VOLUME 98 - NUMBER 18
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, MAY 11, 2019
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Kamala Harris says
AG William Barr
representing
president, not US
By Errin Haines Whack
DETROIT (AP) - Capping a week in which her testy exchange
with Attorney General William Barr went viral, Sen. Kamala Harris
on May 6 told a crowd of thousands gathered at a dinner hosted by
the country’s oldest NAACP chapter that Barr “lied to Congress”
and “is clearly more interested in representing the president than the
American people.”
The Democratic presidential candidate was the keynote speaker
May 6 at the Detroit NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund dinner, at
tended by a mostly black audience of nearly 10,000.
As of May 6, 4.8 million people had watched the C-SPAN video
circulating on Twitter of Harris questioning Barr, catapulting her into
the spotlight amid the crowded field of more than 20 Democrats and
hammering a campaign theme that she is the candidate to “prosecute
the case against Trump.”
During her remarks, Harris also said her approach to the 2020
race is about challenging notions of electability and who can speak
to Midwesterners.
“They usually put the Midwest in a simplistic box and a narrow
narrative,” Harris said. “The conversation too often suggests certain
voters will only vote for certain candidates regardless of whether
their ideas will lift up all of our families. It’s short sighted. It’s wrong.
And voters deserve better.”
Harris’s appearance in Detroit highlights an underappreciated
variable in Democrats’ 2016 losses across the Great Lakes region:
declining support from black voters.
Michigan gave President Donald Trump his closest winning mar
gin of any state, with the Republican finishing 10,704 votes ahead
of Hillary Clinton. Much of the narrative focused on Clinton losing
ground from Barack Obama’s 2012 marks in many small-town and
rural counties dominated by middle-class whites.
Biden has been leading the polls, with a majority saying he has
the best chance to defeat Trump. A Quinnipiac poll from last week
showed Biden leading among Democratic candidates with 38 per
cent, while Harris was fourth with eight percent.
Yet it was heavily African American Wayne County, home to
Detroit, where Clinton saw her single largest and most consequen
tial dropoff. She got 78,004 fewer votes in the county - the anchor
of Democrats’ statewide coalition - than Obama received in 2012,
meaning that her Wayne County deficit from Obama was more than
seven times the statewide gap separating her from Trump and Michi
gan’s 16 electoral votes.
Harris told the largely African-American audience that as presi
dent, she plans to double the Justice Department’s civil rights di
vision, hold accountable social media platforms disseminating mis
information and cyberwarfare and address economic inequality for
families and teachers.
Called “the largest sit-down dinner in the country,” boasting
10,000 attendees, this year’s dinner comes amid an already busy
primary season, as Democrats are eyeing the battleground state of
Michigan. Fellow 2020 Democratic contender Sen. Cory Booker of
New Jersey was last year’s keynote.
The Detroit NAACP chapter is the civil rights organization’s larg
est, and the city will host their national convention in July, where
most 2020 Democrats are expected to appear. The Rev. Wendell An
thony, Detroit chapter president, said May 6 that “our very lives, our
freedom” are riding on the 2020 election.
“This is about the soul of America,” Anthony said. “There’s some
people that want to take us back 50 years. We ain’t going. They win
when we don’t show up.”
Anthony said that while Harris’ appearance was not an endorse
ment, the energy at the dinner was “a signal to the nation that we are
concerned about what’s happening in the country” and warned that
“the stakes are too great for anybody to sit this out.”
Associated Press writer Bill Barrow contributed to this report
from Atlanta
Miss North Carolina Cheslie Krystl, left, gets crowned by last year’s winner Sarah Rose Summers, right, after winning the 2019
Miss USA final competition in the Grand Theatre in the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nev., on Thursday, May 2, 2019. Kryst, a
27-year-old lawyer from North Carolina who represents some prison inmates for free, won the 2019 Miss USA title Thursday night in
a diverse field that included teachers, nurses and members of the military. (Jason Bean/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP)
NAACP wants NC
Supreme Court to
hear amendments
case
RALEIGH (AP) - A civil rights organization wants
North Carolina’s highest court to step in and settle a le
gal fight over whether two constitutional amendments ap
proved by voters last year should have been voided by a
lower court.
Lawyers for the state NAACP filed a petition on May
1 asking the state Supreme Court to take up their lawsuit
now, instead of letting another appeals court weigh in first.
The state Court of Appeals already has set aside tempo
rarily the February ruling by Wake Superior Court Judge
Bryan Collins, who threw out amendments that voters ap
proved in November mandating photo voter identification
and lower caps on income tax rates.
Collins agreed with NAACP leaders who argued the
2018 legislature had been “illegally constituted” through
gerrymandered districts and lacked the power to proposed
the amendments.
North Carolina lawyer Cheslie
Kryst named Miss USA 2019
By Scott Sonner
RENO, Nev. (AP) - A
27-year-old lawyer from North
Carolina who represents prison
inmates for free won the Miss
USA title Thursday night, May
2, describing herself as a “weird
kid” with a “unibrow” who’s
now part of the first generation
of truly empowered women.
Asked in the final round to
use one word to summarize her
generation, Cheslie Kryst of
Charlotte said “innovative.”
“I’m standing here in Ne
vada, in the state that has the
first female majority legislature
in the entire country,” she said
at the event held for the first
time in Reno. “Mine is the first
generation to have that forward-
looking mindset that has
inclusivity, diversity, strength
and empowered women. I’m
looking forward to continued
progress in my generation.”
New Mexico’s Alejandra
Gonzalez, the first runner-up,
and Oklahoma’s Triana Browne,
the second runner-up, helped
highlight the diversity of the
competition on stage as the three
finalists along with Kryst, who is
African American.
Browne said she’s a proud
member of the Chickasaw Na
tion whose father is white and
mother is African American.
She’s in a partnership with Nike
to promote a brand that cele
brates Native American heritage.
Gonzalez, whose mother immi
grated to the United States from
Mexico, founded a non
profit that teaches children the
importance of being literate.
Nevada’s Tianna Tuamohe-
loa, who made it to the final five,
was the first woman of Samoan
descent to compete in the event
that dates to 1952. Savatmah
Skidmore, a former state bas
ketball champion from Arkansas
who has a second-degree black
belt in Taekwondo and is pursu
ing a law degree, also made the
final five.
Kryst and Gonzalez faced
each other holding hands during
the moments before the winner
was announced, then embraced
with the news.
Kryst said she didn’t feel ner
vous as she advanced through
the elimination rounds.
“I just kept hearing my name
get called,” she said. As she
waited for the winner to be an
nounced, “All I could think was,
'This is really cool.’“
Kryst earned a law degree and
an MBA at Wake Forest Uni
versity before becoming a civil
litigation attorney who does pro
bono work to reduce sentences
for inmates. In a videotaped
message played during the two-
hour event at a hotel-casino, she
told a story of when a judge at
a legal competition told her to
wear a skirt instead of pants be
cause judges prefer skirts.
“Glass ceilings can be broken
wearing either a skirt or pants,”
Kryst said.