naacp

"It makes good common sense that people of common interest would come together," said Estina Baker of the We Are One rallies this week. "It's sort of history repeating itself in a very positive way," she notes, pointing out that the civil rights movement and workers' rights movement have a long history together. Laura spoke with Estina and Joyce Simmons, both of the NAACP, in Newark, New Jersey, about the movement begun at the One Nation rally last year and continuing now across the country. Distributed by Tubemogul.

Election 2010: it just keeps getting weirder. Now that the primaries are mostly over, a motley crew of Tea Partiers and abstinenceaholics are taking aim at Congress, and some of what they have to say is hilarious--or would be, if these weren't the nominees of one of the two major parties in the U.S., and the other party hadn't managed to alienate a good chunk of its base. Lizz Winstead joins guest host John Fugelsang to look--and laugh--at Jim DeMint, Christine O'Donnell, Meg Whitman, and more as we get closer and closer to voting time. The One Nation rally this past weekend was intended to offer an alternative to anger and hate, to give progressives a way to come together to organize around the issue most pressing to nearly all Americans: the economy and jobs. The idea was the brainchild of Ben Jealous, the youngest leader of the nation's oldest and largest grassroots civil rights organization, the NAACP, along with George Gresham of 1199 SEIU. They don't intend for this to be a one-time rally, either, and Jealous sat down with Laura while they were both in Washington to discuss the rally, strategies for moving forward, the current political climate, and just what happened with Shirley Sherrod.

We hear a lot about "post-racial" politics these days--the election of Barack Obama supposedly has led us into a post-racial age, but have we really seen anything change? Not much, notes Kimberle Crenshaw, co-founder of the African-American Policy Forum, and it's not really new either. But a lack of a sense of history is another symptom of today's politics, and Crenshaw notes that even black elected officials and candidates sometimes fall victim. Crenshaw joins Laura in studio for a look at black tea party candidates, the troubles facing Adrian Fenty and other black mayors, and the problem with claims of "reverse racism." "We talk about this fault break between war and peace, and it doesn't work that way for women," notes Ann Jones, longtime journalist, author, and humanitarian. Women, she points out, are often victims of sexual violence long after the official peace agreements are signed, and they often become the victims of abuse when soldiers come home traumatized and unable to deal with what they've seen and done. Jones was recently embedded with U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and also has a new book out, War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War. She joins Laura in studio to discuss her time reporting on conflicts around the world, and what happens to the people who survive them. And Laura has some thoughts on just why the cycle of war never ends, and wonders why we can't seem to figure out the simple answers.

Herb Boyd and Eddie Harris attended the annual meeting of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund in Epes, Alabama, on August 21, and filed this special report for Free Speech TV. Speakers at the event included Shirley Sherrod, former Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture, and Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, both who talk about the firing of Sherrod, the dirty tricks of Andrew Breitbart and the 24/7 news cycle that helped lead to her ouster.