spark controversy over history and ideology. * Walker, Corinne A. (2024). Aeon. What is behind the explosion in talk about decolonisation. * Dull, Jonathan. (2021). Post-Colonialism: Understanding the Past to Change the Future. World History Connected, 18(1), 125–142. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

What happens to suitcases that can't be reunited with their owners? It's not something we think about that often, but for Bryan Owens, it's an entire business. He's the CEO and now-owner of the Scottsboro, Alabama–based Unclaimed Baggage, the only store in the United States that sells lost luggage. As you'll hear in today's episode, his dad launched the business more than 50 years ago with an old Chevy pickup and $300. And now the business stocks more than 7,000 new items a day.  The company recently released its first annual Found Report, a deep dive into the more than 2 million items that came through its doors in 2023, including including the aforementioned live snakes and fancy handbags. Host Aislyn Greene talks with Bryan about where these bags come from, how the company makes decisions about what to sell and, more interestingly, what it does with everything else: Donations and partnerships with organizations like Wheels for the World are critical to its mission.  Meet this week's guest Bryan Owens, CEO and owner of Unclaimed Baggage Resources Read the full transcript of the episode.  Check out Unclaimed Baggage.  Follow the podcast to ensure you don't miss an episode.  Subscribe to Afar's YouTube channel for a full video of the conversation. Be sure to subscribe to the show and to sign up for our podcast newsletter, Behind the Mic, where we share upcoming news and behind-the-scenes details of each episode. And explore our second podcast, Travel Tales, which celebrates first-person narratives about the way travel changes us

In this electrifying episode of Connecting the Dots, I sat down with Jon Jeter—two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, former Washington Post bureau chief, and Knight Fellowship recipient—who pulled no punches as we unraveled the hidden dynamics of America's class war. Drawing from his explosive book Class War in America, Jeter revealed how the elite have masterfully weaponized race to keep the working class fractured and powerless, ensuring they stay on top. He delves into the ways education is rigged to widen inequality, while elite interests tighten their grip on public policy. With gripping personal stories and razor-sharp historical insight, Jeter paints a vivid picture of the struggle between race and class in America and leaves us with a tantalizing vision of a united working-class revolution on the horizon. This is an episode that will shake your understanding of power—and inspire you to see the potential for change.   Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links or search @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!   Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!   Wilmer Leon (00:00:00): I'm going to quote my guest here. We've been watching for a while now via various social media platforms and mainstream news outlets, the genocide of the Palestinian people, what do the images of a broad swath of Americans, whites and blacks, Latinos, Arabs and Asians, Jews and Catholics and Muslims, and Buddhists shedding their tribal identities and laying it all out on the line to do battle with the aristocrats who are financing the occupation. Slaughter and siege mean to my guest. Let's find out Announcer (00:00:40): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history Wilmer Leon (00:00:46): Converge. Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon, and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which many of these events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historic context in which they occur, thus enabling you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode, the issue before us is again, quoting my guest. When the 99% come together to fight for one another rather than against each other is the revolution. Na, my guest is a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. His work can be found on Patreon as well as Black Republic Media, and his new book is entitled Class War in America. How The Elite Divide the Nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? Phenomenal, phenomenal work. John Jeter is my guest, as always, my brother. Welcome back to the show. Jon Jeter (00:02:07): It's a pleasure to be here. Wilmer. Wilmer Leon (00:02:10): So class war in America, how the elites divide the nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? You open the book with two quotes. One is from the late George Jackson, settle Your Quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation. Understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying, who could be saved that generations more will live. Poor butchered half lives. If you fail to act, do what must be done. Discover your humanity and love your revolution. Why that quote? And then we'll get to the second one. Why that quote, John? Jon Jeter (00:02:50): That quote, really that very succinct quote by the revolutionary, the assassinated revolutionary. George Jackson really explains in probably a hundred words, but it takes me 450 pages to explain, which is that the ruling class, the oligarchs, we call 'em what you want. Somewhere around the Haymarket massacre of 1886, I believe they figured out that the way that the few can defeat the many is to divide the many to pit it against itself, the working class against itself. And so since then, they have a embark on a strategy of pitting the working class against itself largely along, mostly along racial or tribal lines, mostly white versus black. And it has enveloped, the ruling class has enveloped more and more people into whiteness. First it was Italians and Germans and Jews, or Jews really starting after World War II and the Holocaust. And then it was gays and women, and now even blacks themselves have been enveloped in this sort of adjacency to whiteness where everyone sort of gets ahead by beating up, by punching down on black people. And so George Jackson's quote really sort of encapsulates the success that we, the people can have by working together. And I want to be very clear about the enemy is not white people. The enemy is a white identity. (00:04:48): Hungarians and Czech and the Brits and the French and the Italians are not our enemy. They are glorious people who have done glorious things, but the formation of a white identity is really the kryptonite for working class movements in this country. Wilmer Leon (00:05:07): In fact, I'm glad you make that point because I wanted to call attention to the fact that a lot of people listening to this and hear you talk about the Irish or the Poles or the Italians, that in Europe, those were nationalisms, those were not racial constructs. Those were not racial identities. And that it really wasn't until many of them came to America and or post World War ii, that this construct of whiteness really began to take hold as the elite in America understood, particularly post-slavery. That if the poor and the working class whites formed an alliance with the newly freed, formerly enslaved, that that would be a social condition that they would not be able to control. Jon Jeter (00:06:11): It was almost, it was as close to invincible as you could ever see. This coalition, which particularly after slavery, very tenuously, (00:06:24): But many, many whites, particularly those who were newer to the country, Germans and Italians and Irish, who had not formed a white identity, formed a white identity here. As you said in Europe, they were Irish Italians. Germans. One story I think tells the tale, it was a dock workers strike in New Orleans in 1894. I read about this in the book, and the dock workers were segregated, black unions and white unions, but they worked together, they worked in concert, they went on strike for higher wages, and I think a closed shop, meaning that if you worked on the docks, you had to belong to the union and they largely won. And the reason for that is because the bosses, the ship owners tried to separate the two. They would tell the white dock workers, we'll work with you, but we won't work with those N words. (00:07:22): And many of the dock workers at that time had just come over from Europe. So they were like, what are you talking about? He's a worker just like me. I worked right next to him, or he works the doc over from me or the platform over from me. He's working there. So what do you mean you're not going to work with, you're going to deal with all of us? And that ethos, that governing ethos of interracial solidarity was one that really held the day until 20 years later, 20 years later, by which time Jim Crow, which was really an economic and political strategy, had really taken hold. And many of the dock workers, their children had begun to think of themselves as white. Wilmer Leon (00:08:06): In fact, I'm glad you referred to the children because another parallel to this is segregated education. As the framers, and I don't mean of the constitution, but of this culture, wanted to impose this racial caste system, they realized you can't have little Jimmy and little Johnny playing together sitting next to each other in classrooms and then try to impose a system of hierarchy based on phenotype as these children get older. What do you mean I can't play with him? What do you mean I can't play with her? She's my friend. No, not anymore. And so that's one of the things that contributed to this phenotypical ethos separating white children from black children. Jon Jeter (00:09:01): Education has been such a pivotal instrument for the elites, for the oligarchs, for the investor class in fighting this class war. It's not just been an instrument, a tool to divide education in the United States. It's largely intended to reproduce inequality, and it always has been, although obviously many of us, many people in the working class see, there's a tool to get ahead. That's not how the stock class sees it. (00:09:35): But beyond that even it is the investment in education. This is a theme throughout the book from the first chapter to the last basically where education, because it is seen as a tool for uplift by the working class, but by the investment class, it's seen as a tool to divide. And increasingly really since about really the turn of the century, this century, the 21st century, it's been seen as an investment opportunity. So that's why we have all of these school closures and the school privatization effort. It's an investment opportunity. So the problem is that we're fighting a class war. We've always been fighting a class war, but it's something that is seldom mentioned in public discussions in the media, the news or entertainment media, it's seldom mentioned, but schools education, you could make an argument that it is the holy grail of the class war, whoever can capture the educational system because it can become a tool both by keeping it public or I guess making it public now, returning it to public. And so much of it is in private hands by maintaining its public nature, and at the same time using it to reduce inequality as opposed to reproducing inequality Wilmer Leon (00:11:08): And public education and access to those public education dollars is also an element of redistribution of wealth because as access to finance is becoming more challenging, particularly through the neocolonialist idea using public dollars for private sector interest, giving access to those public education dollars to the private sector is another one of the mechanisms that the elite used to redistribute public dollars into private hands. Jon Jeter (00:11:49): One of the things that I discovered and researching this book was the extent to which bonds sold by municipalities, by the government, those bonds are sold to investors. That is more and more since really the Reagan era, because we've shipped manufacturing offshore. So how do you make money if you are invested, if you've got surplus money laying around, how do you make money? You invest it, speculate. Loan tracking essentially is what it is. One of the ways that you can make money. One of the things that you can invest money in is the public sector. So schools become an instrument for finance. And so what we see around the country are schools education becoming an investment vehicle for the rich and they can invest in it and they're paying higher and higher returns. Taxpayers. (00:12:57): You and I, Wilmer, are paying more and more to satisfy our creditors. For as one example, I believe it was in San Diego or a school district near or right outside San Diego, this was about 20 years ago, but they took out a loan to finance public education there, I believe just their elementary schools in that district. And it was something like a hundred million dollars loan just for the daily operations of that school district. And that had a balance due or the money, the interest rate was such that it was going to cost the taxpayers in that district a billion dollars to repay that loan, right? So that is an extreme example. But increasingly what we've seen is public education bonds that are used to pay for the daily operations of our municipalities are the two of the class war are an instrument of combat in the class war because the more that cities practice what we call austerity, what economists call austerity, cutting the budget to the very bare minimum, the more investment opportunities it creates for the rich who then reap that money back. (00:14:15): So they've got a tax cut because they're not paying for the schools upfront, and it becomes an investment opportunity because they're paying for the schools as loans, which they give back exorbitant interest rates, sometimes resembling the interest rates on our credit card. So a lot of this is unseen by the public, but it really is how the class war being waged in the 21st century speculation because our manufacturing sector has been shipped offshore, and that's how we made the elites made their money for more than a century after World War ii, after the agrarian period. So yeah, it's really invisible to the naked eye, but it is where it's the primary battlefield for the class war. Wilmer Leon (00:15:00): The second quote you have is Muriel Rukeyser. The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. And I know that that resonates with you particularly because as a journalist, one who tells stories, why is that quote so significant and relevant to this book? Jon Jeter (00:15:26): This book is really, it took me almost a quarter of my life to write this book from the time that the idea first occurred to me, to the time I finished almost 15 years. And it's evolved over time. But one of the biggest setbacks was just trying to find a publisher. And many publishers, I think, although they did not say this, they objected to the subject matter. And my characterization, I have one quote again from George Jackson where he says, the biggest barrier to the advancement of the working class in America is white racism. So I think they objected to that. But I also faced issues with a few black publishers, one of whom said that after reading the manuscript that it didn't have enough theory. I would say to anyone, any publisher who thinks that theory is better than story probably shouldn't be a publisher. But I also think it's sort of symptomatic of today's, the media today where we don't understand that stories are what connects us to each other, Right? The suffering, the struggle, the triumphs of other people of our ancestors, Wilmer Leon (00:16:48): The reality Of the story Jon Jeter (00:16:51): reality, yes, Wilmer Leon (00:16:52): Juxtaposed to the theoretical. Jon Jeter (00:16:56): That's exactly right. Wilmer Leon (00:16:57): In Fact, Jon Jeter (00:16:59): The application of the theory, Wilmer Leon (00:17:01): I tell my students and when I was teaching public policy that you have to understand the difference between the theoretical and the practical, and that there are a lot of things in policy that in theory make a whole lot of sense until you then have to operationalize that on a daily basis and then have it make real sense. Big difference between the theoretical and the practical. Jon Jeter (00:17:26): No question about it. And you see this over and over again throughout the book, you see examples of, for instance, the application of communist theory. And I'm not advocating for anyone to be a communist, just that there was a very real push by communists in the United States encouraged by communists and the Soviet Union in the 1930s to try to start a worldwide proletarian revolution, the stronghold of which was here in the United States. And so the Scotts Corps boys, nine teenage boys, black boys who were falsely accused of rape, became the testing ground for communism right now, communism. It was something that sparked the imagination of a lot of black people. Very few joined the party, but it sparked the imagination. So you found a lot of blacks who were sympathetic to communism in the thirties and the forties. Wilmer Leon (00:18:21):  Rosa Parks's husband Rosa. Jon Jeter (00:18:23): That's correct. Wilmer Leon (00:18:24): Rosa. Rosa Parks's husband, Rosa Parks, the patron saint of protest politics. Jon Jeter (00:18:31): Yes. Coleman Young, the first black mayor of Detroit. I write about very specifically. It was a thing, right? But it was the application of it. And ultimately, I think most of the blacks, many of the blacks certainly who tried to implement communism would argue not only that they failed, but that communism failed them as well. So I don't, again, not an advocacy for communism, but that idea really did move the needle forward. And I think our future is not in our past. So going forward, we might sort of learn from what happened in the past, and there might be some things we can learn from communism, but I think ultimately it is, as the communist say, dialectical materialism. You can't dip your toe in the same river twice. So it is moving like it's gathering steam and it's not going to be what it was. Although we can take some lessons from the past, from the Scottsboro boys from the 1930s and the 1940s. Wilmer Leon (00:19:29): You write in your prologue quote, I cannot predict with any certainty the quality of that revolution, the one we were talking about in the open, or even it's outcome only that it is imminent for the historical record clearly asserts that the nationwide uprisings on college campuses' prophecy the resumption of hostilities between America's workers and their bosses. I'm going to try and connect the dot here, which may not make any sense, or you may say, Wilmer, that was utterly brilliant. I prefer the latter. Just over the past few days, former President Trump has been suggesting using the military to handle what he calls the enemy from within, because he is saying on election day, if he doesn't win, there will be chaos. And he says, not from foreign actors, but from the radical left lunatics, he says, I think the bigger problem are the people from within. And he says, you may need to use the National Guard, you may need to use the military, because this is going to happen. Now, I know you and Trump aren't talking. You're about two different things. I realize that different with different agendas, but this discussion about nationwide uprisings, and so your thoughts on how you looking at the college protests and what that symbolizes in terms of the discontent within the country and what Trump is, the fear that Trump is trying to sow in the minds relative to the election. Does that make any sense? Jon Jeter (00:21:18): It makes perfect sense. You don't say that about warmer Leon, all that all. Wilmer Leon (00:21:21): Oh, thank you. You're right. Jon Jeter (00:21:22): It makes perfect sense. But no, and actually I would draw a pretty straight line from Trump to what I'm writing about in the book. For instance, Nixon, who was a very smart man, and Trump was not a very smart man, it's just that he used his intelligence for evil. But Richard Nixon was faced with an uprising, a nationwide uprising on college campuses, and he resorted to violence, as we saw with Kent State. Wilmer Leon (00:21:52): Kent State, yes. Jon Jeter (00:21:53): Very intentional. Wilmer Leon (00:21:54): Jackson State, Jon Jeter (00:21:55): Yes, it was Wilmer Leon (00:21:56): Southern University in Louisiana. Jon Jeter (00:21:58): Yes, yes, yes. But Kent State was a little bit of an outlier because it was meant white kids as a shot across the bow to show white kids that if you continue to collaborate with blacks, with the Vietnamese, continue to sympathize with them and rally on their behalf, then you might get exactly what the blacks get and the Vietnamese are getting right. And honestly, in the long term, that strategy probably worked. It did help to divide this insurgency that was particularly activated on college campuses. So what Trump, I think is faced with what he will be faced with if he is reelected, which I think he very well may be, what he's going to be faced with is another insurgency that is centered on college campuses. This time. It's not the Vietnamese, it's the Palestinians, and increasingly every day the Lebanese. But it's the very same dynamic at work, which is this, you have white people on college campuses, particularly when you talk about the college campuses in the Ivy League. (00:23:13): These are kids who are mostly to the manner born. If you think about it, what they're doing is they are protesting their future employer. They're putting it all on the line to say, no, no, no, no, there's something bigger than my career than me working for you. And that is the fate of the Palestinian people. That's very much what happened in the late sixties, early seventies with the Vietnamese. And so Mark Twain is I think perhaps the greatest white man in American history, but one thing he got wrong. I don't think history rhymes. I think it does indeed repeat itself, but I think that's what we're seeing now with these kids on college campuses, that people thought that they dismantled these campus, these encampments all across the nation during the summer, the spring semester, and that when they came back that it would be over squash. (00:24:07): That's not what's happening. They're coming back loaded for bear. These college students, that does not all go well for the establishment, particularly in tandem with other things are going on, which is these nationwide, very likely a very serious economic crisis. Financial crisis is imminent, very likely. And these other barometers of social unrest, police killings of blacks, the cop cities that are being built around the country, environmental issues, what's happening in Gaza that can very much intersect. We're already seeing it. It's intersected with other issues. So there is a very real chance that we're going to see a regrouping of this progressive working class movement. How far it goes, we can't say we don't know. I mean, just because you protest doesn't mean that the oligarch just say, okay, well, you got it, you want, it doesn't happen that way. But what's the saying? You might not win every fight, but you're going to lose every fight that you don't fight. So we have a chance that we got a punch a chance like Michael Spinx with Mike Tyson made, but we got a shot. Wilmer Leon (00:25:26): And to that point, what did Mike Tyson say? Everybody can fight till they get punched in the face. Yeah, Jon Jeter (00:25:32): Everybody's got to plan until they get punched in the nose right Wilmer Leon (00:25:35): Now. So to your point about kids putting everything on the line and the children of the elite, putting it on the line, there was a university, a Bolt Hall, which is the law school at University of California, Berkeley, Steven David Solomon. He wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that the law firm of Winston and Strawn did the right thing when it revoked the job offer of an NYU law student who publicly condemned Israel for the Hamas terrorist attacks. Legal employers in the recruiting process should do what Winston and Strawn did treat these students like the adults they are, if a student endorses hate dehumanization or antisemitism, don't hire 'em. So he was sending a very clear message, protest if you want to, there's going to be a price to pay. Jon Jeter (00:26:30): Yeah, I think those measures actually are counterproductive for the elites. It really sort of rallies and galvanizes. What we saw at Cornell, I'm not sure what happened with this, but a few weeks ago, they were talking about a student activist who was from West Africa, I believe, and the school Cornell was trying to basically repatriate, have them deported. But I think actions like that tend to work against the elite institutions. I hate to say this because I'm not an advocate of it, although I realize it's sometimes necessary violence seems to work best both for the elites and for the working class. And I'm not advocating that, but I'm just saying that historically it has occurred and it has been used by both sides when any student of France, Nan knows that when social movements allow the state to monopolize violence, you're probably going to lose that fight. And I think honestly speaking, that the state understands that violences can be as most effective weapon. People don't want to die, particularly young people. So it becomes sort of a clash between an irresistible force and an immovable object. Again, that's why I say I can't predict what will happen, but I do think we're on the verge of a very real, some very real social upheaval Wilmer Leon (00:27:54): Folks. This is the brilliance of John Jeter, journalist two time Pulitzer Prize finalists. We're talking about his book Class War in America, how the Elites Divide the Nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? As you can see, I have the book, I've read the book, phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal writer. Writer. You write in chapter one, declarations of War. And I love the fact you quote, Sun Tzu, all warfare is based on deception. Jon Jeter (00:28:24): That's Right. Wilmer Leon (00:28:25): You write on the last day of the first leg of his final trip abroad, his president with Donald Trump waiting in the wings, a subdued Barack Obama waxed poetic on the essence of democracy as he toured the Acropolis in Greece. It's here in Athens that so many of our ideas about democracy, our notions of citizenship, our notions of rule of law began to develop. And then you continue. What was left unsaid in Obama's August soliloquy is that while Greece is typically acknowledged by Western scholars as the cradle of democracy, the country could in fact learn a thing or two about governance from its protege across the pond. What types of things do you see that we still could learn from them since we're being told in this election, democracy is on the ballot and all of those rhetorical tactics? Yeah, a minute, a minute, a minute. Especially in the most recent context of Barack Obama helping to set the stage of a Kamala Harris loss and blaming it on black men. Jon Jeter (00:29:43): Yeah, that's exactly what he's doing. He's setting us up to be the scapegoats, Wilmer Leon (00:29:48): One of the does my connecting the dots there. Does that make sense? Jon Jeter (00:29:52): It makes perfect sense. And one of the themes of this book that I guess I didn't want to hammer home too much because it makes me sound too patriotic, but in one sense, what I'm writing about when I talk about the class war, what I'm writing about is this system of racial capitalism, right? Capitalism. Capitalism is exploited. Racial capitalism pits the workers against each other by creating a super exploited class that would be African-Americans and turning one half of the working class against the other half, or actually in the case of the United States, probably 70% against 30% or something like that. Anyway, but the antidote to racial capitalism is racial solidarity, which is a system of governance in which black men are fit to participate in, because we tend to be black men and black women tend to be the most progressive actors, political actors in the United States, the vanguard of the revolution, really, when we've had revolution in this country, we've been leaders of that revolution. And so what I was really trying to lay out with that first chapter where I talk about this interracial coalition in Virginia in the late 1870s, early 1880s, is that this was a century before South Africa created the Rainbow Nation, right? Nelson Mandela's Rainbow Nation, which didn't produce the results that the United States. Wilmer Leon (00:31:32): There was no pot of gold. There was no pot of gold. Jon Jeter (00:31:34): Yeah, not so far, we've seen no sight of it. And Brazil hadn't even freed its slaves when this readjust party emerged in Virginia. And so what I'm saying is that this interracial coalition that we saw most prominently in Virginia, but really all across the nation, we saw these interracial coalitions, political coalitions, were all across the Confederacy after the Civil War, and they had varying degrees of success in redistributing wealth from rich to poor, rich to working class. But the point is that no country has really seen such a dynamic interracial rainbow coalition or racial democracy, such as we've seen here in the United States, both in that period after the Civil War, and also in the period between, say, I would say FDRs election as president in 1930, was that 31, 33? 33. (00:32:36): So roughly about the time of Ronald Reagan, we saw, of course there was racism. We didn't end racism, but there was this tenuous collaboration between white and black workers that redistributed wealth. So that by 1973, at the height of it, the working class wages accounted for more than half of GDP. Now it's about 58%, I'm sorry, 42% that the workers' wages accountant for GDP. So the point I'm making really is that this racial democracy, this racial democracy has served the working class very well in the United States, and by dissipating that racial democracy, it has served the elites very well. So Barack Obama's plea to black men, which is really quite frankly aimed at white men, telling them, showing them, Hey, I've got the money control. His job is to sort of quell this uprising by black men, and he's trying to tell plea with black men to vote for Kamala Harris, knowing that the Democratic Party, particularly since 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected, has not only done nothing for black men, but in fact has sought to compete for white suburban voters, IE, many of them racist has sought to compete with the GOP for white suburban voters (00:34:04): By showing they can be just as hard on black people as the GOP. People think that the 1995, was it 1994, omnibus crime Bill 94, racial 94, the racial disparities were unintended consequences. They weren't unintended at all. They weren't in fact, the point they wanted to show white people, the Democratic Party, bill Clinton, our current president, Joe Biden, and many other whites in Democratic party want to show whites, no, no, no, no. We got these Negroes in check. We can keep them in control just like the GOP can. And that continues to be the unofficial unstated policy today, which is why Kamala Harris says, I'm not going to do anything, especially for black people. It's why, for instance, nothing has changed legislatively since George Floyd was lynched before our eyes four years ago. Absolutely nothing has changed. That's an accent that is by design. So there's some very real connections that could be made. There's a straight line that can be made from the read adjuster party in Virginia in the 1880s, which had some real successes in redistributing wealth from rich to the workers and to the poor. And it was an interracial collaboration to Barack Obama appearing, pleading with black men to come vote for Kamala Harris, despite the fact she's done nothing for black men or for black people. Wilmer Leon (00:35:31): And to your earlier point, offering nothing but rhetoric and the opportunity economy where everybody, what in the world is, how does that feed the bulldog? So we've gone from, at least in terms of what they're, I believe, trying to do with black politics. We've gone from a politics of demand. We've gone from a politics of accountability to just a politics of promises and very vague. And this isn't in any way, shape or form trying to convince people that Donald Trump is any better. No, that's not what this conversation is about. But it's about former President Obama coming to a podium and telling black men how admonishing black men, how dare you consider this. But my question is, well, what are the specific policies that Vice President Harris is offering that she can also pass and pay for that are going to benefit the community? Because that's what this is supposed to be about, policy output. Jon Jeter (00:36:55): And that's the one thing that's not going to happen until the working class, we, the people decide, and I don't know what the answer's going to be, if it's going to be a third party, if it's going to be us taking control of the Democratic Party at the grassroots level, I don't know what it's going to be. But the philosophical underpinnings of both political parties is black suffering, right? Black suffering is what greases the wheel, the wheel, the political wheel, the economic wheel of the United States, the idea that you can isolate blacks and our suffering. What Reagan did, what Reagan began was a system of punishing blacks in the workplace, shipping those jobs overseas, which Reagan began, and very slowly, Clinton is the one who really picked up the pace, Wilmer Leon (00:37:44): The de-industrialization of America. Jon Jeter (00:37:47): The de-industrialization of America was based on black suffering. We were the first, was it last hired? First fired. And so we were the ones who lost those jobs initially, and it just snowballed, right? We lost those jobs. And think about when we saw the crack epidemic. Crack is a reflection of crises, (00:38:12): Right? Social crises. So we saw this thing snowball, really, right? But you, in their mind, you can isolate the suffering until you can't. What do I mean by that? Well, if you have just a very basic understanding of the economy, you understand that if you rob 13% of your population buying power, you robbed everybody of buying power, right? I mean, who's going to buy your goods and services if we no longer have buying power? We don't have jobs that pay good wages, we have loans that we can't repay. How does that sustain a workable economy? And maybe no one will remember this, but you've probably heard of Henry Ford's policy of $5 a day that was intended to sustain the economy with buying one thing, the one thing Wilmer Leon (00:39:07):  wait a minute, so that his workers, his assembly line automobile workers could afford to buy the product they were making. There are those who will argue that one of the motivations for ending slavery was the elite looked at the industrialists, looked at this entire population of people and said, these can be consumers. These people are a drag on the economy. If we free them, they can become consumers. Jon Jeter (00:39:45): You don't have to be a communist to understand that capitalism at its best. It can work for a long time, for a sustained period of time. It can work very well for a majority of the people. If the consumers have buying power. We don't have that anymore. We're a nation of borrowers. Wilmer Leon (00:40:07): It's the greed of the capitalists that makes capitalism consumptive, and there's another, the leviathan, all of that stuff. Jon Jeter (00:40:19): Yes. And again, black suffering is at the root of this nation's failure. We have plunged into this dark hole because they sought first to short circuit our income, our resources, but it's affected the entire economy. And the only way to rebuild it, if you want to rebuild a capitalist economy, and that's fine with me, the only way you can rebuild is to restore buying power for a majority of the Americans. As we saw during the forties, the fifties, particularly after the war, we saw this surge in buying power, which created, by the way, the greatest achievement of the industrial age, which was the American middle class. And that was predicated again on racial democracy. Blacks participating in the democracy. Wilmer Leon (00:41:10): You mentioned black men and women tended to be incredibly progressive, and that black men and women were the vanguard of the revolution. What then is the problem with so many of our black institutions that, particularly when you look at our HBCUs that make so many of them, anything but progressive, Jon Jeter (00:41:42): That's a real theme of the book. This thing called racial capitalism has survived by peeling off more and more people. At first, it was the people who came through Ellis Island, European Central Europeans, Hungarians checks, and I have someone in the book I'm quoting, I think David Roediger, the labor historian, famous labor historian, where he quoted a Serbian immigrant, I think in the early 1900's , saying, the first thing you learn is you don't wanna be, that the blacks don't get a fair chance, meaning that you don't want to be anything like them. You don't want to associate with them. And that was a very powerful thing. That's indoctrination. But they do. They peel off one layer after another. One of the most important chapters in the book, I think was the one that begins with the execution of the Rosenbergs, who were the Rosenbergs. Ethel and Julius Rosenbergs were communists, or at least former communists who probably did, certainly, Julius probably did help to pass nuclear technology to the Soviet Union in the late forties, early fifties. (00:42:52): At best. It probably sped up the Russians. Soviet Union's ability to develop the bomb sped up by a year, basically. That's the best that it did. So they had this technology already. Ethel Rosenberg may have typed up the notes. That's all she probably did. And anyway, the state, the government, the US government wanted to make an example out of them. And so they executed them and they executed Ethel Rosenberg. They wanted her to turn against her husband, which would've been turning against her country, her countryman, right? She realized that she wouldn't do it. I can tell you, Ethel Rosenberg was every bit as hard as Tupac. She was a bad woman. Wilmer Leon (00:43:40): But was she as hard as biggie? Jon Jeter (00:43:41): I dunno, that whole east coast, west coast thing, I dunno. But that was a turning point in the class where, because what it was intended to do, or among the things it was intended to do, was the Jews were coming out the Holocaust. The Jews were probably, no, not probably. They certainly were the greatest ally blacks. Many of the communists who helped the Scotsboro boys in the 1930s, and they were communists. Many of them were Jews, right? It was no question about, because the Jews didn't see themselves as white. Remember, Hitler attacked them because they were non-white because they were communists. That's why he attacked them. And that was certainly true here, where there was a very real collusion between Jewish communists and blacks, and it was meant execution of the Rosenbergs was meant to send a signal to the working class, to the Jewish community, especially. You can continue to eff around with these people if you want right, Wilmer Leon (00:44:43): but you'll wind up like em. Jon Jeter (00:44:44): Yeah. Yeah. And at the same time, you think right after the Rosenbergs execution, this figure emerged named Milton Friedman, right? Milton Friedman who said, Hey, wait a minute. This whole brown versus Board of Education, you don't have to succumb to that white people. You can send your kids to their own schools or private schools and make the state pay for it. So very calculated move where the Jews became white, basically, not all of them. You still have, and you still have today, as we see with the protest against Israel, the Jewish community is still very progressive as a very progressive wing and are still our allies in a lot of ways. But many of them chose to be white. The same thing has happened ironically, with black people, right? There is a segment of the population that's represented by a former president, Barack Obama, by Kamala Harris, by the entire Congressional black office that has been offered, that has been extended, this sort of olive branch of prosperity. (00:45:40): If you help us keep these Negroes down, you can have some of this too. Like the scene in Trading Places where Eddie Murphy is released from jail. He's sitting in the backseat with these two doctors and they're like, well, you can go home if you want to. He's got the cigar and the snifter of cognac, no believe I can hang out with you. Fell a little bit longer, right? That's what you see happening now with a lot of black people, particularly the black elite, where they say, no, I think I can hang out with you a little bit longer. So they've turned against us. Wilmer Leon (00:46:13): Port Tom Porter calls that the NER position. Jon Jeter (00:46:17): Yes. Yes. Wilmer Leon (00:46:19): And for those that may not hear the NER, the near position that Mortimer and what was the other brother's name? i Jon Jeter (00:46:28): I Can't remember. I can see their faces, Wilmer Leon (00:46:30): Right? That they have been induced and they have been brought into this sense of entitlement because they are near positions of power. And I think a perfect example of that is the latest election in New York and in St. Louis where you've had, where APAC bragged publicly, we're going to invest $100 million into these Democratic primary elections, and we are going to unseat those who we believe to be two progressive anti-Israel and Cori Bush in St. Louis and Bowman, Jamal Bowman in New York were two of the most notable victims of that. And in fact, I was just having this conversation with Tom earlier today, and that is that nobody seemed to complain. I don't remember the Black caucus, anybody in the black caucus coming out. That article came out, I want to say in April of this year, and they did not say a mumbling word about, what do you mean you're about to interfere in our election? But after Cori Bush lost, now she's out there talking about APAC, I'm coming after your village. Hey, home, girl. That's a little bit of aggression, a whole lot too late. You just got knocked out. (00:48:19): Just got knocked the F out. You are laying, you are laying on the canvas, the crowd's headed to the exits, and you're looking around screaming, who hit me? Who hit me? Who hit me? That anger should have been on the front end talking about, oh, you all going to put in a hundred million? Well, we going to get a hundred million and one votes. And it should have been exposed. Had it been exposed for what it was, they'd still be in office. Jon Jeter (00:48:50): And to that point, and this is very interesting. Now, Jamal Bowman, I talked to some black activists in New York in his district, and they would tell you we never saw, right? We had these press conferences where we're protesting police violence under Mayor Eric Adams, another black (00:49:11): Politician, and we never saw him. He didn't anticipate. In fact, one of them says she's with Black Lives Matter, I believe she says, we called him when it was announced that APAC was backing this candidate. He said, what can we do? Said they never heard back. Right? Cori Bush, to her credit, is more from the movement. She was a product of Michael Brown. My guess is she will be back, right? That's my guess. Because she has a lot of support from the grassroots. She probably, if anyone can defeat APAC money as Cori Bush, although she's not perfect either. Wilmer Leon (00:49:44): But my point is still, I think she fell into the trap. Jon Jeter (00:49:51): No question. No question. No question. No, I don't disagree at all. And that again, is that peeling off another layer to turn them against this radical black? That's what it really is. It's a radical black political tradition that survived slavery. It's still here, right? It's just that they're constantly trying to suppress that. Wilmer Leon (00:50:10): And another element of this, and I'm trying to remember the sister that they did this to in Georgia, Congresswoman, wait a minute, hang on. Time out. Cynthia McKinney. The value of having a library, Cynthia McKinney. (00:50:31): Most definitely! (00:50:33): They did the same thing. How the US creates S*hole countries. Cynthia McKinney, they did the same thing to her. So it's not as though they had developed a new strategy. It's that it worked against Cynthia and they played it again, and we let it happen. Jon Jeter (00:50:57): Real democracy can immunize these politicians though, from that kind of strategy. Wilmer Leon (00:51:01): Absolutely. Absolutely. In chapter six, the Battle on the Bay, you talk about 1927, you talk about this 47-year-old ironworker, John Norris, who buys this flat, and then the depression hits and he loses everything. You talk about Rose Majeski, Jon Jeter (00:51:24): I think I Wilmer Leon (00:51:26): Managed to raise her five children. You talk about the Depression. The Harlem Renaissance writer, Langston Hughes wrote, brought everybody down a peg or two, and the Negro had but few pegs to fall. Travis Dempsey lost his job selling to the Chicago defender. Then you talk about a gorgeous summer day, Theodore Goodlow driving a truck and a hayride black people on a hayride, and someone falls victim to a white man running into the hayride. And his name was John Jeter. John with an H. Yours has no H Jon Jeter (00:52:13): Legally it does. Wilmer Leon (00:52:14): Oh, okay. Okay, okay. All right. Anyway, so you make a personal familiar connection to some of this. Elaborate, Jon Jeter (00:52:26): My uncle, who was a teenager at the time, I can't remember exactly how old he played in the Negro Leagues, actually, Negro baseball leagues was on this hayride. And I know the street. I'm very familiar with. The street. Two trucks can't pass one another. It's just too narrow, and it's like an aqueduct. So it's got walls there to keep you. Oh, (00:52:52): Viaduct. I'm sorry. Yeah. Not an auc. Yeah, thank you. Public education. So basically what happened is my uncle had his legs sort of out the hayride, like he's a teenager, and this car came along, another truck came along and it sheared his legs off, killed him. I don't think my father ever knew the story. I think my father went to his grave not knowing the story, but we did some research after his death, me and my sister and my brother, my younger brother. And there was almost a riot at the hospital when my uncle died, because the belief, I believe they couldn't quite say it in the black newspaper at the time, but the belief was that this white man had done it intentionally, right? He wasn't charged, and black people were very upset. So it was an act of aggression, very much, very similar to what we see now happening all over the country with these acts of white, of aggression by white men, basically young white men who are angry about feeling they're losing their racial privileges or racial entitlement. (00:53:52): So anyway, to make the story short, I was named after my uncle, my father, my mother named me after my uncle, but I think it was 1972. I would've been seven years old. And me and my father were at a farmer's market in Indianapolis where I grew up. And this old man at this time, old man, I mean doting in a brown suit, I'll never forget this in a brown suit. He comes up to us and he just comes up to my father and he holds his hand, shakes his hand, and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And my father's said, no, it's okay. You didn't know. It wasn't your fault. Nobody blamed you. And come to find out that he was the driver of that hay ride, right? I think a dentist at the time, he was the driver of that hayride in which my uncle was killed. (00:54:38): And he had felt bad about it, I guess, the rest of his days. So yeah, it's really interesting how my life, or at least the lives of my parents and my grandparents, how it intersects with this story of the class war. And it does in many, many aspects. It does. And I suspect that's true of most people, I hope, who will read the book, that they will find their own lives and their own history intersecting with this class war. Because this class war is comprehensive. It's hard to escape from it. It is all about the class war to paraphrase Fred Hampton. And yeah, that story really kind of moved me in a lot of ways because I had personal history, personal connection. Wilmer Leon (00:55:25): You mentioned when you just said that there was almost this riot at the hospital. What a lot of people now today don't realize is how many of those incidents occurred during those times. And we know very little, if anything about 'em, we were raising hell. So for example, you listened to some kids today was, man, if I had to been back there, I wouldn't have been no slaves. I'd have been out there kicking ass and taking names. Well, but implicit in that is a lack of understanding that folks were raising hell, 1898 in Greenwood, South Carolina, one of my great uncles was lynched in the Phoenix Riot. Black people tried to vote, fight breaks out, white guy gets shot, they round up the usual suspects, Jon Jeter (00:56:23): Right Wilmer Leon (00:56:23): Of whom was my great uncle. Some were lynched, some were shot at the Rehoboth Church in the parking lot of the Rehoboth Church, nonetheless. And that was the week before the more famous Wilmington riot. It was one week before the Wilmington Riot. And you've got the dcom lunch counters. And I mean, all of these history is replete with all of these stories of our resistance. And somehow now we've lost the near position. We've lost. We've lost that fight. Jon Jeter (00:57:02): We don't understand, and I mean this about all of us, but particularly African Americans, we don't understand. We once were warriors. And so one of the things I talk about in the book I write about in the book is the red summer of 1919. Many people are familiar with 1919, the purges that were going on. Basically this industrial upheaval. And the white elites were afraid that blacks were going to sort of lead this union labor organizing movement. And so there were these riots all across the country of whites attacking blacks. But what people don't understand is that the brothers, back then, many of them who had participated in World War, they were like Fred Hampton, it takes two to tango, right? And they were shooting back. And in fact, to end that thought, some of these riots, which weren't really riots, they were meant to be massacre, some of these, they had scouts who went into the black community to see almost to see their vulnerability. And a few times the White Scouts came back and said, no, we don't wanna go in there. We better leave them alone. Wilmer Leon (00:58:12): I was looking over here on my bookcase, got, oh, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Red summer, the summer of 1919, and the Awakening of Black America. Yeah, yeah. Jon Jeter (00:58:24): I've got that book. I've got that same book. Yep. Wilmer Leon (00:58:26): Okay, so I've got a couple others here. Death in the Promised Land, the Tulsa Race Riot in 1921, and see what a lot of people don't know about Tulsa is after the alleged encounter in the elevator Jon Jeter (00:58:44): Elevator, right! Wilmer Leon (00:58:45): Right? That young man went home, went to the community, went back to, and when the folks came in, the community, they didn't just sit idly by and let this deal go down. That's why, one of the reasons why I believe, I think I have this right, that it got to the tension that it did because it just came an all out fight. Jon Jeter (00:59:12): Oh yeah, Oh yeah! Wilmer Leon (00:59:12): We fought back Jon Jeter (00:59:14): tooth and nail. Wilmer Leon (00:59:16): We fought back, Jon Jeter (00:59:16): Tooth and nail. Yeah, no, definitely. Wilmer Leon (00:59:18): We fought back. So Brother John Jeter, when someone is done reading class War in America, how the elites divided the nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? And I'm reading it backwards anyway, what are the three major points that you want someone to take away from reading? And folks I've read it, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal. In fact, before you answer that question, let me give this plug. I suggest that usually when I recommend a book, I try to recommend a compliment to it. And I would suggest that people get John Jeter class war in America and then get Dr. Ronald Walters "White Nationalism, Black Interests." Jon Jeter (01:00:13): Oh yeah. Wilmer Leon (01:00:14): And read those two, I Think. Jon Jeter (01:00:18): Oh, I love that. I love being compared to Ron Walters, the great Ron Walters, Wilmer Leon (01:00:23): And I would not be where I am and who I am. He played a tremendous role in Dr. Wilmer Leon. I have a PhD because of him. Jon Jeter (01:00:33): He is a great man. I interviewed him a few times. Wilmer Leon (01:00:36): Yeah, few. So while you're answering that question, I'm going to, so what are the two or three things that you want the reader to walk away from this book having a better understanding of? Jon Jeter (01:00:47): Well, we almost end where we begin. The first thing is Fred Hampton. It is a class war gda is what he said, right? It's a class war. But that does not mean that you can put class above race if you really want to understand the battle, the fight, Wilmer Leon (01:01:09): Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Lemme interrupt you. There was a question I wanted to ask you, and I forgot. Thomas Sowell, the economist Thomas Sowell. And just quickly, because to your point about putting class above race, I wanted to get to the Thomas Sowell point, and I almost forgot it. So in your exposition here, work Thomas, Sowell into your answer. Jon Jeter (01:01:30): Yeah, Thomas. Sowell, and I think a lot of people, particularly now you see with these young, mostly white liberals, although some blacks like Adolf Reed, the political scientists, Adolf Reed posit that it's class above race, that the issues racial and antagonisms should be subordinate to the class issue. Overall, universal ideas and programs, I would argue you can't parse one from the other, that they are connected in a way that you can't separate them. That yes, it is a class issue, but they've used race to weaken the working class to pit it against the itself. So you can't really parse the two and understand the battle that we have in front of us. The other thing I would say too, because like the Panthers would say, I hate the oppressor. I don't hate white people. And it really is a white identity. But as George Jackson said, and I quote him in the book, white racism is the biggest barrier to a united left in United States. That which is true when he wrote it more than 50 years ago, (01:02:43): It was true 50 years before that is true today. It is white racism. That is the problem. And once whites can, as we see happening, we do see it happening with these young, many of them Jewish, but really whites of all from all walks of life are forfeiting their racial privileges to rally, to advocate for the Palestinians. So that's a very good sign that something is stirring within our community. And the third thing I would say is, I'm not optimistic, right? Because optimism is dangerous. Something Barack Obama should have learned talking about the audacity of hope, he meant optimism and optimism is not what you need. But I do think there's reason for hope, these young students on the college campuses who are rallying the, I think the very real existential threat posed to the duopoly by the Democratic Party, by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's complicity in this genocide. I think there's a very real possibility that the duopoly is facing an existential threat. People are understanding that the enemy is, our political class, is our elite political class that is responsible for this genocide that we are seeing in real time. (01:04:03): That's Never happened before. So I would say the three things, it is a class for white racism is the biggest barrier to a united left or a united working class in this country. And third, there is reason to hope that we might be able to reorganize. And in fact, history suggests that we will organize very soon, reorganize very soon. There might be a dark period in between that, but that we will reorganize. And that this time, I hope we understand that we need to fight against this white racism, which unfortunately, whites give up that privilege. History has shown whites give up that privilege of being white, work with us, collaborate with us. But they return, as we saw beginning with Ronald Reagan, they return to this idea of a white identity, which is really a scab. Wilmer Leon (01:04:50): Well, in fact, Dr. King told us in where we go from here, chaos or community, he said, be wary of the white liberal. He said, because they are opposed to the brutality of the lash, but they do not support equality. That was from where we go from here, folks. John Jeter class War in America, how the elites divide the nation by asking, are you a worker or are you white? After you read that, then get white nationalism, black interests, conservative public policy in the black community by my mentor, Dr. The late great Dr. Ronald Walters, and I mentioned the Dockum drugstore protests. He was Dr. Ron Walters was considered to be the grandfather of, Jon Jeter (01:05:40): I didn't know that Wilmer Leon (01:05:41): of the sit-in movement. Jon Jeter (01:05:42): Did not know (01:05:43): The Dockum lunch counter protests in Wichita, Kansas. He helped to organize before the folks in North Carolina took their lead from the lunch counter protest that he helped. (01:06:01): I did not know that. Wilmer Leon (01:06:02): Yes, yes, yes, yes. Jon Jeter (01:06:03): I did not know that. Wilmer Leon (01:06:04): Alright, so now even I taught John Jeter something today. Now. Now that's a day. That's a day for you. John Jeter, my dear brother. I got to thank you as always for joining me today. Jon Jeter (01:06:16): Thank you, brother. It's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure. Wilmer Leon (01:06:19): Folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon, and stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe, lie a review, share the show, follow us on social media. You'll find all the links to the show below in the description. And remember that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Because talk without analysis is just chatter. And we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. And folks, get this book. Get this book for the holidays. Get this book. Did I say get the book? Because you need to get the book. We don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you all again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Woman Leon. Y'all have a great one. Peace. I'm out Announcer (01:07:15): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.  

08-23-24

08-23-24

Today, we celebrate God's grace, love, and purposes for giving us 25 years of ministry in Scottsboro and Jackson County!

One of the regular features we do for the National Tractor Parts Dealer Association (NTPDA) is visit with members about their business, family, local community and more. It's our way of helping the Association boost their voice. Here in a segment we call "Where Are They Now" we visit with Trey Russell from Russell Tractor Parts of Scottsboro, Alabama who, way back in 1999 received a scholarship from the NTPDA and we thought you might like to learn more.  This past year NTPDA awarded 25 scholarships for a total of $66,500 plus another $12.500 from member companies who sponsored a young person.  Thanks for listening! The award winning Insight on Business the News Hour with Michael Libbie is the only weekday business news podcast in the Midwest. The national, regional and some local business news along with long-form business interviews can be heard Monday - Friday. You can subscribe on  PlayerFM, Podbean, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio. And you can catch The Business News Hour Week in Review each Sunday Noon Central on News/Talk 1540 KXEL. The Business News Hour is a production of Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications. You can follow us on Twitter @IoB_NewsHour...and on Threads @Insight_On_Business.

BTC is on the road again! Hosts Doug Simcox and Sam Swearingen travel to Scottsboro, Alabama to talk with International Professional Rodeo Cowboy Marlon Harris. Marlon shares his journey of growing up and finding his passion for rodeo, competing in bareback bronc riding and bull riding. He discusses joining the "Blue Van" - the Rob McDonald Crew, and his extensive traveling experiences.As a historian of the IPRA, Marlon talks about his friends, mentors, heroes, and several legends in professional rodeo. He delves into the history of the Mountain Cove Rodeo, Longhorn Rodeo, Loretta Lynn's rodeo, and the J Bar J Rodeo Company. Additionally, Marlon shares insights about life after rodeo and his annual cowboy reunion held each Labor Day weekend in Mountain Cove, Georgia.Tune in for an inspiring and nostalgic episode filled with stories and memories from Marlon Harris's rodeo career and beyond.Mountain Cove Rodeo Reunionhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/729424520834071Here are some resources for Beyond the Chutes:Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093822821241Official Website:https://beyondthechutes.show/You Can Listen to Beyond The Chutes onSpotify: https://shorturl.at/bvK35Apple Podcasts: https://shorturl.at/jnGV4Amazon Music: https://tinyurl.com/24n3hmk4YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/bdcju8nzRSS: https://rss.com/podcasts/beyondthechutes/ParaSight SystemsCoupon: BTC023 for 50% off Mail In Test Kitshttps://www.parasightsystem.com/The IRA Projecthttps://www.facebook.com/groups/681292165259783New York State Rodeo Museumhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/1159615314694489#rodeo #cowboy #cowboyboots #cowgirl #cowgirlstyle #westernstyle #westernfashion #horse #horseriding #bullriding #podcast #podcaster #podcastersofinstagram #rodeopodcast #rodeohouston #rodeofashion #prorodeo #sttite #fwst #dance #fwst2023 #fwst2024 #rodeohorse #rodeoroad #rodeocharm #rodeoclown #yellowstone #ipra #prca #pbr #pbrbrasil #historychannel #history #historybuff #historylovers

BTC is on the road again, heading to Scottsboro, Alabama for some riveting conversations. Join hosts Doug Simcox and Sam Swearingen as they sit down with Bishop Arnold, the longtime traveling companion and funny man, working with the legendary rodeo clown Lecile Harris.In this episode, we delve into the heart of rodeo entertainment, uncovering the secrets behind Lecile's unforgettable acts and how they were created, the late-night drives that tested their endurance, and the unbreakable bond between Bishop and Lecile. Get ready for firsthand stories of creative brilliance, hilarious mishaps, and the camaraderie that fuels the rodeo spirit.Whether you're a seasoned rodeo fan or new to the arena, Beyond the Chutes offers an exhilarating look into the world of rodeo, celebrating the colorful characters and unsung heroes who make it all possible. Subscribe, follow, and share with friends to stay updated on our latest episodes. Buckle up and join us as we hit the road and go Beyond the Chutes!Follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major streaming platforms. Search "Beyond the Chutes" and join us for the ride.Special thanks to our sponsor, Parasite Systems. Ensure the health of your pasture and companion animals with their innovative parasitic diagnostic systems. Visit ParasiteSystems.com and use coupon code BTC023 for 50% off your mail-in test kits.Lecile Harris Facebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/EthellovesLecile100Lecile Harris – This Ain't My First Rodeohttps://www.amazon.com/Lecile-This-Aint-First-Rodeo/dp/0692476962PRCA Cowboy Hall of Fame – Lecile Harrishttps://www.prorodeohalloffame.com/inductees/contract-personnel/lecile-harris/Beyond the Chutes Facebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093822821241Beyond the Chutes Webpagehttps://beyondthechutes.show/ParaSight SystemsCoupon: BTC023 for 50% off Mail In Test Kitshttps://www.parasightsystem.com/The IRA Projecthttps://www.facebook.com/groups/681292165259783New York State Rodeo Museumhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/1159615314694489#rodeo #cowboy #cowboyboots #cowgirl #cowgirlstyle #westernstyle #westernfashion #horse #horseriding #bullriding #podcast #podcaster #podcastersofinstagram #rodeopodcast #rodeohouston #rodeofashion #prorodeo #sttite #fwst #dance #fwst2023 #fwst2024 #rodeohorse #rodeoroad #rodeocharm #rodeoclown #yellowstone #ipra #prca #pbr #pbrbrasil #historychannel #history #historybuff #historylovers

Welcome to the audio digest of this week's issue of The Alabama Baptist and The Baptist Paper. Each episode features news headlines and feature stories read by TAB Media Group staff and volunteers. New episodes are released weekly on Wednesday mornings. Articles of Interest: Helping students ‘build upon what God has done' (5:10) Scottsboro pastor says Juneteenth an opportunity to show gospel without ‘gaping hole' (9:31) Pray.com: A team effort working to ‘impact the world in a big way' (14:23) Visit TAB Media HERE Subscribe on iTunes HERE Visit Reliable Signs HERE

In the United States, the airline industry loses an estimated 2 million bags annually. Now you might be wondering, where do all those lost bags end up? Well Jason and Peter were able to get a definitive answer to that question. The majority end up in Alabama! Really, no Really! Our guest Bryan Owens discusses his unique family business…which has been dealing with lost and unclaimed luggage for over 50 years. Their enormous store, in Scottsboro, Alabama - which covers more than a city block - sells tens of thousands of unclaimed baggage items every year. And with five decades of experience processing enormous volumes of lost items, Bryan reveals some of the one-of-a-kind pieces found in unclaimed luggage… including a 3,000-year-old Egyptian burial mask, a live rattlesnake, and even a shrunken human head which you can see in the store's recently opened museum. IN THIS EPISODE: The Unclaimed Baggage origin story and how they stock 7,000 new items every day. Airlines responsibility regarding lost luggage, settling claims and when Bryan's team can take over. Who gets first dibs on valuable or in-demand items when lost luggage is recovered? A highly secret F14 guidance system, live venomous snakes and suits of armor are just a few of the bizarre things Bryan must deal with. How you can save up to 80% by purchasing someone else's lost items! How Bryan Owen's business employs dozens of pricing experts, authenticators and even GIA certified appraisers so he can issue certificates of authenticity. The psychology behind why most people don't attempt to reclaim their stuff! Jason's secret to finding lost items…look in the pickle barrel! Googleheim: Jason's spring-loaded blackjack and a list of obvious and not so obvious items you can't bring on an airplane. *** FOLLOW BRYAN: Website: UnclaimedBaggage.com Instagram: @UnclaimBag X: @UnclaimedBag *** FOLLOW REALLY NO REALLY: www.reallynoreally.com Instagram YouTube TikTok Facebook Threads XSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Melea sits down with Jim Olyniec, a veteran and volunteer who has helped build the Veterans Memorial Park in Scottsboro, Alabama from the ground up. They talk about how the park came to be and why a park of this nature is so important in preserving and honoring the community's heritage. The Veterans Memorial Park Follow North Alabama on Social Media! Website Instagram TikTok LinkedIn YouTube Twitter Facebook The Unexpected Adventures in North Alabama Podcast is a part of the Destination Marketing Podcast Network. It is hosted by Melea Hames and produced by Relic. To learn more about the Destination Marketing Podcast Network and to listen to our other shows, please visit https://thedmpn.com/. If you are interested in becoming a part of the network, please email adam@relicagency.com.

What happens to suitcases that can't be reunited with their owners? It's not something we think about that often, but for Bryan Owens, it's an entire business. He's the CEO and now-owner of the Scottsboro, Alabama–based Unclaimed Baggage, the only store in the United States that sells lost luggage. As you'll hear in today's episode, his dad launched the business more than 50 years ago with an old Chevy pickup and $300. And now the business stocks more than 7,000 new items a day.  The company recently released its first annual Found Report, a deep dive into the more than 2 million items that came through its doors in 2023, including including the aforementioned live snakes and fancy handbags. Host Aislyn Greene talks with Bryan about where these bags come from, how the company makes decisions about what to sell and, more interestingly, what it does with everything else: Donations and partnerships with organizations like Wheels for the World are critical to its mission.  Meet this week's guest Bryan Owens, CEO and owner of Unclaimed Baggage Resources Read the full transcript of the episode.  Check out Unclaimed Baggage.  Follow the podcast to ensure you don't miss an episode.  Subscribe to Afar's YouTube channel for a full video of the conversation.

Join us on this episode of Real Life with Christ as we sit down with Ian Derrick, the passionate youth pastor of First Baptist Scottsboro. Ian shares his inspiring vision of community within the church and how collaboration among different church bodies can lead to more efficient and impactful ministry. We delve into the upcoming community-wide Disciple Now (DNOW) event, where our church community is uniting to host a transformative event for the youth groups of Scottsboro. Through fellowship, worship, and service, we're coming together to lift up the name of Jesus and empower the next generation. Tune in to discover how unity in Christ can truly strengthen and bless our communities.DNOW registration link - https://agapebaptist.com/events?sapurl=LytiZ2Y3L2xiL2V2LyszeDdiNWhxL3JlZ2lzdGVyP2JyYW5kaW5nPXRydWUmZW1iZWQ9dHJ1ZSZyZWNlbnRSb3V0ZT1hcHAud2ViLWFwcC5saWJyYXJ5LmNhbGVuZGFyJnJlY2VudFJvdXRlU2x1Zz0lMkJqMnJwZjh2Questions? Email us!dakota@reallifewithchrist.comjonathan@reallifewithchrist.com

This year, the Transportation Security Administration says it screened a record number of passengers, and if the past is any guide, it will handle millions of bags this holiday season. But a small fraction of them will go missing and unclaimed. So where do all those lost bags end up? Stephanie Sy visited the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama, to find out. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Uno de los recientes recursos que interpuso ante los tribunales federales de Estados Unidos el equipo legal de Trump es verdaderamente orwelliano. El intento del expresidente era retrasar su juicio casi tres años. El escrito presentado establece una comparación entre Trump —una persona que se describe a sí misma como multimillonaria— y los llamados “chicos de Scottsboro”, nueve jóvenes negros que sufrieron una de las persecuciones judiciales más notoriamente racistas de la historia de Estados Unidos.

Adam talks about the largely undocumented Scottsboro City Schools teacher strike.✦ ABOUT ✦The Valley Labor Report is the only union talk radio show in Alabama, elevating struggles for justice and fairness on the job, educating folks about how they can do the same, and bringing relevant news to workers in Alabama and beyond.Our single largest source of revenue *is our listeners* so your support really matters and helps us stay on the air!Make a one time donation or become a monthly donor on our website or patreon:TVLR.FMPatreon.com/thevalleylaborreportVisit our official website for more info on the show, membership, our sponsors, merch, and more: https://www.tvlr.fmFollow TVLR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheValleyLab...Follow TVLR on Twitter: @LaborReportersFollow Jacob on Twitter: @JacobM_ALFollow TVLR Co-Creator David Story on Twitter: @RadiclUnionist✦ CONTACT US ✦Our phone number is 844-899-TVLR (8857), call or text us live on air, or leave us a voicemail and we might play it during the show!✦ OUR ADVERTISERS KEEP US ON THE AIR! ✦Support them if you can.The attorneys at MAPLES, TUCKER, AND JACOB fight for working people. Let them represent you in your workplace injury claim. Mtandj.com; (855) 617-9333The MACHINISTS UNION represents workers in several industries including healthcare, the defense industry, woodworking, and more. iamaw44.org (256) 286-3704 / organize@iamaw44.orgDo you need good union laborers on your construction site, or do you want a union construction job? Reach out to the IRONWORKERS LOCAL 477. Ironworkers477.org  256-383-3334 (Jeb Miles) / local477@bellsouth.netThe NORTH ALABAMA DSA is looking for folks to work for a better North Alabama, fighting for liberty and justice for all. Contact / Join: DSANorthAlabama@gmail.comIBEW LOCAL 136 is a group of over 900 electricians and electrical workers providing our area with the finest workforce in the construction industry. You belong here. ibew136.org Contact: (205) 833-0909IFPTE - We are engineers, scientists, nonprofit employees, technicians, lawyers, and many other professions who have joined together to have a greater voice in our careers. With over 80,000 members spread across the U.S. and Canada, we invite you and your colleagues to consider the benefits of engaging in collective bargaining. IFPTE.org Contact: (202) 239-4880THE HUNTSVILLE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD is a union open to any and all working people. Call or email them today to begin organizing your workplace - wherever it is. On the Web: https://hsviww.org/ Contact: (256) 651-6707 / organize@hsviww.orgENERGY ALABAMA is accelerating Alabama's transition to sustainable energy. We are a nonprofit membership-based organization that has advocated for clean energy in Alabama since 2014. Our work is based on three pillars: education, advocacy, and technical assistance. Energy Alabama on the Web: https://alcse.org/ Contact: (256) 812-1431 / dtait@energyalabama.orgThe Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union represents in a wide range of industries, including but not limited to retail, grocery stores, poultry processing, dairy processing, cereal processing, soda bottlers, bakeries, health care, hotels, manufacturing, public sector workers like crossing guards, sanitation, and highway workers, warehouses, building services,  and distribution. Learn more at RWDSU.infoThe American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union proudly representing 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers nationwide and overseas. Learn more at AFGE.orgAre you looking for a better future, a career that can have you set for life, and to be a part of something that's bigger than yourself?   Consider a skilled trades apprenticeship with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. Learn more at IUPAT.orgUnionly is a union-focused company created specifically to support organized labor. We believe that providing online payments should be simple, safe, and secure.  Visit https://unionly.io/ to learn more.Hometown Action envisions inclusive, revitalized, and sustainable communities built through multiracial working class organizing and leadership development at the local and state level to create opportunities for all people to thrive. Learn more at hometownaction.orgMembers of IBEW have some of the best wages and benefits in North Alabama. Find out more and join their team at ibew558.org ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

During the Great Depression, the American South was not merely "the nation's number one economic problem," as President Franklin Roosevelt declared. It was also a battlefield on which forces for and against social change were starting to form. For a white southern liberal like Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, it was a fascinating moment to explore. Attuned to culture as well as politics, Daniels knew the true South lay somewhere between Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.  On May 5, 1937, he set out to find it, driving thousands of miles in his trusty Plymouth and ultimately interviewing even Mitchell herself. In Discovering the South historian Jennifer Ritterhouse pieces together Daniels's unpublished notes from his tour along with his published writings and a wealth of archival evidence to put this one man's journey through a South in transition into a larger context. Daniels's well chosen itinerary brought him face to face with the full range of political and cultural possibilities in the South of the 1930s, from New Deal liberalism and social planning in the Tennessee Valley Authority, to Communist agitation in the Scottsboro case, to planters' and industrialists' reactionary worldview and repressive violence. Jennifer Ritterhouse's book Discovering the South: One Man's Travels through a Changing America in the 1930s (UNC Press, 2017) is a lively narrative of black and white southerners fighting for and against democratic social change at the start of the nation's long civil rights era. For more information on this book, see www.discoveringthesouth.org. Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches courses in U.S. and public history. His research focuses on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

During the Great Depression, the American South was not merely "the nation's number one economic problem," as President Franklin Roosevelt declared. It was also a battlefield on which forces for and against social change were starting to form. For a white southern liberal like Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, it was a fascinating moment to explore. Attuned to culture as well as politics, Daniels knew the true South lay somewhere between Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.  On May 5, 1937, he set out to find it, driving thousands of miles in his trusty Plymouth and ultimately interviewing even Mitchell herself. In Discovering the South historian Jennifer Ritterhouse pieces together Daniels's unpublished notes from his tour along with his published writings and a wealth of archival evidence to put this one man's journey through a South in transition into a larger context. Daniels's well chosen itinerary brought him face to face with the full range of political and cultural possibilities in the South of the 1930s, from New Deal liberalism and social planning in the Tennessee Valley Authority, to Communist agitation in the Scottsboro case, to planters' and industrialists' reactionary worldview and repressive violence. Jennifer Ritterhouse's book Discovering the South: One Man's Travels through a Changing America in the 1930s (UNC Press, 2017) is a lively narrative of black and white southerners fighting for and against democratic social change at the start of the nation's long civil rights era. For more information on this book, see www.discoveringthesouth.org. Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches courses in U.S. and public history. His research focuses on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

During the Great Depression, the American South was not merely "the nation's number one economic problem," as President Franklin Roosevelt declared. It was also a battlefield on which forces for and against social change were starting to form. For a white southern liberal like Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, it was a fascinating moment to explore. Attuned to culture as well as politics, Daniels knew the true South lay somewhere between Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.  On May 5, 1937, he set out to find it, driving thousands of miles in his trusty Plymouth and ultimately interviewing even Mitchell herself. In Discovering the South historian Jennifer Ritterhouse pieces together Daniels's unpublished notes from his tour along with his published writings and a wealth of archival evidence to put this one man's journey through a South in transition into a larger context. Daniels's well chosen itinerary brought him face to face with the full range of political and cultural possibilities in the South of the 1930s, from New Deal liberalism and social planning in the Tennessee Valley Authority, to Communist agitation in the Scottsboro case, to planters' and industrialists' reactionary worldview and repressive violence. Jennifer Ritterhouse's book Discovering the South: One Man's Travels through a Changing America in the 1930s (UNC Press, 2017) is a lively narrative of black and white southerners fighting for and against democratic social change at the start of the nation's long civil rights era. For more information on this book, see www.discoveringthesouth.org. Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches courses in U.S. and public history. His research focuses on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

During the Great Depression, the American South was not merely "the nation's number one economic problem," as President Franklin Roosevelt declared. It was also a battlefield on which forces for and against social change were starting to form. For a white southern liberal like Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, it was a fascinating moment to explore. Attuned to culture as well as politics, Daniels knew the true South lay somewhere between Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.  On May 5, 1937, he set out to find it, driving thousands of miles in his trusty Plymouth and ultimately interviewing even Mitchell herself. In Discovering the South historian Jennifer Ritterhouse pieces together Daniels's unpublished notes from his tour along with his published writings and a wealth of archival evidence to put this one man's journey through a South in transition into a larger context. Daniels's well chosen itinerary brought him face to face with the full range of political and cultural possibilities in the South of the 1930s, from New Deal liberalism and social planning in the Tennessee Valley Authority, to Communist agitation in the Scottsboro case, to planters' and industrialists' reactionary worldview and repressive violence. Jennifer Ritterhouse's book Discovering the South: One Man's Travels through a Changing America in the 1930s (UNC Press, 2017) is a lively narrative of black and white southerners fighting for and against democratic social change at the start of the nation's long civil rights era. For more information on this book, see www.discoveringthesouth.org. Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches courses in U.S. and public history. His research focuses on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

During the Great Depression, the American South was not merely "the nation's number one economic problem," as President Franklin Roosevelt declared. It was also a battlefield on which forces for and against social change were starting to form. For a white southern liberal like Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, it was a fascinating moment to explore. Attuned to culture as well as politics, Daniels knew the true South lay somewhere between Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.  On May 5, 1937, he set out to find it, driving thousands of miles in his trusty Plymouth and ultimately interviewing even Mitchell herself. In Discovering the South historian Jennifer Ritterhouse pieces together Daniels's unpublished notes from his tour along with his published writings and a wealth of archival evidence to put this one man's journey through a South in transition into a larger context. Daniels's well chosen itinerary brought him face to face with the full range of political and cultural possibilities in the South of the 1930s, from New Deal liberalism and social planning in the Tennessee Valley Authority, to Communist agitation in the Scottsboro case, to planters' and industrialists' reactionary worldview and repressive violence. Jennifer Ritterhouse's book Discovering the South: One Man's Travels through a Changing America in the 1930s (UNC Press, 2017) is a lively narrative of black and white southerners fighting for and against democratic social change at the start of the nation's long civil rights era. For more information on this book, see www.discoveringthesouth.org. Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches courses in U.S. and public history. His research focuses on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south

During the Great Depression, the American South was not merely "the nation's number one economic problem," as President Franklin Roosevelt declared. It was also a battlefield on which forces for and against social change were starting to form. For a white southern liberal like Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News and Observer, it was a fascinating moment to explore. Attuned to culture as well as politics, Daniels knew the true South lay somewhere between Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.  On May 5, 1937, he set out to find it, driving thousands of miles in his trusty Plymouth and ultimately interviewing even Mitchell herself. In Discovering the South historian Jennifer Ritterhouse pieces together Daniels's unpublished notes from his tour along with his published writings and a wealth of archival evidence to put this one man's journey through a South in transition into a larger context. Daniels's well chosen itinerary brought him face to face with the full range of political and cultural possibilities in the South of the 1930s, from New Deal liberalism and social planning in the Tennessee Valley Authority, to Communist agitation in the Scottsboro case, to planters' and industrialists' reactionary worldview and repressive violence. Jennifer Ritterhouse's book Discovering the South: One Man's Travels through a Changing America in the 1930s (UNC Press, 2017) is a lively narrative of black and white southerners fighting for and against democratic social change at the start of the nation's long civil rights era. For more information on this book, see www.discoveringthesouth.org. Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches courses in U.S. and public history. His research focuses on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. You can follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey Ya'll! This week we discuss the infamous case of the Scottsboro 9. Its a tough one, but a light of hope weaves it's way through. Resources: The Man from Scottsborohttps://www.amazon.com/Man-Scottsboro-Clarence-Infamous-Alabama/dp/078641538X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PZJAE5J0NFOE&keywords=the+man+from+scottsboro&qid=1681777922&s=books&sprefix=the+man+from+scottsboro%2Cstripbooks%2C88&sr=1-1The Scottsboro Boys Museumhttps://www.thescottsboroboysmuseum.com/Stories of Scottsboro by James Goodmanhttps://www.amazon.com/Stories-Scottsboro-James-Goodman/dp/0679761594Jim Crow On Trial: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Case of the Scottsboro Boyshttps://www.amazon.com/Jim-Crow-Trial-Notorious-Scottsboro/dp/1517608538/ref=pd_lpo_2?pd_rd_w=iYwgK&content-id=amzn1.sym.116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_p=116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_r=5KNGEHM0NKA91NHM9F8M&pd_rd_wg=21kjI&pd_rd_r=5515546f-df4d-4f9a-9c29-fc12d2cac15c&pd_rd_i=1517608538&psc=1

AlabamaCongressman Aderholt supports TX judge injunction against abortion drugState police raid bingo halls in Jefferson county on TuesdayALGOP poll shows majority of Alabamians want repeal of grocery sales taxAG Steve Marshall pushing for passage of bills cracking down on gangsFederal judge orders state evidence be given to inmate asking for new trialMobile city council sets special election date for July to fill vacated seatUnclaimed Baggage store in Scottsboro to display its bizarre finds in museumNationalLegal group claims  Biden's White House involved in FBI raid of Mar LagoState lawmaker in Louisiana switches parties, gives GOP supermajority votesJudge orders KY governor to pay attorney fees over Covid case lost in 2020AI already being used for criminal phone activity in AZ

LIVE in Scottsboro, AL chatting with #WVKA and Feelfree Team Members Kyle Strother and Jerry Spradling regarding prefishing and the upcoming #KBF Ambassador Event... We are prefishing, so times could be a little fluid... see ya around 6:30pm Sign Up For Dale Hollow Event- https://tourneyx.com/leaderboard/standings/paddlenfin-open-at-dale-hollow-2023 Dale Hollow Lodging- www.eastport.info Waypoint TV- https://waypointtv.com Podcast & Website- www.paddlenfin.com YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/paddlenfin Email- paddlenfin@gmail.com Social Media- @paddlenfin Yak Gadget- www.yakgadget.com Pelican Professional- www.pelican.com Rocktown paddlesports - rocktownadventures.com JigMasters Jigs- https://jigmasters.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lead pastor of First Baptist Scottsboro, Mr. Shandy Dill joins the podcast! Shandy shares his testimony of growing up in east Mississippi and the call of ministry that God laid on his heart at an early age. The guys discuss how our plans are not Gods plans, and that's a good thing. Shandy shares his prodigal son story of redemption in that even when he was running away, he was ultimately falling in to the arms of his heavenly Father!Questions? Email us!dakota@reallifewithchrist.comjonathan@reallifewithchrist.com

It was a colossal miscarriage of justice: nine young men found guilty of a crime they didn't commit, and the deciding factor was the color of their skin. Join John Bradshaw In Scottsboro, Alabama, for this story of brutal discrimination, and learn why it's so important to serve a God who is just.

It was a colossal miscarriage of justice: nine young men found guilty of a crime they didn't commit, and the deciding factor was the color of their skin. Join John Bradshaw In Scottsboro, Alabama, for this story of brutal discrimination, and learn why it's so important to serve a God who is just.

In this episode Kathleen and Nikki arrive at the Unclaimed Baggage store in Scottsboro, Alabama. Did they buy the purses that they were looking for? Did they buy anything? Listen along to hear how the shopping adventure went and what they would recommend to you.Send us your questions at ohmylandherewego.com Follow us on TikTok to see photos and videos of our adventures at Oh My Lands Here We Go

This to this week's episode as Kathleen and Nikki head out on another girls day adventure. Nikki reminds Kathleen that she has accomplished very hard goals, Kathleen informs Nikki that they might be billionaires and they talk about what they hope to find at the Unclaimed Baggage store in Scottsboro, Alabama. It's never a dull moment when these two 50 year old besties are together.Send us your questions at ohmylandherewego.com Follow us on TikTok to see photos and videos of our adventures at Oh My Lands Here We Go

Gwinnett County police are looking for a woman accused of robbing one bank and trying to rob another one in mid-December. Arrest warrants have been taken out against Janae Samantha Fareaux according to Corporal Ryan Winderweedle. Fareaux is accused of going to a Wells Fago off of Killian Hill Road in unincorporated Lilburn on December 14 and demanding that she be taken into the vault. Winderweedle said she left the bank without getting any money, however. A day later, Fareaux allegedly went to a Truist bank located off of Pleasant Hill Road in unincorporated Duluth and passed a note to a teller. She allegedly left Truist with more than $2,000. Winderweedle said Fareaux was wearing a long black wig, gray T-shirt over a long sleeve black shirt, black pants, black shoes and green socks the last tie she was seen. She may be driving a red or maroon 2019-2020 Hyundai Elantra. Anyone who has information about Fareaux's whereabouts is asked to call detectives or crime stoppers. Crime Stoppers is offering a cash reward for tips that lead to arrest and indictment. North Gwinnett senior Marek Briley committed Sunday to the Georgia Bulldogs football program, accepting a preferred walk-on offer from the defending national champion. Briley, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound wide receiver, had 37 catches for 795 yards and eight touchdowns this season for North's state playoff team. Briley had division one offers from programs such as Stetson and Navy. He received his offer to be  a preferred walk-on for the Dawgs during his mid-December visit to Athens. As U.S. Representative Carolyn Bourdeaux's final days in Congress ticked away during the holidays, she highlighted one last batch of funding she was able to secure for the 7th Congressional District before leaving office. Bourdeaux, who leaves office this weekend, said the federal Fiscal Appropriations Bill that was passed by the House and sent to President Joe Biden in December included nearly $13 million for projects in her district. In all, 14 7th Congressional District projects were included in the appropriations bill. Some of those projects include money to expand transit in Gwinnett County, support work to convert the Hooper-Renwick School building in Lawrenceville into the Hooper-Renwick library branch and support efforts to help victims of sexual and domestic violence. This will be the last time that north Gwinnett and Forsyth County get funding allocations as part of the 7th Congressional District. Starting in 2023, Forsyth and parts of the Buford area will move to the 6th Congressional District while most of the northern half of Gwinnett will move to the 9th Congressional District. Meanwhile, part of north Fulton County and the part of Gwinnett County that is south of U.S. 78 will be added to the 7th Congressional district. A major chunk of the 7th Congressional District money included in the appropriations bill will support transit expansion in Gwinnett County. That funding includes $2 million for Gwinnett County Transit to establish microtransit service in the Buford and Suwanee area. Another $2 million was allocated to the county's transit system for bus shelters for a new Route 25 local bus service. Data shows Georgia is among the worst states for grade crossing crashes. According to Operation Lifesaver, citing preliminary 2021 Federal Railroad Administration statistics, Georgia had 132 grade crossing collisions with eight deaths and 37 injuries. The Peach State ranked behind Texas and California for the number of collisions. According to the Georgia Department of Transportation, in 2018-20, there were 283 crashes with 22 fatalities and 63 injuries at grade crossings in the state. Between 2018-20, 12.4% of all injuries and 5.3% of all fatalities occurred at grade crossings with gates. Jennie Glasgow, Operation Lifesaver's state coordinator for Georgia, told The Center Square it's not necessarily surprising the state nears the top of the list, considering it is one of the more populous states and is an important railroad state. The number of crashes in Georgia increased from an average of 81 in 2010-12 to 99 per year in 2017-19, even as the annual number of crashes during 2009-19 nationally stayed constant. Across Georgia, there are more than 5,000 railroad crossings. However, less than half — roughly 45.2% — have gates, while about 2.9% have flashing lights but no gates. The majority — roughly 51.9% — are so-called "passive" crossings, meaning they do not have flashing lights or gates. Lanier had good reason to throw in the towel. The Longhorns boys basketball team saw its seven-point lead over Scottsboro dwindle to two before halftime of the 31st Annual Deep South Classic Championship on Friday. They then surrendered back-to-back 3-pointers to open the third quarter, resulting in a four-point deficit. Some teams would panic. Others might fold entirely. Instead, the Longhorns dug in their heels. Lanier used a dominant third-quarter run to pull out a 61-56 win and secure the DSC title on Eddie Martin Court. Trailing 30-26 with 6:30 to go in the third quarter, Lanier turned up the dial defensively. The Longhorns made a concerted effort to apply pressure, close out on shooters and force up shots. On the other end of the court, the proverbial lid on the rim dissolved, allowing their own shots to float through the net at last. The result? A flurry of 14 unanswered points en route to a 20-2 run that flipped the game on its head. By the time the third-quarter game clock dipped inside the minute, the Longhorns had built up a 46-32 advantage. The run lasted five minutes of game time, but it was perfectly encapsulated by a sequence that took just 38 seconds to unfold. When Lanier junior Cameron Thornton's 3-pointer slipped through the net to retake the lead for his team, 5:10 remained on the clock. Just 20 seconds later, senior Landon Suarez stopped at the same spot on the court and knocked for a 3-point jumper of his own. The Wildcats marched down the court looking to answer, but junior Jayce Nathaniel elevated to block the shot at the 4:42 mark. The Longhorns wasted no time running the other in transition, putting the ball in the hands of Suarez, who once against connected from downtown to make it 37-30 with 4:32 to go. The 38-second sequence injected a jolt of energy into the Longhorns that ultimately carried them to victory. For advertising inquiries, please email j.southerland@bgadgroup.com For more information be sure to visit www.bgpodcastnetwork.com   https://www.lawrencevillega.org/  https://www.foxtheatre.org/  https://guideinc.org/  https://www.psponline.com/  https://www.kiamallofga.com/  https://www.milb.com/gwinnett  https://www.fernbankmuseum.org/                           See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here's some big news, in at least a dozen U.S. cities wages in June jumped up by 150 bucks a week and we'll share where.  It's the business news headlines for Wednesday the 3rd day of August…thanks, everybody, for being with us again today.  Also, a remember that you can hook up with us all day on Twitter @IOB_NewsHour and on Instagram.  Here's what we've got for you today: In one city wages are up by 40% a week; Wall Street got back to business today; Interest rate pressure on mortgage loans; The data says fewer people are going to Walmart; Meanwhile, Walmart announced job cuts; Equifax and bad credit reports; Tyson Foods thumbing their nose at a subpoena; The Wall Street Report; Nervous CEO's cutting swag to dinners to office space. For the interview you'll meet entrepreneur Pat Russell who, along with his son Trey, have a ever growing agricultural parts business, Russell's Tractor Parts in Scottsboro, Alabama. It's a great story of change and partnership and to listen just click here. Thanks for listening! The award winning Insight on Business the News Hour with Michael Libbie is the only weekday business news podcast in the Midwest. The national, regional and some local business news along with long-form business interviews can be heard Monday - Friday. You can subscribe on PlayerFM, Podbean, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio. And you can catch The Business News Hour Week in Review each Sunday Noon on News/Talk 1540 KXEL. The Business News Hour is a production of Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications. You can follow us on Twitter @IoB_NewsHour. 

We love helping folks tell the story of their business. How they got started, who they serve, what growing pains they've been through. Entrepreneurs the world over know all about each of those issues and more.  Today we're sitting down with Pat Russell the founder of Russell's Tractor Parts located in Scottsboro, Alabama. Pat has been pushing iron for years and he's now in partnership with his son Trey who happens to be the president of the National Tractor Parts Dealer Association. That too is something Pat Russell knows plenty about. Enjoy...we sure did! Also, a remember that you can hook up with us all day on Twitter @IOB_NewsHour and on Instagram.  Thanks for listening! The award winning Insight on Business the News Hour with Michael Libbie is the only weekday business news podcast in the Midwest. The national, regional and some local business news along with long-form business interviews can be heard Monday - Friday. You can subscribe on PlayerFM, Podbean, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio. And you can catch The Business News Hour Week in Review each Sunday Noon on News/Talk 1540 KXEL. The Business News Hour is a production of Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications. You can follow us on Twitter @IoB_NewsHour. 

We talk to Mel Buer about her recent reporting for The Real News and bring on a bunch of Scottsboro Starbucks workers to talk about their campaign. ✦ ABOUT ✦ The Valley Labor Report is the only union talk radio show in Alabama, elevating workers struggles for justice and fairness on the job, educating folks about how they can do the same, and bringing relevant news to workers in Alabama and beyond. Our single largest source of revenue *is our listeners* so your support really matters and helps us stay on the air! Donate one time or becoming a monthly donor on Patreon or Unionly: patreon.com/TheValleyLaborReport https://unionly.io/o/tvlr Visit our official website for more info on the show, membership, our sponsors, merch, and more: https://www.tvlr.fm Follow TVLR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheValleyLab... Follow TVLR on Twitter: @LaborReporters Follow Jacob on Twitter: @JacobM_AL Follow TVLR Co-Creator David Story on Twitter: @RadiclUnionist ✦ CONTACT US ✦ Our phone number is 844-899-TVLR (8857), call or text us live on air, or leave us a voicemail and we might play it during the show! ✦ OUR ADVERTISERS KEEP US ON THE AIR! Support them if you can. ✦ The attorneys at MAPLES, TUCKER, AND JACOB fight for working people. Reach out to them and let them represent you in your workplace injury claim. On the Web: www.mtandj.com Contact: (855) 617-9333 Do you want to organize your workplace? The MACHINISTS UNION represents workers in several industries including healthcare, the defense industry, woodworking, and more. On the Web: https://www.iamaw44.org/ Contact: (256) 286-3704 / organize@iamaw44.org. Do you need good union laborers on your construction site, or do you want a union construction job? Reach out to the IRONWORKERS LOCAL 477. On the Web: http://ironworkers477.org/ Contact: 256-383-3334 (Jeb Miles) / local477@bellsouth.net The NORTH ALABAMA DSA is looking for folks to work for a better North Alabama, fighting for liberty and justice for all. They prioritize mutual aid, municipal-activism, and union solidarity. On the Web: https://www.facebook.com/NorthAlabama... Contact / Join: DSANorthAlabama@gmail.com IBEW LOCAL 136 is a group of over 900 electricians and electrical workers providing our area with the finest workforce in the construction industry. We provide our members with excellent training at no cost, livable wages with paid benefits, and a lifelong career working with people who care about you. If you are a working electrician or electrical worker, or if you'd like to pursue a career in the electrical trades, we want you to join us! IBEW Local 136 provides equal opportunity and does not discriminate due to religion, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status or nationality. You belong here. On the Web: https://ibew136.org/ Contact: (205) 833-0909 IFPTE - We are engineers, scientists, nonprofit employees, technicians, lawyers, and many other professions who have joined together to have a greater voice in our careers. Our union is a bottom-up, member-based organization that helps professional and technical employees raise wages, benefits, working conditions, and advocate over public policies that impact our professions and communities. With over 80,000 members spread across the U.S. and Canada, we invite you and your colleagues to consider the benefits of engaging in collective bargaining. On the Web: https://www.ifpte.org/ Contact: (202) 239-4880 THE HUNTSVILLE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD is a union open to any and all working people. Call or email them today to begin organizing your workplace - wherever it is. On the Web: https://hsviww.org/ Contact: (256) 651-6707 / organize@hsviww.org ENERGY ALABAMA is accelerating Alabama's transition to sustainable energy. We are a nonprofit membership-based organization that has advocated for clean energy in Alabama since 2014. Our work is based on three pillars: education, advocacy, and technical assistance. Energy Alabama on the Web: https://alcse.org/ Contact: (256) 812-1431 / dtait@energyalabama.org     ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In case you've run out of stuff to worry about think…copper. It's the business news headlines for Thursday the 14th of July….thanks for being with us again today while we broadcast from sunny and warm Scottsboro, Alabama. Oh, and if you check out our Instagram or Twitter account you've got to see this very "sweet" café we had lunch at today. Find us on Twitter @IOB_NewsHour and on Instagram. Copper the next shoe to drop; Some sweet news out of Chicago; A Beer Story for you...sounds...cool; And some Beer Trivia on a hot day; Ads are coming to Netflix and why; Weekly jobless claims are up and what that means; The Wall Street Report; And, another crypto company files for Chapter 11. For the interview we're talking about "Gaslighting". Where it comes from and what it does to employees and productivity. My guest is Dr. Harwant Khush a research fellow for Tero International.  You can hear that conversation...here.  Thanks for listening! The award winning Insight on Business the News Hour with Michael Libbie is the only weekday business news podcast in the Midwest. The national, regional and some local business news along with long-form business interviews can be heard Monday - Friday. You can subscribe on PlayerFM, Podbean, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio. And you can catch The Business News Hour Week in Review each Sunday Noon on News/Talk 1540 KXEL. The Business News Hour is a production of Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications. You can follow us on Twitter @IoB_NewsHour. 

Welcome Back! I was recently inspired by the childhood home of the mother of the civil rights movement. Although I knew about the 1955 bus boycott, I had no idea Rosa Parks fought so many other fights prior to that moment on the bus. There are so many lessons to be learned from her story and I cannot wait to share more about this amazing woman in this week's episode! Further Reading, Resources, & Links: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/rosa-parks https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rosa-Parks https://www.britannica.com/event/Scottsboro-case https://www.history.com/news/before-the-bus-rosa-parks-was-a-sexual-assault-investigator Company Campaign Contributions: https://www.goodsuniteus.com/ Let's Connect: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itstheaudacityforme TikTok: @rheadenay FB Group: It's the Audacity for Me

In Alabama, local Scottsboro man Glenn Summerford turned his back on a life of vice and became a regular church-goer who communed with God. A transcendent experience with a Copperhead snake in the ‘80s sparked a divine insight that grew into a movement… and later, a murder plot.  Parcasters, we have exciting news! Our first book hits bookshelves July 12th. Don't miss this chilling summer read that takes you deep into the darkest sides of human nature. Learn more at www.parcast.com/cults! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

LET JUSTICE BE DONE THOUGH THE HEAVENS MAY FALL - the family motto of Judge James E. Horton was emblazoned at the top of his controversial decision in the 1933 Scottsboro Boys case to throw out the guilty verdict and order a new trial. Rebekah and Richard continue their discussion with local author and African American historian, Peggy Towns,  and Steven Brown, author and Professor of Political Science from Auburn University. They recount the aftermath of this case:  what happened to the Scottsboro Boys and the local Limestone County judge that courageously spoke out against the machinery of criminal justice.Linkshttps://limestonecounty-al.gov/departments/archives/https://www.alcpl.org/http://www.co.morgan.al.us/archivesindex.html   Morgan County Archivehttps://archives.alabama.gov  Alabama Department of Archives and Historyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uX8dp5bYfA&t=375s  Pen Strokes of Justice Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys For information, questions, or suggestions email rebekah.davis@limestonecounty-al.gov. Music from Pixabay

What's in this episode:- The things that attracted David to the insurance world.- What life is like running two agencies.- Tips for new agency owners.About Drew:David Perkins married for 13 years to Katie, with two daughters Kinsley 7, and Chloe 4. Played Baseball at Charleston Southern University graduating 2006, and MBA 2007. I love Jesus, my family, collecting cars, baseball, weight lifting, racing cars, and anything near or on water.Agency Accomplishments: Opened Legacy in Madison, Al in 2011, and MOA in Scottsboro, Al in 2019. We have traveled every year in both offices, Chairman's Circle 4x, SVP 6x, and my most proud accomplishment is 4 agent aspirants are now agents, with 3 more aspirants soon to be agents within a year and 2 more a little behind them. My life verse: 1 Cor 10:31 "Whatever you do... do it all for the glory of God."Book your 15-minute consultation call to see if Weaver Sales Academy is a fit for your agency here: https://bit.ly/3CnMjTxText BUZZ to (816) 727-7610 to connect directly with Michael and share your favorites from the episode or learn more about upcoming events and challenges happening in our industry Join Weaver Sales Academy: https://www.weaversa.com/Follow Michael on social media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themichaelweaverInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/_michaelweaver_/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-weaver-a2940095

In April, 1931, an all-white, all-male jury quickly convicted the Scottsboro Boys and sentenced eight of them to death. But that was just the beginning. With the whole world watching this racially charged case, in 1933, the retrial of Haywood Patterson began in Decatur, Alabama with Judge James E. Horton of Athens, Alabama presiding. In this episode Rebekah and Richard welcome local author and African American historian, Peggy Towns, from Decatur, and Steven Brown, author and Professor of Political Science from Auburn University. They give a riveting account of the people and events that transpired both inside and outside the courtroom during this landmark case.Linkshttps://limestonecounty-al.gov/departments/archives/https://www.alcpl.org/http://www.co.morgan.al.us/archivesindex.html   Morgan County Archivehttps://archives.alabama.gov  Alabama Department of Archives and History For information, questions, or suggestions email rebekah.davis@limestonecounty-al.gov. Music from Pixabay

Standing on Beechey island, a peninsula off Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic, are four lonely graves: three members of an ill-fated expedition to the Northwest Passage, and one of the men who went looking for them. In 1845, Sir John Franklin led an expedition to find the Northwest Passage, a direct route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across the arctic, on two ships that were called "unstoppable" at the time. They were stopped, though the exact circumstances remain murky.The story of the graves is chronicled on the Atlas Obscura Podcast, a short, daily celebration of the world's strange and wondrous places. The podcast has a mission similar to 99pi, which is to inspire wonder and curiosity about the world.  Today we're featuring two stories from the show.The second story visits the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama, which bills itself as "the nation's only retailer of lost luggage." If you've ever lost a bag during air travel, it probably wound up there, along with many other treasures and oddities.Subscribe to Atlas Obscure on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts.

This episode, Jeffrey Veidlinger and Amelia Glaser join us to talk about the ongoing war in Ukraine and its historical and cultural context. We recorded on Tuesday, March 8th, 2022, and we are working to get this episode published as quickly as possible because so much can change so quickly. Listen in as we think about the background to the war, how we can understand Jewish history in Ukraine, and particularly Putin's deranged claim to “denazify” Ukraine. Amelia Glaser is Associate Professor of Literature at UC San Diego, where she also holds an endowed chair in Judaic Studies. She is the author of “Jews and Ukrainians in Russia's Literary Borderlands” (Northwestern UP, 2012), and most recently “Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine” (Harvard UP, 2020). Currently, she is the Rita E. Hauser fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, where she is at work on a book about contemporary Ukrainian poetry and community, and she is also curating a series of translations of recent poetry from Ukraine for LitHub. Jeffrey Veidlinger is Joseph Brodsky Collegiate Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of numerous books including, most recently, In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust, published in 2021,

+ CONTACT US + Call In:  844-899-TVLR  (8857)    Leave a Voice Mail, Text, or Talk Live On Air + OUR FUND RAISER +https://unionly.io/o/tvlr/support-the-valley-labor-report✦ ABOUT ✦The Valley Labor Report is the only union talk radio show in Alabama. The show covers local, state, and national news with an emphasis on the former two. Jacob and Adam hope to educate the audience about the power they can have with their fellow workers through cooperation, organizing, and solidarity.Help them agitate and educate Alabama workers: patreon.com/TheValleyLaborReportFollow the show on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheValleyLaborreportFollow the show on Twitter: @LaborReportersFollow Jacob and David on Twitter: @JacobM_AL @RadiclUnionist✦   OUR ADVERTISERS KEEP US ON THE AIR! Support them if you can.  ✦Are you a federal employee in Huntsville? Check to see if you are represented by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1858 by calling (256) 876-4880Hometown Action is a powerbuilding collective here in Alabama. Learn more about their work and how to join by going to hometownaction.org.The fight against climate change is the fight for working people. Go to arminarm4climate.org to learn more about the intersection of environmental and working class interests and how to join the movement to stop climate change. The attorneys at Maples, Tucker, and Jacobs fight for working people. Reach out to them and let them represent you in your workplace injury claim. Learn more at mtandj.com or call them at (855) 617-9333.Do you want to organize your workplace? The Machinists Union represents workers in several industries including healthcare, the defense industry, woodworking, and more. Call them to learn more at (256) 286-3704 or email them at organize@iamaw44.org.  Do you need good union laborers on your construction site, or do you want a union construction job? Reach out to the Ironworkers Local 477. Call Jeb Miles at 256-383-3334 or via email at: local477@bellsouth.net.Means TV is a worker-owned post-capitalist alternative to Netflix and Hulu. Subscribe at Means.TV with the code VALLEYLABOR to receive 50% off your first month.The North Alabama DSA is fighting for liberty and justice for all. Inquire about joining: email DSANorthAlabama@gmail.com The Alabama AFL-CIO is the largest federation of unions in Alabama.The Majority Report is a daily left wing political talk show. Tune in at 11am CST every weekday on YouTube or listen later wherever you get your podcasts.The National Association of Letter Carriers represents city carriers in Huntsville, Madison, Scottsboro, and Arab. Learn more at nalcbranch462.org  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

+ CONTACT US + Call In:  844-899-TVLR  (8857)    Leave a Voice Mail, Text, or Talk Live On Air + OUR FUND RAISER +https://unionly.io/o/tvlr/support-the-valley-labor-report✦ ABOUT ✦The Valley Labor Report is the only union talk radio show in Alabama. The show covers local, state, and national news with an emphasis on the former two. Jacob and Adam hope to educate the audience about the power they can have with their fellow workers through cooperation, organizing, and solidarity.  The show is live on Saturdays from 9:30am to 11:00am on 92.5 FM WVNN in the Huntsville/Decatur/Athens listening area. A recording of the show plays from 5:00pm to 6:00pm on 1410 AM WZZA in Tuscumbia,/Muscle Shoals.Help them agitate and educate Alabama workers: patreon.com/TheValleyLaborReportFollow the show on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheValleyLaborreportFollow the show on Twitter: @LaborReportersFollow Jacob and David on Twitter: @JacobM_AL @RadiclUnionist✦   OUR ADVERTISERS KEEP US ON THE AIR! Support them if you can.  ✦Are you a federal employee in Huntsville? Check to see if you are represented by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1858 by calling (256) 876-4880Hometown Action is a powerbuilding collective here in Alabama. Learn more about their work and how to join by going to hometownaction.org.The fight against climate change is the fight for working people. Go to arminarm4climate.org to learn more about the intersection of environmental and working class interests and how to join the movement to stop climate change. The attorneys at Maples, Tucker, and Jacobs fight for working people. Reach out to them and let them represent you in your workplace injury claim. Learn more at mtandj.com or call them at (855) 617-9333.Do you want to organize your workplace? The Machinists Union represents workers in several industries including healthcare, the defense industry, woodworking, and more. Call them to learn more at (256) 286-3704 or email them at organize@iamaw44.org.  Do you need good union laborers on your construction site, or do you want a union construction job? Reach out to the Ironworkers Local 477. Call Jeb Miles at 256-383-3334 or via email at: local477@bellsouth.net.Means TV is a worker-owned post-capitalist alternative to Netflix and Hulu. Subscribe at Means.TV with the code VALLEYLABOR to receive 50% off your first month.The North Alabama DSA is fighting for liberty and justice for all. Inquire about joining: email DSANorthAlabama@gmail.com The Alabama AFL-CIO is the largest federation of unions in Alabama.The Majority Report is a daily left wing political talk show. Tune in at 11am CST every weekday on YouTube or listen later wherever you get your podcasts.The National Association of Letter Carriers represents city carriers in Huntsville, Madison, Scottsboro, and Arab. Learn more at nalcbranch462.org   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Bell, a 1994 Plainview High School alum, started his coaching career as an assistant coach at Fort Payne High School for four seasons before becoming an assistant coach at Northridge High School in Tuscaloosa. After two seasons as an assistant, Bell served as Northridge's head coach for three seasons (2006-08). Bell was then Plainview's head coach for five seasons (2009-14) before joining Kenny Hill's coaching staff at Scottsboro prior to the 2013-14 season.Bell takes over for Hill in 2020, to be head coach of the Wildcats.

Ninety years ago today, on March 25th, 1931, nine Black teenagers were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train near Scottsboro, Ala. They soon became known as the Scottsboro Boys. John Miller, Assistant Director and Associate Professor at the University of Alabama's New College, shares their story and talks about working to obtain posthumous pardons for three of the Scottsboro defendants in recent years. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices