Centre and Jammu & Kashmir administration are facing tough questions on Congress politician Saifuddin Sozs detention. No sooner had the Supreme Court disposed of a plea on Sozs illegal detention based on J&K administrations claim that he was a free man, Soz demonstrated to journalists how he was being prevented from leaving his house. A video of Soz visiting his ailing sister went viral on Friday. But the visible restraints on Sozs movements by his sentries on Thursday before reporters dont lie either. Before the former Union minister moves SC again, the administration must remove all doubts on his freedom.

With the anniversary of Article 370 nullification approaching, Centre and J&K administration must make a distinction between political detainees like Soz or Mehbooba Mufti and those culpable for violent acts. Soz may be a vocal opponent of Article 370 nullification, but the absence of such political voices in the Valley creates a dangerous vacuum that separatists and terrorists can capitalise on. Many shades of Kashmiri public opinion are realistic that Article 370 isnt coming back. If others do push for 370 then India, as a democracy, should permit such debate.

Internet freedoms are also an extension of political freedoms; both are intimately connected to fundamental rights of free speech and living with dignity. Though August 5 is expected to be stormy, the administration mustnt delay for too long afterwards to restore 4G mobile services which, particularly in times of Covid, are critical for online education and economic activities. Young Kashmiris have borne many such curbs for a year and the fear of Pakistans mischief has run its course as a reason for denying basic rights. Having asserted Kashmirs integrality to India, the Centre must now let the Valleys politicians and economy carry forward the process.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.

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Sozs detention: Calling it freedom may be stretching law to breaking - The Times of India Blog

A new book by the royal reporters Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie chronicles what the authors claim has been a deepening rift between Prince Harry, his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and Buckingham Palace which ultimately led to the couples decision to take a step back from public life. The biography has been providing headlines in UK newspapers in recent days after being serialised in the Times and the Sunday Times. So, what have we learned from Finding Freedom?

According to the book, one of the main drivers behind the couples decision was the way they felt Meghan was treated by members of the royal family. One of the authors has said the fact Meghan is a mixed-race American was going to ruffle some feathers within Buckingham Palace.

One senior royal is said to have referred to Meghan as Harrys showgirl, while another allegedly said: She comes with a lot of baggage.

The couple were also reportedly unhappy with the way Meghan was treated by Buckingham Palace staff. Theres just something about her I dont trust, a senior courtier is reported to have said, while an unnamed staffer is quoted as having referred to her as the palaces squeaky third wheel. The authors say the couple grew to trust only a handful of people.

The two couples, William and his wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, and Harry and Meghan, were barely even on speaking terms by this March, according to the authors. They hardly spoke to each other during an engagement at the Commonwealth service at Westminster Abbey that month, despite not having seen each other since January.

The authors claim that Harry was upset by his brothers advice to take as much time as you need to get to know this girl early in their relationship, which he took to be snobbish and condescending.

The authors add: [William] just wanted to make sure that Harry wasnt blindsided by lust in his haste to get married.

The authors suggest reports of a feud between the two women were always wide off the mark. Rather, they say, the pair simply had little in common. The book claims Meghan perceived a lack of support from Kate, who, in turn, would try to make contact while not worrying too much if there was no response.

Perhaps an unsurprising revelation on its own terms the couple had their own website and sought to register Sussex Royal as a global trademark but the book describes the pairs surprise at courtiers treatment of them as they sought greater autonomy than Buckingham Palace was willing to grant.

As their popularity had grown, so did Harry and Meghans difficulty in understanding why so few inside the palace were looking out for their interests. They were a major draw for the royal family, the book reveals.

Prior to Megxit, the couple were on such bad terms with other members of the royal family that the couple believed them to be leaking stories about them to the press, the authors claim.

According to the book, the monarch was devastated by the announcement on the couples private website of their plans to take a step back. It claims she was put in an awkward position by the plan for a half-in, half-out royal status, which it was felt had been presented as a fait accompli, although it was nothing of the sort.

According to the book, it was known within the palace walls that Harry and Meghan wanted changes to their royal status and had sought discussions with the Queen prior to a six-week trip to Canada at the end of last year.

It says they made the final decision while in Canada and again sought a meeting with Harrys grandmother, but were told she would not be available until the end of January 2020. The announcement, the authors claim, came on 8 January because the couple got wind that a story was due to break in the UK press.

The courtiers blame Meghan, and some family do, the authors wrote. She, on the other hand, felt she had sacrificed a lot for the royals. As Meghan tearfully told a friend in March: I gave up my entire life for this family. I was willing to do whatever it takes. But here we are. Its very sad.

The Sussexes have distanced themselves from the book, with a spokesman saying they were not interviewed and did not contribute to it. The book was described as being based on the authors own experiences as members of the royal press corps and their own independent reporting.

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Finding Freedom: 10 things we learned from Harry and Meghan's book - The Guardian

ROME, ITALY - JULY 29: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte delivers his speech during the debate ... [+] at the Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies) about further initiatives related to the Covid-19 emergency, on July 29, 2020 in Rome, Italy. Today Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte reported at the Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies) to ask to vote on the extension of the state of emergency related to the Covid-19 emergency. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)

In line with other European countries, the trend of the coronavirus epidemic in Italy has started increasing again. Alongside Spain, France and Germany, the country has started recording higher levels of contagion, with 379 new cases today, mostly concentrated in the regions of Veneto and Lombardy. In 8 regions (out of 21) the contagion rate is above 1 point, the standard risk measurement used to establish the necessary attention level.

According to experts, the number of Covid-19 cases in our country is slightly rising, although it remains contained. This is expected as the epidemic is running high in different countries of the world and we are surrounded by countries where the number of cases is increasing, said Gianni Rezza, general director of the Prevention agency in the Italian ministry of Health. Luckily, our system is reacting well, and all hotbeds are instantly identified and contained. This still imposes the need to maintain prudent behavior, meaning maintaining physical distancing, using face masks in public places, especially indoors, and washing ones hands frequently, he added.

With the summer season and the lifting of restrictions all around Europe, Italy is trying to restart its economy, encouraging the shift back to normality. But the government is still cautious. Earlier this week prime minister Giuseppe Conte intervened in parliament to present a resolution to extend the state of emergency until October 15. This extension, if the debate leaves aside all ideological positions, is an inevitable choice, even obligated to some extent, and exclusively based on technical evaluations, he said.

Not everyone in the parliament shared this reasoning. I am not going to mince words, I think that what is happening is extremely serious. This is a block in a liberticidal drift that the government has put in place with the excuse of the coronavirus. There is no other reason, said Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right party Fratelli dItalia.

Along the same lines is the position of Lega leader Matteo Salvini, who in parliament refused to wear a mask and on multiple public occasions was found not adopting any protection measures, including distancing from others. A greeting by the elbow means the end of the human species, and I refuse to do it. Whenever someone comes close to me, if they give me their hand, I break the law and shake it, he said.

Italys president Sergio Mattarella hence called on Italians sense of responsibility. We cannot and we must not forget what happened, those weeks when hundreds of our fellow citizens died on a daily basis, when doctors and nurses in hospitals with self-sacrifice made extreme efforts, being at serious personal risk, to take care of those who were sick, when in the cemeteries there wasnt enough space for all the coffins. It was only four months ago. On March 31, 800 of our fellow citizens died in a single day. [] Sometimes, the theme of the violation of the rules of sanitary prudence is evoked as an expression of freedom. But freedom should not be confused with the right to make others sick. To learn how to live together with the virus until there is a vaccine, does not mean behaving as if the virus had disappeared. Only by remembering what happened, and without being divided based on prejudice, only this way, through a common search of perspective, we can pose solid foundations for the necessary recovery, and get to a new normal.

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Coronavirus Cases On The Rise In Italy. Freedom Does Not Mean Infecting Others - Forbes

WILMINGTON Its Tuesday at Harambe and the gym at the International School at Gregory is having trouble containing the chanting, clapping and cheers.

About 50 students called scholars in the program are spread out on the floor. JaQuay Locke, a lanky rising Holly Shelter Middle School 7th grader, was locked in on one of the student leader interns (SLIs) Kaylee Lineberry as she stirred the scholars up into a frenzy.

The whole gym was clapping. Dancing. Stomping. Despite physically staying six feet apart, there was no distance between their voices.

Are you hype? Are you hype?

Nothing is said at Harambee. Its sung. Its shouted. Its chanted.

The group answered as one.

Yeah. Im hype. Im hype.

The call and answer go on for a bit. Each time the Lineberry calls out, the energy level rises until they get to the final answer.

Im hype for Freedom School.

The whole gym stomps and dances.

Turn up, turn up, turn up, turn up

Freedom School scholars white, Black, Hispanic begin every day with Harambee, which means lets pull together in Swahili.

Its the Freedom School way.

This is the first time the Childrens Defense Fund Freedom School program has been held in Wilmington, where its being implemented by Communities in Schools of Cape Fear. Rooted in the Mississippi Freedom Summer project of 1964, the six-week cultural and literacy program stokes the scholars passion for reading and builds up their self-worth and sense of community.

Freedom Schools arrives in Wilmington just as the United States faces a reckoning over systemic racism and police brutality, a truth the program doesnt shy away from. In fact, the curriculum was already tackling these issues. The program seeks to affirm and discuss the persistent problems scholars see and live every day and the importance of civic engagement to make meaningful change.

The heart of Freedom School is letting our scholars know they can make a difference in their families, in themselves, in their communities, Keisha Robinson, the site coordinator in Wilmington, said. Were building them up here but theyre taking it someplace else with them.

Freedom Schools are led by SLIs, students recruited from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and East Carolina University. They lead class discussions in the morning and activities like art, step, drama, and athletics in the afternoon. Before the program started Robinson sat down with the staff and learned all their hobbies and built the afternoon activities around them.

Theyre bringing a lot of what they know to it, Robinson said.

Keith Miller, a senior at UNCW studying psychology, took the Freedom Schools job after hearing about it from a fraternity brother. It was an opportunity to work with children. Miller said the Freedom School curriculum challenges the students to ask questions and think critically about not only what theyre taught but what they see in the community. For some of the students, this is the first time theyve read books with characters facing the same issues they do every day.

It challenges them to ask why, Miller said. Were getting real.

JaQuay said one of his favorite books was The Road to Paris byNikki Grimes. The book is about Paris, a nine-year old, biracial girl who is in foster system after her father leaves and her alcoholic mother cant take care of her and her brother. Paris is separated from her older brother Malcolm who has protected her after they run away from an abusive foster family.

The book led to conversations about violence, neglect, and racism. Topics that arent readily discussed in current curriculums. JaQuay said he felt safe in the classroom and said the conversations helped him, declining to get into specifics.

JaQuay said he identified with Malcom.

He is kind of like me, JaQuay said. I like helping people.

Like JaQuay, Maleya Ross, an 11-year-old rising 6th grader headed to Trask Middle School, identified with the characters and the situation.

It sounded like a real story to me,Maleya said.

Miller said the curriculum is relevant for today.

They take on racism, sexism, police brutality and gender, Miller said. I really think it is perfect. Easy to be relatable.

While the classes take on big issues, the structure was loose and focused on discussion more than rout learning. The classrooms were a place to explore and discuss. Before the first class, Miller made a pact with his scholars. Hed give his all if they did. They even signed a contract. Miller sees it like a coach/player relationship.

Just because Im the teacher, I can learn from them, Miller said. This sets them up to be self-aware and be someone.

Down the hall from Millers classroom, Dwayne AltmanLeach was leading his elementary-school-aged class in a discussion of Lillians Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The book follows Lillian a one-hundred-year-old African American woman as she heads the polls. Along the way, she recounts her familys journey to gaining the right to vote. The book was published to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Sitting in a circle, each scholar took a turn reading one page. With each page, there was a short discussion with AltmanLeach giving prompts. When they got to a part about voter suppression, AltmanLeach threw out some hints.

What group burned crosses? AltmanLeach said. This gang has 3 letters. Starts with a K.

It took a minute, but the scholars figured out he was talking about the Ku Klux Klan.

Theyre racist butt faces, a Black girl said.

Part of Lillians journey highlights the systems in place to suppress the Black vote like poll taxes and exams, which led to a conversation about who had the right to vote. At one point, AltmanLeach wrote, all men are created equal on the vote as they talked about who had the right to vote.

Men. Not Black men. Not women. Just white men. It angered the class.

Sexist B-words, one of the scholars a Black girl said.

AltmanLeach pointed out election officials were not asking white voters the same questions. The scholars were aghast.

That is messed up, the girl said.

These kinds of conversations are at the soul of Freedom Schools. The only way to engage the students on the importance of civic engagement is to show them the fight needed to get it. The lesson was clear: Voting is not a right to be squandered.

Civics and history are cornerstones of the curriculum. But Freedom Schools has loftier goals. They are creating a new generation of community leaders who understand the past and where they want to go. Robinson said it is one of the best ways to give students the confidence to be critical thinkers and create a community that can build a better world

Were here to serve them and as scholars it is their job to take everything they have and make something more of it, Robinson said.

Another benefit of the program is how it closes the achievement gap. A 2010 study of the program in Charlotte, N.C. and Bennettsville, S.C. found more than 90 percent of scholars suffered no summer learning loss after attending Freedom Schools. A Kansas study found scholars improved their reading by two grade levels after attending the program.

This year there was one Freedom School program. In five years, Robinson wants to see one at every elementary school in the county.

Weve got to create a new culture, Robinson said.

Few students took to Freedoms Schools like JaQuay. From entertaining the other scholars at breakfast to Harambee where he was one of the loudest voices in the gym to the honest discussions in class, JaQuay found a place where he could not only explore his own lived experience, but build a community to help him handle it.

The Freedom School way gave him confidence.

[At] my regular school the only time I can express myself is at recess, he said. Here, all day, I can express myself with actions and words.

Its Tuesday at Harambee and the community being built over six weeks will last long after the echoes fade from the gym.

Kevin Maurer is a journalist and author. He is currently the Director of Community Engagement at Cape Fear Collective.

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Freedom Schools come to Wilmington, here's what the program is all about [Free read] - Port City Daily

The freedom of the internet is under imminent threat, Twitter boss Jack Dorsey has said.

He said his rival tech giants were "killing competing ideas" and that the idea of fairness on the internet was under threat.

Other companies are creating "walled-garden alternative internets", in an apparent attack on other companies such as Facebook.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Instead, Twitter is focusing on "an open internet" that no one company was able to control, he said.

Mr Dorsey was speaking after the four biggest tech companies in the world Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook sent their chief executives to a US congress hearing. The questioning was part of an antitrust investigation, looking at the ways that those major firms could be abusing their dominance of their respecrtive markets.

In a series of tweets, Mr Dorsey said: "The most incredible aspect of the internet is that no one person or organisation controls it: the people make it what it is every day. That ideal is constantly under threat, especially today. We commit as a company to fighting for an #OpenInternet," he said.

"The power of the internet is only as good as the power it gives to individual people. The more we do to advance that, the stronger it becomes. This underlies all else. But there are two emergent and growing threats.

"The first is a number of large organisations effectively building walled-garden alternative internets, sustained by favourable regulation, and thus killing competing ideas and organizations that could be better for society.

"The second is for the outcomes of content moderation to be a reductive and binary 'leave up' or 'take down'. This distracts from a more important focus on amplification, reach, and connecting disparate information to provide richer context.

"Ensuring competition on a level playing field for all on the internet, and truly understanding the fundamental dynamics that underlie internet speech, will strengthen what the internet can be for everyone around the world."

The social media platform's public policy account also tweeted that protecting an open internet was a "key objective" for the firm and that it wanted to avoid "entrenching the dominance of the biggest player" online.

Twitter's message is the latest evidence of a growing divide in parts of Silicon Valley on certain issues after Twitter and Facebook took differing approaches to fact-checking or limiting the prominence of posts by US president Donald Trump.

While Twitter has added warning labels to Trump tweets it said violated its rules, Facebook has previously publicly spoken out against such an approach, warning that platforms should not be the "arbiters of truth" and that the public should see unfiltered messages from politicians and decide for themselves.

But in June, Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook would begin flagging posts from political leaders that broke its rules.

Twitter also provided another update on the cyber attack which targeted the platform and high-profile accounts earlier this month.

Messages promoting a cryptocurrency scam were posted to the accounts of Kanye West, Elon Musk, Joe Biden and others after hackers were able to access Twitter's internal systems.

In its update, Twitter said the hackers had targeted a small number of employees using a phishing attack - making phone calls to staff and tricking them into giving up their log-in details - in what the site described as a "significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities" to get into Twitter's systems.

The company said it has now "significantly limited access" to its internal tools since the attack and was working on updates and improvements to its security.

Additional reporting by Press Association

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Internet freedom is in imminent danger, claims Twitter boss Jack Dorsey in attack on other tech companies - The Independent

In the lead-up to the 2020 Hugo Awards, were taking time to appreciate this years best novella Finalists, and what makes each of them great.

What makes Ted Chiangs fiction so memorableand so resonantis his ability to take two seemingly disparate concepts and turn them into something altogether new. By and large, Chiangs concepts elude elevator-pitch dryness and head into uncharted territory. In a world of builders and techniciansboth entirely solid professionsChiang is a kind of alchemist, transforming the familiar and the profound.

His novella Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom (collected in Exhalation) offers ample evidence of this. From one perspective, its the kind of working-class crime story that the likes of George Pelecanos specialize in: a story of people working dead-end jobs for which theyre underpaid, and the unnerving turns their lives take when they opt to engage in some low-level criminal activity.

Its possible to imagine a world in which Chiang decided to go full crime fiction; based on the lived-in descriptions of his characters lives, he could probably write something entirely memorable without venturing into the uncanny at all. But Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom is also about parallel universes, quantum theory, and how the smallest possible decisions can change the world.

The setting is a near future in which devices called prisms allow people to contact parallel timelines. How does that work? Turns out the prisms also create the parallel timelines, via quantum mechanics.

In colloquial terms, the prism created two newly divergent timelines, one in which the red LED lit up and one in which the blue one did, and it allowed communication between the two.

Central to the novellas setting is the idea that even the smallest of changesin this case, a light being differentwill have massive consequences, creating subtle differences between the two timelines, including different children being born as a result of different timelines versions of the same pregnancies. That, in turn, translates into a head-spinning take on a classic science fictional ethical question.

For a hypothetical time traveler who wanted to prevent Hitlers rise to power, the minimum intervention wasnt smothering the baby Adolf in his crib; all that was needed was to travel back to a month before his conception and disturb an oxygen molecule. Not only would this replace Adolf with a sibling, it would replace everyone his age or younger.

The prisms cause timelines to split at the point where theyre activatedbut if you can get a hold of an older prism, you might also be able to communicate with your counterpart from a different timeline. Prisms have a finite lifespan, at which point communication between those two timelines will cease. At the center of the novella are Morrow and Nat, co-workers at a failing business called SelfTalk, launched at a time when prism technology was less effective than it is at the time the novella begins.

Morrow and Nat are working on several scams. One involves convincing a dying woman to give them her money by convincing her it will go to her counterpart in another timeline; another involves selling a prism to a celebrity that will allow him to reconnect with another timelines version of his deceased husband. The idea of people getting in way over their heads with bad decisions is a familiar one to the crime-fiction side of this story, but the emphasis on decisions baked into the premise of the story magnifies that element dramatically, and elevates it into something deeply haunting.

The small details of the world of Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom also help make it stand out. Chiang describes a world in which die hard fans of a sports team or a celebrity obsessively track the different versions of their favorites across timelines. Nat attends a support group for people grappling with complex feelings about their paraselvesanother word for their counterparts in parallel timelines.

The novellas third major character is Dana, who runs the support group in question. If Morrow is someone actively embracing bad decisions and Nat is more on the fence, Dana represents a third optionnamely, someone actively looking to shake off the results of bad decisions theyve made in the past. Danas own struggles offer another spin on the novellas themes and mechanics, namely: How does someone do good when theyre still haunted by the bad things in their own past, and the unsettling feeling that somewhere out there, a better version of them exists?

In his commentary on the novella, which appears at the end of Exhalation, Chiang describes himself as agnostic on the many-worlds theory: Im pretty confident that even if the many-worlds interpretation is correct, it doesnt mean that all of our decisions are canceled out, he writes. If we say that an individuals character is revealed by the choices they make over time, then, in a similar fashion, an individuals character would also be revealed by the choices they make across many worlds.

This is a story about flawed characters making bad decisions and trying to make better ones. Its central concept is staggering in its implications, but its central characters also feel deeply singulareven when the point of the story involves multiple variations on them. This is a novella that offers shocks and empathy both; like the prisms within it, it contains far more than you might think.

Tobias Carroll is the managing editor of Vol.1 Brooklyn. He is the author of the short story collection Transitory (Civil Coping Mechanisms) and the novel Reel (Rare Bird Books).

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Hugo Spotlight: Ted Chiang's Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom Transforms the Familiar - tor.com

Captain Sir Tom Moore has been awarded the freedom of his home town for his outstanding fundraising efforts.

He described becoming an honorary freeman of Keighley, West Yorkshire, as a privilege, adding: I remain truly humbled and grateful for the support I have received from far and wide but the warm reception I have received coming home is particularly special to me.

It really is great to be back.

The 100-year-old Second World War veteran, who has raised almost 33 million for the NHS, was greeted by an honour guard from members of the Yorkshire Regiment for the special ceremony at the Town Hall Square in Keighley town centre.

His family also watched as a plaque was unveiled in his honour.

Captain Sir Tom had set out to raise 1,000 by walking 100 laps of his garden in the village of Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire before his 100th birthday on April 30.

His efforts struck a chord with national feeling, and praise and donations flooded in with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying he provided us all with a beacon of light through the fog of coronavirus and recommended he be knighted.

Becoming an honorary freeman of Keighley is the highest honour the council can bestow on anyone, according to town mayor Peter Corkindale.

He hoped Captain Sir Tomcould see just how proud we are of him and his wonderful achievements.

Mr Corkindale said: I know from speaking to many people in Keighley, the exploits of Captain Sir Tom Moore during lockdown was just the pick-me-up they needed.

I am not sure he will ever realise just what a difference he has made to so many people up and down the country.

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Captain Sir Tom Moore receives honorary freedom of his home town - shropshirestar.com

Deep in a survey of likely voters, paid for by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for firearms manufacturers, is the startling fact that most people dont realize Joe Biden, the Democratic Partys presumptive nominee for president, is a gun-control extremist.

While 95% of likely voters said they are very likely to vote in the upcoming election, only 17% of gun owners in the survey said gun-related issues were one of their three top policy areas going into this election (15% did say crime and 18% said civil rights).

The truth that Biden is no moderate on guns clearly isnt getting out enough. The thing is, it isnt speculation that Biden wants our guns. This fact isnt even just informed opinion based on Bidens previous policy positions. The glaring truth is, Biden has actually published a long list of his desired gun bans and restrictions on his 2020 campaign website.

The survey did find that nearly 66% know that a ban on popular semi-automatic rifles wouldnt reduce crime (25% thought it somehow it wouldthese people dont appear to be aware that under 3% of homicides in any given year in the U.S. are committed with any type of rifle).

Media misinformation does taint some of the questions; for example, one question asks voters whether they would support a candidate who is for gun safety and education. Its not even worth quoting the numbers the survey found on this question because gun-control groups have deceptively adopted the phrase gun safety and, in fact, now use it as a synonym for gun control. This has confused the public. The mainstream media hasnt helped, as theyve characteristically been happy to repeat this deception; today, for example, CNN, The New York Times, and more, habitually use the phrase gun safety when theyre referring to all sorts of bans on popular firearms and other restrictions on our freedom.

Meanwhile, answers to other questions did indicate that the vast majority of voters know that gun owners already must undergo background checks when they buy guns from stores. Also, clear majorities of voters said they are opposed to restrictions on semi-automatic rifles, commonly owned rifle magazines and more.

Interestingly, this election has a lot going on beneath this and other poll numbers. For example, since January 2020, more than 10.3 million background checks have been conducted on people seeking to buy one or more firearms. Also, an NSSF retailer surveys found that between March and May of this year, there have been more than 2.5 million first-time gun buyers in the U.S.40% of whom are women.

Also, as voters traditionally dont really engage until after Labor Day, there is still time for the Trump campaign, responsible media members, and us to inform the public that our freedom is clearly on the ballot this November 3.

This NSSF survey asked voters in 18 election battleground states 15 questions about gun ownership, their views of gun control, and more. The survey results can be found on the NSSFs website.

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A Scary Fact Found in a Gun Survey on the Upcoming Election - America's 1st Freedom

By Heather Leah, WRAL multiplatform producer

Washington, N.C. When visiting North Carolinas idyllic little coastal communities, visitors may not expect that some of those quaint riverside buildings once held secret passageways and smuggling tunnels.

Enslaved men and women escaping from large plantations in Raleigh or farther west would often float down rivers and tributaries bodies of water known as "Freedom Roads" that eventually led to coastal towns, where they could catch a ship up north to freedom.

While waiting for a ship, they often hid out in swamps, wooded areas or, if they were lucky, a secret passageway in an abolitionists home.

Waiting at the end of the Pamlico River one of North Carolinas most prominent freedom roads was the coastal community of Washington. With shipyards like Havens Wharf and old plantations like Elmwood, the small city was at the heart of the Underground Railroad.

While most stories from the Underground Railroad have vanished with the ages, some tangible remnants and clues can still be found in the area surrounding modern-day Washington.

With 89 enslaved individuals over 280 acres, Elmwood Plantation was the largest plantation in the county in the 1800s. Some of the men enslaved there were sent to Havens Wharf to work in the shipyard.

It was this exact setup that made Washington an ideal headquarters for the Underground Railroad.

Like spies, abolitionists would infiltrate plantations like Elmwood, allowing them to find enslaved individuals who were seeking freedom.

Abolitionists would go to work on plantations, explained Leesa Jones, director of the Washington Waterfront Underground Railroad Museum. Many times, they would develop skills that were greatly needed on plantations, such as blacksmithing or creating metal farm tools. If you had a skill you could teach to enslaved individuals on a plantation, it would be profitable for a plantation owner to hire you to work with their enslaved population.

Preachers were always welcome. Midwives were always welcome. Tanners were always welcome, she said.

Once on a plantation, abolitionists would get a sense of which enslaved men or women might be seeking freedom.

You always had someone, called an Ear, who was working to pick up information on who can be trusted, said Jones.

Elmwood and Havens Wharf provided an ideal atmosphere for bringing in information from abolitionists up north. Bustling shipyards brought in northern traders, who sympathized with the abolitionist cause. Enslaved individuals worked directly in the shipyard and could glean information about how to escape, then bring it back to Elmwood.

Due to the immense danger involved in helping people escape enslavement at plantations, these codes often lasted only a few days before being changed. This constant need for secrecy and clandestine codes is part of why the history of the Underground Railroad is difficult to uncover. Written history would be too risky, and even oral history would have been dangerous to pass down.

We always tell people to pay attention to the stories they hear told by older family members theres a genesis in them. Investigate them. A lot of Underground Railroad history is oral, said Jones.

Secret codes could be found in nearly anything clothing, crops, songs and rhymes and conveyed messages about which routes to take, when it was safe to run, how to stay safe and other important information.

The code would utilize something the freedom seeker already had on hand, said Jones. Nothing about a code could seem out of place.

For example, said Jones, Oral history tells us about the use of sunflowers on the waterfront. People sold sunflowers on the waterfront regularly. So, if someone were out there, that doesnt look unusual.

According to Jones, abolitionists might stand on the waterfront of the Pamlico River holding a basket of sunflowers, but the tip off that they were passing a code was this: They never announced their flowers were for sale.

If they were not announcing they were selling the sunflowers, Id know they were there to help and had a code for me, said Jones.

The center of a sunflower might be used to symbolize eyes, and the flowers could be tilted to silently indicate from which direction eyes might be lurking or where dangerous patrols might be looking for escapees.

People might spend days or longer waiting in hiding until they could safely board a boat. Meanwhile, secret messages could be passed along.

Freed Black men or abolitionists might scatter black-eyed peas along the waterfront to let someone hiding in the forest know "too many eyes are watching. Stay hidden."

People seeking freedom could also use codes to seek help from abolitionists.

For example, if you saw an enslaved woman wearing a long dress with three petticoats, she may swish her skirts to reveal a thread color while singing a song, said Jones. The color thread would signal to an abolitionist what kind of help she needed.

Blue thread might mean, Help, I need help by way of the river.

Green thread could mean, I need help on an overland route.

Gold thread could mean, Please, I need help by way of stagecoach.

Washington had a stagecoach line that could take people to Plymouth or New Bern.

In the hustle of busy merchants announcing their wares, docking ships, enslaved men unloading shipments, a few spilled black-eyed peas might go unnoticed by anyone except someone silently watching and waiting for the right time to escape.

People today might be surprised to realize they recognize some of the old Underground Railroad codes and songs that were passed along through generations, disguised as nursery rhymes and folk music.

In the early 1960s, Bob Dylan wrote Blowin in the Wind, a song that referenced racial injustice, asking how many roads a man must walk down before he can be called a man. The lyrics also referenced peace, asking how many seas a white dove must sail before she sleeps in the sand.

And, most of all, the song said The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind. The answer is blowin in the wind.

Jones said, The lyrics are based on an old slave code that would have been used by the Underground Railroad. But theres an appendage to that song that did not make it into the popular version.

Members of the Underground Railroad would sing that folksy ditty to themselves as they walked past a patch of woods or swamp where someone seeking freedom silently hid.

Then, the singer would add the appendage, and it varied based on the information they wanted to provide.

South wind blowing might mean: The patrol is in town. There are people looking for runaways in town. Stay low. Stay hidden.

Adding the line North wind blowing to the end of the tune might alert listening ears that abolitionists or ship captains are in town who can help the listener escape.

A lot of the codes became old stories, songs I used to sing as a child jumping rope to. When you trace them back, you can find what they meant, said Jones.

According to the National Park Service Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site, North Carolina has 13 sites connected to the Underground Railroad more than any other state in the Southeast.

Theres a lot of activity here, said Jones.

Why was North Carolina perfectly positioned to play such a huge role in the Underground Railroad?

North Carolina has a very long coast lots of rivers, tributaries, freedom roads, said Jones.

In the early 1800s, we had at least 12 shipyards going, said Blount Rumley, who grew up in Washington.

Located in the heart of the shipping industry, Havens Wharf was a haven of information for people seeking freedom. In those days, the area was known as the "Birds Nest," and many information seekers shared messages by saying, "A little bird told me."

Washingtons connection to the Pamlico River, Tar River and nearby Atlantic Ocean made it the final destination for enslaved people seeking freedom from western cities and plantations, who would float down "freedom roads" by boat until they arrived in a shipyard like Havens Wharf.

Washington got started because its on the water, said Rumley. Were as far up the river as you can get on a sailing vessel.

While people seeking freedom waited for a ship, they camped in woods and swamps.

Enslaved men and women were said to camp in James Bonner's "Cowhead Plantation" that had over 600 acres of Cypress Swamp, according to Jones. The original location is said to be where the old Cherry Plantation once stood on Cherry Run Road near Cowhead Springs.

The other swamp was near Long Acre, which is shown on a 1770 map as a ridge in the Dismal Swamp that ran through eastern North Carolina.

This area was favored by freedom seekers, as Long Acre supported a post road from Plymouth to Bath and made it easier to travel on by night, said Jones.

By 1882, this area was called Long Acre Ridge. Today, the area is still known as Acre Station.

Washington burned twice during the Civil War, then once again in the 1900s, wiping out many of the historic buildings that once held secret passageways and crawl spaces to hide people seeking freedom.

However, Havens Wharf, which now houses offices, retains an important history for its role in the Underground Railroad. Standing on the docks behind the wharf, one can almost hear the bustle of the shipyard and picture the black-eyed peas scattered along the waters edge.

Elmwood Plantation, which is now a bed and breakfast, would likely have been visited by many abolitionists seeking to aid enslaved men and women. The historic structure has its own share of mysteries and hidden history, including crawl spaces and a third floor that once served as a hospital for wounded Civil War soldiers. According to Jones, the third-floor walls still have names scratched into them where injured or dying soldiers carved the names of their loved ones, hoping for a sense of immortality.

Built in 1822, the First Presbyterian Church still has remains from the "slave gallery" upstairs, according to Jones.

At that time enslaved people, freed Blacks and whites were worshiping together. So, you could pick up information about abolitionists while at church, said Jones.

Finally, an eye-catching orange railroad car in downtown Washington holds stories, historic photos and remnants from the Underground Railroad. Inside the small, bright railroad car is the Waterfront Underground Railroad Museum, established by Jones herself.

However, the most important remnant of the Underground Railroad isnt in any of these locations. Rather, Jones said she believes the spirit and history isnt tied to any particular historic time or location or person.

The Underground Railroad is in all of us, said Jones. A network of people working together to help people thats all the Underground Railroad was.

Visit the Washington Waterfront Underground Railroad Museum's Facebook page and webpage for information.

Take a look at the Elmwood 1820 B&B Facebook page and website to learn more.

Explore the website for visiting Washington, NC.

This article was written for our sponsor, Washington Tourism Development Authority.

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Secret passageways and freedom roads: Remnants of the Underground Railroad in NC - WRAL.com

Jumping through the air, floating in the wind, a firework shooting off these scenes evoke a sense of freedom that so many of us staying home due to the pandemic haven't felt in a long time.

But we can feel them vicariously in some of the winning entries of this year's iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS). The 13th annual competition invites photographers worldwide to submit unaltered iPhone or iPad photos to one of 18 categories.

The award committee announced the winning images this week. The Grand Prize and Photographer of the Year award goes to Dimpy Bhalotia, a street photographer based in the United Kingdom. Her image "Flying Boys" one of thousands submitted to the contest captures three kids suspended in midair as they leap into the Ganges River in India.

We hope the images in our selection of joy, solitude and serenity provide a welcome respite to the stresses of the pandemic.

"Flying Boys." India Dimpy Bhalotia hide caption

"Flying Boys." India

"No Walls." India Artyom Baryshau hide caption

"No Walls." India

"Untitled." China Geli Zhao hide caption

"Sheikh of Youth." Iraq Saif Hussain hide caption

"Sheikh of Youth." Iraq

"Calpe Sunrise." Spain Jiandong Wang hide caption

"Calpe Sunrise." Spain

"Demons Lighting The Sky." Spain Fernando Merlo hide caption

"Demons Lighting The Sky." Spain

"Untitled." China Tu Odnu hide caption

"Untitled." China

"Prune Deuce." Australia Glenn Homann hide caption

"Prune Deuce." Australia

"Call From Mokattam Mountain." Egypt Magali Chenel hide caption

"Call From Mokattam Mountain." Egypt

"Nightfall At The Dolomites." Italy Leo Chan hide caption

"Nightfall At The Dolomites." Italy

"Free From The Past." India Kristian Cruz hide caption

"Free From The Past." India

Originally posted here:

Award-Winning IPhone Photos Capture Global Scenes Of Freedom And Serenity : Goats and Soda - NPR

Bringing awareness and a culture of inclusion to Columbia.

On June 19, 1865, Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston, Texas, with over 2,000 federal troops and announced a federal proclamation that declared all enslaved Black people free. This day became commonly known as Juneteenth, and would be celebrated to commemorate the liberation of the last enslaved Black people in America and the nascence of recognizing Black individuals as full human beings with hopes, fears, dreams, and most importantly, human rights.

Today, Juneteenth maintains the same spirit, but it has also taken on a new meaning.

Between March and May, the nation witnessed the murders of Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, and George Floyd, among many others, all at the hands of racism. Consequently, many Black individuals and allies rallied in the streets for the Black Lives Matter movement to protest the loss of these innocent lives, demand radical change in law enforcement systems, and initiate discourse on Black liberation and granting Black people authentic, unequivocal human rights.

Given this context, Juneteenth has taken on new meaning it has now morphed into a holiday that is not just a fte, but also a form of protest in defense of Black lives.

In Columbia, there were a number of events that celebrated Juneteenth and also educated the community on the history of the event and the general plight of Black people in the community. One of these events, CoMo Celebrates Juneteenth, was hosted at Karis Church.

The event was three parts. It began with a walk through Heritage Trail. This was followed by an in-person drive-through portion in Karis Churchs parking lot. The scene was vibrant, featuring people enjoying soul food made by local vendors. Families, with their enthusiastic children, contorted their bodies to the sound of Cupid Shuffle.

Thereafter, there were a series of speeches given by Adonica Coleman and Nikki McGruder, co-organizers of the event, and Mary Ratliff, president of Columbias NAACP chapter. All three speakers addressed the importance of celebrating Black liberation and harkening to voices in the community that are demanding change and demanding that Black lives to be acknowledged and respected. The drive-through segment ended with a recitation of Frederick Douglass famous speech, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

The final portion of the event was a series of online content and included an in-depth panel discussion with local pastors, moderated by Adonica, that discussed the history and meaning of Juneteenth.

The idea to host a major Juneteenth event began with CoMo Small Great Things, a book club of diverse women, and of which Adonica and Nikki are members. The book club dwells on literature about racial issues, so naturally, the conversation about Juneteenth and what the community could do to celebrate the event became a point of discussion.

We have a book club that has been meeting for three years . . . We were having a conversation about the latest book wed read, and one of the white ladies said, Why is the onus always on Black people in town to actually get things going? If were trying to seek racial reconciliation, we should be the ones doing the work, Adonica says. Thats when Juneteenth came up in the conversation, and they offered to take some of the responsibility of planning the event, offering to get more community members involved, including local churches.

While celebration was the central phenomenon, the event made it a priority to also educate the community and bring awareness to the context of Juneteenth.

Nikki says: I think its important to know that the group Im in has been having conversations around race for a long time. So, we wanted to make sure that we provided a celebratory aspect along with education.

She adds, We talked about the importance of working with our allies and wanted to make sure that it was a celebration where we could also show why it is important that those positioning themselves to be allies celebrate [Juneteenth] too.

Education was also a priority because, after taking stock of general sentiments regarding the holiday, organizers realized that the public especially the non-Black public doesnt know much about Juneteenth.

Adonica says: For Nikki and I, we didnt know about Juneteenth until we were fully-grown women, and were both Black women in our forties. So, we wanted to involve different people and have several voices and make the event interactive.

The process of planning CoMo Celebrates Juneteenth was not without its challenges. With the COVID-19 pandemic upending event planning, the organizing team had to adapt to the times and create an event that would celebrate and educate people about Juneteenth while keeping their health and safety a priority.

We submitted our plans to the health department and had consistent communication with them about what things to consider to make sure everyone was safe, Adonica says.

The team drew inspiration from Karis Churchs Easter service, which was a drive-through gathering that encouraged social distancing. In addition, there were also masks sold at the concessions table at the events entrance.

We talked about the importance of working with our allies and wanted to make sure that it was a celebration where we could also show why it is important that those positioning themselves to be allies celebrate [Juneteenth] too.

Reflecting on CoMo Celebrates Juneteenth, it is evident that the event was a success it was able to bring together Columbias community in solidarity, maintain health and safety regulations, and also give people invaluable knowledge about the importance of Juneteenth and advocacy for Black lives. As of June 19, 2020, Mayor Brian Treece proclaimed Juneteenth Celebration Day an officially recognized holiday in Columbia.

I think one of the greatest feats for that day was coming together to do the in-person aspect and keep it according to the plan that we put together for the health department. So people started off their day the right way, and then they were able to go to their respective places to enjoy the rest of the content virtually, Nikki says.

With regards to next year, the goal is to enlarge the Juneteenth celebrations by collaborating with more community entities, including the city council. The educational content will still harken to the history and relevance of Juneteenth, and it will extend to include the contributions and success of Black people within Columbia and the nation at large.

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155 Years of Black Freedom - Columbia Business Times

Freedom of Speech, the famous Norman Rockwell painting that depicts a young man addressing a local gathering, was inspired by a real event. One evening in 1942, Rockwell attended the town meeting in Arlington, Vt., where he lived for many years. On the agenda was the construction of a new school. It was a popular proposal, supported by everyone in attendance except for one resident, who got up to express his dissenting view. He was evidently a blue-collar worker, whose battered jacket and stained fingernails set him apart from the other men in the audience, all dressed in white shirts and ties. In Rockwells scene, the man speaks his mind, unafraid to express a minority opinion and not intimidated by the status of those hes challenging. He has no reason not to speak plainly: His words are being attended to with respectful attention. His neighbors may disagree with him, but theyre willing to hear what he has to say.

What brings Rockwells painting to mind is a new national poll by the Cato Institute. The survey found that self-censorship has become extremely widespread in American society, with 62 percent of adults saying that, given the current political climate, they are afraid to honestly express their views.

These fears cross partisan lines, writes Emily Ekins, Catos director of polling. Majorities of Democrats (52 percent), independents (59 percent), and Republicans (77 percent) all agree they have political opinions they are afraid to share. The surveys 2,000 respondents sorted themselves ideologically as very liberal, liberal, moderate, conservative, or very conservative. In every category except very liberal, a majority of respondents feel pressured to keep their views to themselves. Roughly one-third of American adults 32 percent fear they could be fired or otherwise penalized at work if their political beliefs became known.

Freedom of speech has often been threatened in America, but the suppression of wrong opinions in the past has tended to come from the top down. It was the government that arrested editors for criticizing Woodrow Wilsons foreign policy, made it a crime to burn the flag, turned the dogs on civil rights marchers, and jailed communists under the Smith Act. Today, by contrast, dissent is rarely prosecuted. Thanks to the Supreme Courts First Amendment jurisprudence, freedom of expression has never been more strongly protected legally.

But culturally, the freedom to express unpopular views has never been more endangered.

On college campuses, in workplaces, in the media, there are ever-widening no-go zones of viewpoints and arguments that cannot be safely expressed. Voice an opinion that self-anointed social-justice warriors regard as heretical, and the consequences can be career-destroying. The dean of the nursing school at UMass-Lowell lost her job after writing in an email that everyones life matters. An art curator was accused of being a racist and forced to quit for saying that his museum would continue to collect white artists. The director of communications for Boeing apologized and resigned after an employee complained that 33 years ago he was opposed to women serving in combat.

Virtually everyone would agree that some views are indisputably beyond the pale. If there are supporters of slavery or advocates of genocide who feel inhibited from sharing their beliefs, no one much cares. But the range of opinions deemed unsayable by todays thought police extends well into the mainstream. And in many cases, the most enthusiastic suppressors of debate are students, journalists, artists, intellectuals those who in former times were the greatest champions of uninhibited speech and the greatest foes of ideological conformity.

It isnt only on the left that this totalitarian impulse to silence dissent exists. President Trump, always infuriated by criticism, has called for columnists who disparage him to be fired, hecklers at his rallies to be beaten up, and TV stations to lose their licenses if they run ads vilifying his handling of the pandemic calls routinely amplified on social media by tens of thousands of his followers. When a Babson College professor joked that Iran ought to bomb sites of beloved American cultural heritage like the Mall of America and the Kardashian residence, a right-wing website launched a campaign that got him fired.

The new Cato survey found that more than one in five Americans (22 percent) would support firing a business executive who donated money to Democrat Joe Bidens presidential campaign, while 31 percent would be OK with firing someone who gave money to Trumps reelection campaign. The urge to ostracize or penalize unwelcome views isnt restricted to just one end of the spectrum.

Americans right to free speech is shielded by the Constitution to a degree unmatched anywhere else. But our First Amendment guarantees will prove impotent if the habit of free speech is lost. For generations, Americans were raised to see debate as legitimate, desirable, and essential to democratic health. They quoted Voltaires (apocryphal) aphorism: I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it. Editors, publishers, satirists, and civil libertarians took to heart the dictum of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who wrote that the principle of free thought is meant to enshrine not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

But that principle has been turned on its head. The thought that we hate is not tolerated but stifled. It is reviled as taboo, forbidden to be uttered. Anyone expressing it may be accused not just of giving offense, but of literally endangering those who disagree. And even if only some people lose their careers or reputations for saying something wrong, countless others get the chilling message.

And so dread settles in, writes journalist Emily Yoffe. Challenging books go untaught. Deep conversations are not had. Friendships are not formed. Classmates and colleagues eye each other with suspicion.

And 62 percent of Americans fear to express what they think.

The speaker in Norman Rockwells painting may have had something unpopular to say, but neither he nor his neighbors had any doubt that it was appropriate for him to say it. Now, such doubt is everywhere, and freedom of speech has never been more threatened.

Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jeff.jacoby@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeff_jacoby. To subscribe to Arguable, his weekly newsletter, visit bitly.com/Arguable.

Original post:

Fear of speech is replacing freedom of speech - The Boston Globe

ELLSWORTH Former State Senate candidate John Linnehan will host a Freedom Festival on Aug. 1 and 2 in the parking lot of the Maine Coast Mall behind Governors Restaurant.

This is the first one Ive ever done, said Linnehan. Im trying to make it a staycation vacation.

Linnehan, who is president of Linnehan Homes and has run Christian ministries in the area, was a conservative candidate in the July 14 Republican primary for Maine Senate District 7. He lost to fellow Republican Brian Langley of Ellsworth.

Linnehan said he is not selling tickets to this weekends event and will not be counting visitors. The state is still under orders to limit indoor gatherings to 50 people or less to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Seated outdoor events, such as concerts, may divide seating into up to four separate areas with up to 50 people each as long as the layout meets several criteria. Those include at least 14 feet of separation between sections, with physical barriers to prevent intermingling; separate restrooms, concessions and services for each section and enough space for 6 feet of separation between household groups.

Linnehan said that hes not sure how many people will be attending the festival but that he doesnt expect people to camp out but stay for an event and move on.

We will have masks available but Im not going to enforce it, he said. People are more than welcome to put it on. I believe its an individual choice.

The festival includes a Spin-tacular basketball show with the Crevier family, gospel singers and a salute to law enforcement. The festival will span two days, with the same agenda both days beginning at 1 p.m. and ending at 7 p.m.

We strongly believe in our biblical Christian values and our United States and Maine constitutional rights and freedoms, reads a statement on the Freedom Festival website. We believe that all citizens have their individual freedom of choice to wear a mask or not wear a mask. We will have masks available. Please respect all people attending whether you agree personally with their position on this issue or not.

Linnehan said that he wants everyone to respect everybodys individual constitutional rights, and that those who are uncomfortable with being in a large group are welcome to watch the event online or not attend.

Im very sorry the way this has been a divisive issue around the country, he said. Linnehan compared coronavirus with the flu and said he believes the risk from COVID-19 is very, very minimal. He said that the effects of lockdowns are worse.

Were meant to be social people. We hug people, we shake hands. Those things to me are being more effectively damaged.

Although respiratory diseases linked to the seasonal flu can be deadly, killing between 290,000 to 650,000 people every year according to the World Health Organization, COVID-19 has already surpassed that figure, killing at least 650,157 people worldwide since late December, according to Johns Hopkins University. That has been the case even with strict prevention and lockdown measures in place across the globe. Cases show no sign of abating in the United States.

The city did issue a mass gathering permit for the Freedom Festival, said Code Enforcement Officer Dwight Tilton, as it has done for other gatherings in recent weeks, including those associated with the Black Lives Matter movement.

This event differs from other rallies in recent weeks, said Tilton, because it is on private property.

The purpose of the permit is to have a diagram of the event area in case of a police or fire emergency, Tilton said in an email. The permit is not issued for the event but for the location.

The code enforcement officer would not be enforcing possible violations of the Governors executive order, which Tilton said would be the responsibility of the property owner and event coordinator.

Tilton said Police Chief Glenn Moshier did send letters reminding the property owner and event coordinator that they are required to follow the Governors executive order, and included copies of the order in the letter.

The American was unable to reach the owner of the Maine Coast Mall or state officials who would be tasked with enforcing the Governors executive order.

The rest is here:

"Freedom Festival" is planned this weekend - The Ellsworth American

There's a Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson that has always been a favorite. In it, two deer are standing in a field and they are chatting, as deer often do in Larson's cartoons. One of the deer has a black and white bull's-eye painted in the center of his chest. The other deer comments sympathetically, "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal."

Right now, Americans feel a little bit like Hal. We're getting used to the United States being challenged and accused by allies and enemies alike. We feel the danger that has accrued to our role in the world. We're reminded daily that our war is now about civilian targets. Shootings and bombings and police militarization are about civilian loss and injuries. It is civilians now people of color, young and old protesters who are in danger. We live in a military state and it crept up on us. We taught our kids, "If you ever feel scared, look for a policeman." And now none of us can safely say that.

This is where it gets hard to be an American liberal or conservative. We advocate for democracy in other countries, but we feel so aware of the personal danger that it's tempting to throw away what's important.

It's excruciating to watch a president and many leaders toss out our rights like a newcomer cleaning someone else's house. In the guise of security, what we look up online, or share on social media and even our medical records might not be private. We could end up running after a truck saying, "Whoa, those are my baseball cards and my civil liberties, and hey, that's the Bill of Rights, I'm not done with that yet."

People say they are willing to trade a few freedoms for safety, but do they mean that? I don't want to be blithe about the dangers. But can we keep for ourselves what we have fought for elsewhere: fair elections, freedom of speech, rule of law and an open political process? We can't paint a bull's-eye on our civil rights.

We also have to find ways to partner with the rest of the world. Years ago, Canada's then-prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, called the United States "the elephant next door." So, as the world's elephant, could we learn to move more gracefully? Or use our might for the common good?

I think about how, as a child, I learned about the United States from one of those wall-sized maps common in elementary classrooms, the ones that show each state as a different color. I remember the first time we went on a family vacation to another state and how disappointed I was that all that distinguished the next state was a sign saying, "Welcome to Ohio" but Ohio wasn't blue as my classroom map had shown it. Now, we are similarly challenged to accept that countries are permeable, and that we have to see the world as a whole.

In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt described the four freedoms that he wished for our future: Freedom of speech and expression; Freedom for everyone to worship God his own way; Freedom from want; and Freedom from fear.

We've seen these freedoms depicted in Norman Rockwell paintings, which might make us think these were only for the American people, but that's not true. FDR called them a "human birthright," and the tagline on each painting was: for everyone, everywhere in the world.

That's the challenge. It's simple but not easy. But it's a birthmark worth wearing and fighting for abroad and at home.

Diane Cameron is a Capital Region writer. DianeOCameron@gmail.com.

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Freedom worth fighting for right here in America - Times Union

BREXIT Watchers received a nasty shock with the news that David Frost recently told senior Tory MPs that we will only get 60 per cent of what we want. Michel Barnier has continued with the intransigent EU demand for permanent rights over UK sovereign fishing grounds and insistence on the EU regulation of UK trade and state aid so as to prevent the UK gaining any economic advantage.

Could the UK be giving way on these demands? TheExpressreports that Cummings is fighting off Whitehall mandarins on state aid regulation, demanding UK freedomand also that the fisheries issue is to remain a matter of UK sovereignty, not a trading bargaining chip.Joe Barnes in theExpresshas also suggested that Frost is dropping several trade demands in the post-Brexit talks with Brussels in the hope of increasing the chances of a deal:

Boris Johnsons chief negotiator with the European Union hopes that asking for a less ambitious free-trade agreement will unlock the negotiations. David Frost has told EU counterpart Michel Barnier that the UK is willing to accept less favourable terms for manufacturers and professionals as part of the final agreement. The Taskforce Europe chief believes lowering the complexity of the pact, in areas such as rules of origin and mutual recognition of qualifications, would mean Brussels dropping its complaints about easy access to its single market.

That could possibly be good news as regards a clean Brexit, as long as the Germans and French are given the same treatment as the UK exporters.However Matthew Parris (always worth reading despite his belief we should stay in the EU) says in hisTimescolumnthat the UK is well on the way to becoming a trade colony and, like sheep, we are slowly but inexorably being herded into the truck.Following his colleague Bruno Waterfields briefing from Brussels, Parrisanticipates a trade deal will be done soon with the UK submitting to regulation as the price for tariff-free trade: the very bad deal that has always been feared by Brexiteers.

PM Johnson will, no doubt, praise the deal and pronounceit a victory but the truth is that it will amount to the UK beingallowedto check out legally, but agreeing not to,voluntarily a fake freedom, a Brino.

It is worth quoting from Parriss analysis as the article is behind a paywall. In his words:

Such an FTA would leave us still able to enjoy relatively frictionless trade with our formerEUpartners, so long as we essentially copy theEUs level playing field rules; but doing so voluntarily as a sovereign nation.Boris Johnsoncould burble more or less truthfully that we are no longer bound by Brusselss rules because we could always walk away (or diverge or regress) and take the consequences. Destiny, that sheepdog of our doings, knows already that since we realise which side our bread is buttered on, we shall not in fact diverge. But, hey, we could.

As he says, this is the puncturing of the Brexit dream of a clean break, that will be covered up by PM Johnsons burbling about a victory.He sets out the four ideas that he understands to be at the core of the case for Brexit:

The first was thatEUred tape was strangling the British economy (indeed, according to some, the British way of life). Straight bananas, threats to the British sausage, lawnmower-noise directives, that sort of stuff.

The second idea was that Europe would be so desperate to keep British trade that wed easily secure a frictionless trade agreement with theEU. We could deploy Project Fear against them. They would buckle.

The third was that we could keepEUimmigrants out.

The fourth was that there existed a world out there beyond theEU, waiting to do more business with us once wed untangled ourselves from European regulation and struck new, bilateral trade deals with other countries.

Parris thinks that some success has happened as regards the first point, but otherwise the failure of the UK to gain lots of trade deals with other nations has punctured the bid for freedom. He says:

But its the failure of the new global deals idea that has brought the whole project down. The deals are simply not there. America was the great hope, the linchpin of this hoped-for opening-up. You can forget Australia and New Zealand: antipodean trade was falling as a share of the total even before we entered theEU; their share now is tiny. The United States, though, is different: our second-biggest trading partner (15 per cent) after theEU(49 per cent). It has emerged this week that hopes of reaching any trade deal this year have all but vanished. The sticking points (food standards being notorious) are well known, and have not unstuck.

His view is that the Department of Trade has failed and that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) lobby has managed to stall a quick deal with the USA, deploying its famous chlorine-washed chicken successfully as I discussed in my last post. This analysismight explain Frosts 60 per cent prediction, and is depressing. It is worth stressing that the farming issue remains contested and unclear. Whats more, it could be solved easily with big subsidies but as theFTtells us:The National Audit Office warned last year that Defra has not allowed enough time to fully develop the payments system.The dead hand of remainer Whitehall is impossible to escape.

Defence remains the one oven-ready deal, a pure gift to the EU, again disguised from the public and democratic accountability as I discussedhere.

On the SNPs war against Brexit, theTelegraphs Roger Bootlepoints out that the economic case for Scottish independence shrivels away after Brexit because it would be so disadvantageous.What is the point of trying to rejoin theEU for that is what would be entailed if that meant leaving the UKs single market, which is much more significant for Scotland than the bloc? he asks.

Finally, some good news. The UK has dodged an immense EU bullet of at least50billion that we would have had to pay to theEuropean Central BankCovid recovery fund. And poor Ireland is now on the hook to be a net contributor to the EU budget. The bloc is on its way to being a single dysfunctional state, ruled from Berlin. Leaving was surely a great decision, and remainers look more and more like fundamentalist swivel-eyed lunatics, as Matthew Parris and David Cameron used to call them.

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TCW's Brexit Watch: Are we heading for a fake freedom? - The Conservative Woman

The late Rep. John LewisJohn LewisHouse approves amendments to rein in federal forces in cities Sanders calls for the end of the filibuster following Obama's remarks The Hill's Campaign Report: Trump faces pushback after suggesting election could be delayed MORE (D-Ga.) said in a posthumous op-ed that he had been inspired shortly before his death by nationwide demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd in May.

In a piece publishedin The New York Times on the day of his funeral, the civil rights titan recounted his own fears after the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 and his own path to the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.

Lewis called on the next generation to carry on the mantle of civil rights and continue getting into good trouble, necessary trouble.

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society, Lewis wrote.

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way, he added. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

Lewis wrote that he had to visit the site of demonstrations in Washington, D.C., in the newly established Black Lives Matter Plaza outside the White House in June to see the latest manifestation of the civil rights movement. Lewis was hospitalized the next day.

I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on, he wrote.

Lewis, who after a prominent role in the civil rights movement represented an Atlanta-area district in the House for more than 30 years, died on July 17 at the age of 80. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December.

Lewis was given the rare honor of lying in state at the U.S. Capitol two days earlier this week, and a funeral will be held for him Thursday at Atlantas Ebenezer Baptist Church, the site of Kings funeral in 1968. Former President Obama will be one of the attendees to deliver a eulogy.

Read more here:

John Lewis: 'Now it is your turn to let freedom ring' | TheHill - The Hill

From his experience with the far-right, Caolan Robertson argues their reaction to that assault on commentator Owen Jones proves they are happy to silence opponents when it suits them

When Owen Jones was violently attacked outside a London pub last year by three football hooligans, one of whom karate kicked him in the back without warning, the response was disturbingly mixed. While many on the political left and the centre were justly horrified, there was a particularly disturbing and predictable response from much of the right.

On Telegram, the Russian app to which many far-right e-celebs have been exiled, comments and posts claiming Jones had it coming or outright denying the attack happened were rife. Even now on Twitter, responses to a BBC tweet linking an article about the attackers sentencing include users calling him a puff, claiming that he brought it upon himself and that he should have been hit harder.

James Healy, the man who led the attack was found to have been a member of a football hooligan firm and to have kept neo-nazi group Combat 18 memorabilia at home. While this attack was clearly politically motivated, its also worth noting that one of Combat 18s key tenets is Kill all Queers. Perhaps most concerning though, is not the actual violence from avowed neo-nazis, but rather the committed support for it from the much less radical sections of the right.

The right simply does not care about freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, or freedom of association or assembly or any other freedom that forms the basis of the Western democracy they profess to love so deeply.

On Telegram, the idols of the far-right such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Tommy Robinson and Gavin McInnes are vociferous in their insistence that free speech must be protected at all costs. But there is no clearer example of an attack on free speech than the brutal and frenzied attack on Jones simply for his advocating left-wing ideals.

So why are so many on the right, even the centre-right dismissing or even lauding what is essentially a shocking, appalling, affront to the very idea of free speech? Not since the murder of Jo Cox, a sitting MP, has such a blatant and frankly shameless act of political violence been met with such disregard from those who profess to nail their colours to the mast of Western Values.

News of Healy and his accomplices sentencing (two years and a suspended sentence of eight months respectively) comes at a time when the culture wars topic du jour is cancel culture. The timing could not be more pertinent. At this point, we must stop and ask ourselves which is the greater affront to freedom of speech and Western democratic ideals?

Certainly, the use of physical violence, of any kind, against a political opponent is a far greater threat to the ability of any person to speak freely than the possibility of losing a job, a book deal or some other professional commodity. We can debate whether cancel culture exists or not but all of its supposed impacts pale in comparison to actual violence. Yet the most outspoken advocates of free speech are not up in arms over this attack but at worst celebrated it and at best dismissed it completely.

Thus their hypocrisy is laid bare for all but themselves to see. This is because they patently do not care about freedom of speech or Western democracy. Milo Yiannopoulos, the right-wing provocateur who artificially inflated his book sales, posted on the right-wing app Parler as recently as this week, declaring he doesnt want to see less cancel culture but more of it, as long as it is those he disagrees with being cancelled.

Once upon a time, when I was much younger and vastly more stupid than I am now, I worked with Milo and this was very much his stance on politics. I also worked with Tommy Robinson and many other content creators on the online right and can assure you that this attitude is not limited to Yiannopoulos. As the outtake from 2018 below reveals, Robinsons latching onto the notion of free speech was very much opportunistic and insincere.

In @CaolanRob's upcoming piece on why the Far Right are a far greater threat than Cancel Culture to free speech, a previously unseen outtake from Yaxley Lennon in 2018, where he describes how he'll use the 'free speech' theme for his own ends. pic.twitter.com/iqic2k6KZ6

The trouble is that in recent years the line that separated the far right from the mainstream conservative movement is eroding fast.

Last year Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed Chloe Westley as head of social media for Downing Street. Westley openly referred to the co-leader of Tommy Robinsons Pegida UK (a branch of a German alt-right ethnonationalist group) as a hero. Anne Marie Waters, the far-right activist in question, was caught on camera by ITV claiming the EU wanted to turn Europe into an Islamic State.

I even met with the CEO of Westminster Digital, a production company responsible for much of the Conservative Partys campaign content to discuss working on their content while I was working with Tommy Robinson and other hard-right ideologues.

One of the reasons I began working with these people was because I believed that freedom of speech was under attack, I heard the figures about Sadiq Khans online hate crime hub and the increasing number of arrests made over Twitter posts in 2016 and 2017. Like many, I had a knee jerk reaction to it, and this was part of the reason I drifted into hardcore right-wing politics.

One of the reasons I began to question my involvement was a violent attack on Muslim Youtuber Ali Dawah at the Day for Freedom rally in 2018. We had planned for the event to be the largest pro-free speech rally in recent memory and the lineup was a whos who of the online right at the time. The day before the event, Ali Dawah had been making a lot of noise on Twitter claiming that if the rally was really about free speech we would let him speak too.

What a coup it would be, we thought, if Ali Dawah, who had a history of online spats with Robinson would crop up on stage and speak. We thought we could prove the naysayers wrong, prove that it was ultimately all about the freedom of speech, about democracy and Western values of freedom.

It was agreed that he would be put on stage and the update was announced via Robinsons assistant on Twitter. The backlash was instant and Robinson publicly revoked the invite and denied any participation in making the decision, wasting no time in throwing his assistant under the bus.

Privately, however, Dawah was still slated to speak until the last minute when he had already arrived. A handful of supporters broke loose and violently confronted Dawah and his cameraman, assaulting him mid livestream in an attack that terrified me even then. My relationship with Robinson began to break down when that afternoon he reprimanded me, his assistant and my partner George Llewelyn-John for sharing tweets condemning the attack and appealing for witnesses to identify the men responsible.

At the Day for Freedom, Ali Dawah wasnt just literally cancelled but he was made the victim of all too common far-right violence, violence that is implicitly supported by people like Robinson and Yiannopolous.

But Ali Dawah and Owen Jones are far from the only victims, a labour activist in her 70s was attacked by right wing thugs and suffered cracked ribs as recently as November last year. In March that same year the DFLA, a loose union of football hooligan firms stormed into the Guardian offices demanding a letter they wrote be published and threatened to return in greater numbers if their demands werent met. There are countless examples of threats and actual violence from the far-right and yet none of the doxxing, assaults, threats or harassment are on the table for discussion when the right want to talk about cancel culture and its danger to freedom of speech.

It is time we all woke up. The right simply does not care about freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, or freedom of association or assembly or any other freedom that forms the basis of the Western democracy they profess to love so deeply. Nor do they care about democracy itself. They care only about winning, about spewing hate or perpetrating acts of violence with impunity.

If we are to stand any chance of slowing or reversing the tide of right-wing populism, if we are to protect freedom of speech and the right to dissenting opinions, we must stop meeting them where they are. We must stop taking their arguments at face value; false, disingenuous arguments meant only to subvert our democracy, to divert our attention while they conjure up something much worse.

We have to stop falling for it every time, arguing with them over a cancel culture that they dont even believe exists. It is all just a vehicle for them to achieve their reactionary goals, and while we are getting down in the mud with them from behind our computer screens, they are on the streets putting journalists in hospital and convincing a large proportion of the population that it didnt even happen.

I used to laugh about the idea of fascism in the UK. I used to joke about it because I thought it wasnt even a remote possibility.

How wrong how naive I was.

See original here:

The Hard Right is a Far Greater Threat to Freedom of Speech than 'Cancel Culture' - Byline Times

Kathy Errington introduces a conversation with Anjum Rahman on online harm, an extract from the upcoming BWB text Shouting Zeroes and Ones, edited by Andrew Chen.

Articulating what matters when we look to reduce online harm is becoming ever more important in a context where states are increasingly turning to regulation to address harms caused by social media platforms which grew too big, too fast while accepting too little responsibility.

Unfortunately, many of us have concluded that we cant trust social media companies to properly regulate themselves. They are, after all, largely reliant on a huge volume of user-generated content, and are often unwilling to make the necessary investment into human moderators to effectively review what or whom they give a platform to. Algorithms designed to ensure users stay on the platform can create dark echo chambers in which harmful content is continually reinforced, but social media companies have become reliant on this business model and are resistant to change.

Kathy Errington: You have said that in regard to freedom of expression, freedom for some takes away freedom from others. Can you expand on that?

Anjum Rahman: What we know about hate speech is when people are really aggressive with hate, particularly when language is threatening and abusive, it silences other people. Often with hate language, not only is it belittling the targeted group, it is spreading misinformation and ascribing false motives. The aim is to enhance the negativity of one group over another, thereby undermining the authority and validity of the speaker by associating them with a group or community delineated as evil.

The second dynamic is the sheer numbers. Those who are involved in hate will often attack groups that they perceive to have little ability to respond. In other words, the targets have little positional power within society, and they may already be viewed negatively by a significant number of people. So, the hater is in a position of feeling secure in being able to target that group safe in the knowledge that they have numbers on their side to overwhelm existing systems which attempt to provide balance.

For example, back in the day when letters to the editor were more of a thing than social media, I could write one letter trying to defend a position, and then have to deal with 20 to 30 letters in response. And the way it worked was that I only got 200 words, I only got to publish a letter once every 10 days or so, and therefore my ability to respond back, just with the sheer numbers, was so limited.

In the online world, an additional factor is the high number of bots and paid trolls, with a lot of resourcing going into campaigns targeting particular communities. As a person being targeted, when people are threatening you with rape, or death, or harm, when they are being really abusive in their language, and when they are spreading a lot of misinformation or one-sided information, when there are literally hundreds of accounts going at you, it restricts your freedom.

The response is to just shut down your social media accounts, to get offline, which means youve lost your freedom to speak. Weve seen it with celebrities, weve seen it with all sorts of people. The result is that the dominant groups freedoms are protected and advanced, while the marginalised groups lose their freedom. Theyre silent because they dont have the capacity to withstand the harassment and abuse, and they dont have the ability to respond to all those accounts. Countering the hate is not viable, so the response is to hunker down and to be silent, which is what the haters were wanting in the first place; they want to silence the voices of people they dont like.

That is a long answer to how freedom for some takes away the freedom of others. If you dont balance different types of freedoms from discrimination, from harm then youre actually only promoting the freedoms of dominant groups. Youre not promoting freedom for all people.

KE: How do we get regulation right? We seem caught in a conversation where any efforts to improve life online become immediately attacked for government overreach. And governments, even democratic ones, can respond in heavy-handed ways.

AR: I am not opposed to regulation, but we do need to be really careful. What we are hearing from an organisation in the United States is that, in their experience, regulation sought by marginalised groups can be used against them by a subsequent administration. Putting in regulation without also dealing with power and the way society is structured will not achieve anything. I think that we have to be really careful around legislation and we have to design the systems that administer those regulations knowing that, at some point, a hostile government will be enforcing them. What will protect marginalised groups in that situation? That has to be really seriously tested and factored into the way we regulate.

Another problem raised by civil society organisations overseas is that a lot of videos depicting violence which were taken down by YouTube were evidence of crimes by regimes, or evidence that could be used in court cases. So simply removing content has consequences that will be harmful to those that are suffering abuse. We need to think about how that content is archived. Who can have access to it? How can it be protected so that it can be accessed when its needed? All of this has to be factored into regulation, which is again to say, I do believe that we should have regulation. I think there are things we can do, but when it comes to implementation and enforcement, you really have to be careful.

Shouting Zeroes and Ones will be available at Unity Books from August 10.

David Hall, Curtis Barnes, Anjum Rahman, Kathy Errington, and Donna Cormack discuss the spread of disinformation, reducing online harm, and Mori data sovereignty as part of Techweek on Wednesday, July 29. Streaming details here.

The Bulletin is The Spinoffs acclaimed daily digest of New Zealands most important stories, delivered directly to your inbox each morning.

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On the internet, freedom for some never means freedom for all - The Spinoff

A recent headline in this very paper stated that camping gains popularity in uncertain times. This makes perfect sense. When so many have been effectively grounded at home for months, the lure of the great outdoors is obviously strong.

On the surface, camping makes no sense. If the great outdoors had a motto it might be you probably wont die. Still, a growing number of people say, lets take clothing, bedding and food that is readily available in our homes and take it on the road.

Somehow, once we are there, however, it all just fits.

Where else can you socially distance away from home while still somewhat bringing your home with you?

Dont let me front like Im outdoorsy. I am a recreational vehicle camper. I like my camping to occur in a trailer with hot and cold running water, air conditioning, refrigeration and electric service. I am also picky about my mattress.

Roughing it is really not in my lexicon. I like to roll up with all the amenities, shake out an outdoor rug and set up reclining lawn chairs. From here, we like to boat, eat and repeat for the entire duration of our stay. That is the life.

Dont let the tent folks fool you, however. We have friends who are lifelong tent campers. I would really call it glamping. Their tent is both larger and nicer than our first house. Seriously, there are wings, closets, entire rooms I dont think I have ever seen. They have actual beds and cots and the whole thing is just amazing. Its like a playhouse for adults.

Last campout, they installed a ceiling fan no lie.

We had fallen off the camping wagon, so to speak, the last few years. We morphed from multiple trips with groups of friends many times per year, to going exactly once last summer for work.

Due to our not having a lick of sense, we hauled a 34-foot camper straight up the side of a mountain in a severe thunderstorm. The hairpin curves were also a nice touch. It was one of the few times Ive seen Mr. Wonderful sweat.

It was so bad I had sent our two small dogs ahead with BoyWonder in the other truck. I was being very dramatic. If we dont make it, take good care of Jack (Jackson Jack Seabolt is the dog)! My son was not impressed that neither he or his sister made my speech. Hey, they are bright kids. I know they will be fine. Jack is adorable, but his job skills are negligible.

This weekend trip was far less eventful. We ate a lot of food cooked with fire. It was very caveman-ey. We laughed an awful lot.

We asked the dogs to shush about one hundred times. They ignored us over one hundred times as well. We boated, swam, wake-boarded and tubed until we were weak with exertion and too much sun, but, oh, the Vitamin D! Let me assure you the place was packed!

With no concerts, endless travel restrictions, no major sports, most amusements, fairs, festivals and really any semblance of official fun on time out, being outdoors is one of the only options open these days. From the campground to the lake people were out in droves, making the best of things and maybe making some good memories of summer 2020 too.

Up-to-date agriculture news in your inbox!

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Freedom of the great outdoors - Farm and Dairy

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Warning: This story contains offensive language.

A half-century after he condemned the Freedom Riders, former Alabama Gov. John Patterson said he admired them.

It meant so much to the state of Alabama that they came here and did what they did, under grave, adverse circumstances, he said in the courtroom in the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse Complex on May 20, 2011. It took a lot of nerve and guts to do what they did, and they deserve a lot of credit for it.

On Pattersons left stood U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who had sat down with other veterans of the Freedom Rides for a lunch with the former governor.The congressman said the meeting says something about the distance that we have come and the progress we have made in the nation.

Ceremonies honoring Lewis, who died on July 17 at age 80, have stressed his courage and the transformative power of the civil rights movement. Stories of repentant white segregationists like Patterson have become a major part of southern political lore. Former Alabama Gov. George Wallace sought forgiveness from Lewis and other Black leaders in the last decades of his life. Patterson disowned some of his prior stands defending segregation.

And on the surface, at least, the 2011 meeting between Lewis, Patterson, and the Freedom Ridersappeared to be a landmark in the white Souths long reckoning with the sins of its past.

But interviews with attendees and footage from the closed-door meeting recently made available to the Advertiser by the Alabama Historical Commission present a far more complicated picture, one that shows how much distance remains between the movement's goals and present realities.

Patterson and the Freedom Riders spoke to each other with respect. The governor expressed his admiration for the group and some regrets for previous actions. The Freedom Riders got to ask Patterson about his decisions before and after the Freedom Rides.

But Patterson often deflected or talked around those questions. Calls for action were met with awkward or uncertain responses.

Arrested Freedom Riders in the back of a police van after their arrival at the Greyhound station in Birmingham, Alabama in May, 1961.(Photo: Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Robert Adams or Norman Dean, Birmingham News.)

The 2011 meeting between John Lewis, Patterson and the Freedom Riders suggests the major challenges the nation faces in uprooting the poisonous tendrils of white supremacy. It alsoshows the difficulties in reaching and even in definingreconciliation, especially when the human toll of past oppression goes unacknowledged.

I didnt want to go to the meeting, said Kwame Lillard, a Freedom Rider who was present. I refused to take a picture with him. I wanted him to do more than have a make-believe apology. A make-believe reconciliation.

Upended car damaged and smoking after a riot protesting the Freedom Riders' arrival in Montgomery, Alabama on May 21, 1961.(Photo: Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Norman Dean, Birmingham News.)

Pattersons time as governor gets obscured by the long shadow of Wallace, who knew better than his contemporaries how to evoke feelings of siege and self-pity in his white supporters. But as attorney general and governor, Patterson was as much an opponent of the civil rights movement as Wallace, and arguably a more effective one. (Reached by phone recently, Patterson who will turn 99 in September said he could not remember the 2011 meeting with Lewis and the Freedom Riders.)

In 1956, during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, then-Attorney General Patterson secured an injunction against the NAACP, barring them from organizing or operating in Alabama. The action led to a years-long court fight that twice went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The NAACP prevailed, but the battle made the groups Alabama chapter, once one of the largest in the South, moribund in the state during a key period of the civil rights movement. He began his 1958 gubernatorial campaign declaringthere will be no mixing of the races while I am in office," a campaign where a letter that went out over signature called Robert Shelton, a leader of a Ku Klux Klan chapter in Alabama, "our mutual friend."

More: As calls to remove Confederate monuments grew louder, states passed new laws to protect them

As governor, Patterson embraced a trumped-up prosecution of the Rev. Martin Luther KingJr. on tax charges. When Alabama State University students organized a sit-in to protest segregation in 1960, Patterson forced the ASU President H. Councill Trenholm to expel nine of the students and place the rest on probation.Later, Patterson ordered Trenholm to fire ASU faculty allied with King.(ASU was under the direct authority of the Alabama State Board of Education at the time; it did not have an independent Board of Trustees until 1975.)

This was the man who led the state as the Freedom Riders entered Alabama in the spring of 1961. The activistswanted topressure the federal government to enforce court decisions outlawing segregation in interstate travel. Most Southern governments refused to abide by them.

Freedom riders Jim Zwerg and Paul Brock entering the white waiting room for intrastate passengers at the Greyhound bus station in Birmingham, Alabama.(Photo: Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Tom Self or Ed Jones, Birmingham News)

We integrated Greyhound and Trailways in Nashville, said Earnest Rip Patton, a Freedom Rider, in a recent interview. Once you get to Birmingham, theyre talking about segregation.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson was a 14-year-old living in Tuskegee during these events. He knew the humiliations of segregation first hand. Like many Black families, Thompsons family relied on the Green Book to ensure they could find adequate accommodations when they traveled.

So if you went from (Montgomery) to say Tennessee and you stopped in Birmingham, you stopped at the home of a friend, he said. If we didnt have a friend, we called a friend who knew someone else you could stay with. Segregated transportation was for real.

Once, when a gas station refused to allow Thompson and his brother to use the restroom, his mother told the attendants to pull the gas hose out of the tank.

More: John Lewis' leadership driven by 'sincerity without arrogance,' college roommate says

I remember sitting on buses and sitting on the back of a bus and being humiliated, he said. It was horrible. It was devastating. It was demeaning. It was a horrible way to grow up.

In later years, Thompson avoided occasions where he could have shaken George Wallaces hand. Thats how strong I felt, he said.

'Stand Up For America': George Wallace's chaotic, prophetic presidential campaign

The Freedom Riders encountered violence in South Carolina, but the attacks picked up force once they crossed the Alabama state line. In Anniston, a white mob attacked and burned one of their buses. Members of the mob tried to hold the doors closed as the fires broke out.

Later, Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor allowed Klansmen to beat the Freedom Riders (along with reporters and some bystanders) for 15 minutes before police interfered. Later, a mob set upon a Freedom Rider bus that arrived in Montgomery. A white member of the mob beat Lewis into unconsciousness with a wooden crate.

The bus for Freedom Riders is burning after been fire bombed in Anniston, Ala., May 14, 1961. The bus had stopped because of a flat tire. The passengers escaped without serious injury.(Photo: AP Photo)

As governor, Patterson did not encourage the violence, but his conduct was hardly heroic. According to civil rights historian Taylor Branch, Patterson refused to guarantee the safety of Freedom Riders coming through Alabama. He snubbed the White House when it tried to contact him to discuss ways to endthe violence. When he met with John Seigenthaler, a former newspaper editor and aide to U.S. Attorney General RobertKennedy, Patterson bragged about the public support he was getting and said (according to Branch) Theres nobody in the whole country thats got the spine to stand up to the goddamned niggers except me.

The governor only deployed the National Guard after a negotiation with Patterson and Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett. In return, federal officials allowed local police to arrest Freedom Riders when they violated segregation laws.

In 1961, Mississippi arrested wave after wave of Freedom Riders that dared to enter an "all-white" area of the bus station, including future Congressman John Lewis. They were arrested, convicted and sent to Mississippi's most notorious prison, the State Penitentiary at Parchman. Lewis was finally freed on July 7, 1961.(Photo: Mississippi Department of Archives and History)

Even with the protection, the dangers to the Freedom Riders were present. Patton, who rode the bus from Montgomery to Jackson, Miss., remembered a planned stop in Selma getting canceled amid rumors that Klansmen in the city planned to attack them.

It was very somber, he said. This was a time to rest, a time to pray. The National Guards of both Alabama and Mississippi had fixed bayonets on their rifles, like we were going to do something.

Once the Freedom Riders challenged the segregation laws in Mississippi, police arrested them and sent them to the states notorious Parchman Prison. The activists, Patton remembered, sang as prison guards removed their mattresses and put laxatives in their food.

Even when we got stool softener in the food, we sang Aint going to let stool softener turn us around, turn us around, he said.

National Guard members protecting the bus for the Freedom Riders leaving Montgomery, Alabama, for Jackson, Mississippi.(Photo: Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Norman Dean, Birmingham News)

By the 1980s, Patterson by then a state appellate court judge publicly renounced his earlier defenses of segregation. He said in 1988 that officials should remove the Confederate flag from the Alabama Capitol, and spoke out to preserve the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery where the white mob attacked the Freedom Riders in 1961.In a 2007 documentary, "John Patterson: In the Wake of the Assassins,"Patterson said he wished he had the white mob that burned the bus in Anniston arrested.

But if he distanced himself from those stands, Patterson alsoseemed to distance himself from his own actions. In the documentary and a 2007interview that yearwith the Montgomery Advertiser, Patterson said that he had been deceived by Birmingham and Montgomery police about their willingness to protect the Freedom Riders. But the former governor did not confront his own rhetoric at the time, or couchedit in terms of political expediency.

Rip Patton talks about his time as a Freedom Rider during the civil rights movement in Nashville.(Photo: Larry McCormack / tennessean)

"It became evident very quickly that the people were more interested in discussing segregation in the public schools, more than any other issue," Patterson said while discussing the 1958 governor's racein the 2007 documentary. "If you were perceived to be weak on that question, you were finished."

The idea to bring the Freedom Riders together with Patterson came from Thompson and his fellow U.S. District Judge Harold Albritton. Albritton had known Patterson for a long time, and Thompson appreciated Pattersons call to preserve the station.

Myron Thompson during the Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed's Inauguration at the Montgomery Performing Arts Center in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday November 12, 2019.(Photo: Mickey Welsh / Advertiser)

From our end, Gov. Patterson was very much interested in doing itand wanted to do it in some form, Albritton said in a recent interview. Judge Thompson was working on the John Lewis end. We heard he was interested as well.

Former Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, a friend of Pattersons, said by that point the former governor, who was nearly 90, had cut back his public appearances.

I encouraged him to do it, she said. He agreed if I would go with him and stay with him.

Lewis also expressed interest in the meeting.

More: A nation John Lewis helped unite salutes him on his final journey across Selma bridge

He was a man who strongly believed in reconciliation and peace, and looking forward, Thompson said. That didnt mean forgetting the past. I think he saw this as an opportunity, in his words, to break bread.

John Lewis, celebrated civil right icon, is celebrated in Montgomery at the Alabama State Capitol Montgomery Advertiser

The meeting between Lewis, Patterson, and the Freedom Riders took place in a law library once used by U.S. Circuit Judge Frank Johnson, author of several key civil rights decisions. Some of the Freedom Riders approached the meeting with caution.

I went into that meeting first of all not even knowing what was going to happen, Patton said. I was just there for the numbers.

Footage of the meeting shows Lewis and Patterson warmly greeting each other.

Ive been reading all about you, Patterson told Lewis. Thank you for coming here and everything youve done.

Lewis thanked Patterson for his presence, saying it sends a powerful message.

Patterson chose to sit at the side of the table, next to Lewis, and spoke with Lewis and other Freedom Riders during the meeting.

Everything was sort of tentative at first when we got back there, Albritton said. It wasnt tentative with Gov. Patterson and John Lewis. They immediately spoke and shook hands and started talking. Things kind of warmed up with people conversing around. There was no animosity shown.

But memories remained. Lillard, who felt drawn into a photo op for the former governor, refused to sit at the table with Patterson.

Maybe John is more of a Christian to forgive him, Lillard said. Im not. I cant do it. Too much blood, too much terror.

Kwame Lillard speaks at a previous African-American Cultural Alliance Kwanzaa celebrate. AACA will mark its 37th annual Nashville Kwanzaa celebration with an interactive family event with music, stories and food from 6-9 p.m. Dec. 27.(Photo: Submitted)

Lillard reminded the former governor of his past. He demanded that Patterson take public steps to show that he had changed. He suggested raising money for scholarships in the names of the 9 ASU students that Patterson had helped to expel. Lillard also demanded that Patterson set up an annual contribution to the NAACP the group he tried to destroy as attorney general in the name of Floyd Mann, the Alabama Public Safety Director who intervened to protect the Freedom Riders in Montgomery as the white mob attacked them.

What I want you do is convince me that theres follow-up to reconciliation, Lillard said to Patterson. That it be tangible and concrete.

Patterson responded that his political connections have waned considerably.

Theres not a great deal of influence I have in the state government or legislature, he said. But I understand what youre talking about. Let me give some thought to that and Ill see what I can come up with.

Lillard asked the most pointed questions in the meeting, with most other Freedom Riders present letting him speak. Patton said that reflected training they received, ensuring everyone played their assigned role.

We were trained to listen, and not butt in, Patton said. If we had a spokesperson, let that spokesperson speak. I was satisfied with just being there, as part of the number.

Lillard said he felt his job was to hold Pattersons feet to the fire.

I just adopted a position: Im the engineer, Im the scientist and Im going to take this apart and look at it, he said. We all have our skills, our fortes, and that was my forte.

Other Freedom Riders engaged Patterson. Hank Thomas, a Freedom Rider who was on the bus that the white mob set on fire in Anniston, asked Patterson if he would make a public statement denouncing the violence of the spring of 1961.

In other cases, other states, even though some of the governors were not governors at that particular time, they would make an official statement, a written statement, acknowledging that what happened 50 years ago was a travesty in terms of Alabama citizens, Thomas said. (A message seeking comment was sent to Thomas through the Morehouse School of Medicine, where he serves as a trustee.)

Alabama Gov. John Patterson at a meeting with two men during the Freedom Riders' stay in Montgomery, Alabama in May 1961.(Photo: Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Norman Dean, Birmingham News.)

Patterson said he would be perfectly glad to do anything I possibly can if I get an opportunity to write something or express myself to somebody.

But you must realize I am out of Alabama politics, he said. Nobody in Montgomery calls me up and asks me for my advice.

At one point, Patterson did express regret for what happened, saying whatever I did to prolong that thing, Im very sorry about it. But footage of the meeting does not show Patterson explicitly engaging with his rhetoric during the Freedom Rides, or his actions toward the NAACP or ASU. At other times, Patterson seemed to distance himself from the events of May 1961, treating himself as a spectator and not a major player.

I admire what the Freedom Riders did, he said. I think it took a tremendous amount of courage to do it. It got everything moving. Everything was sitting still.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and former Alabama Gov. John Patterson following a lunch at the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse Complex on May 20, 2011. In the back row (left to right): Freedom Riders Bernard Lafayette; Bill Harbour; Matthew Walker; Hank Thomas; Jim Zwerg; Earnest "Rip" Patton, and Margaret Leonard. Freedom Rider Catherine Burks Brooks is seated to Patterson's left.(Photo: Alabama Historical Commission)

Patton and Lillard said they both noticed this distancing.

I think thats why Kwame pressed him a little bit, Patton said.

In the available footage, Lewis says relatively little, but near the end he praised Patterson, and called the meeting historic.

The governor has been so wonderful to take the time out to meet us, to have lunch with us, he said. I think he may be the only governor I know of, former governor, governor, to sit down and meet with us as a group with the Freedom Riders.

Cobb, who attended the meeting at Pattersons request, said Lewis comment was appreciated.

He was grateful that Gov. Patterson was there, she said. He expressed all the things that John Lewis would say. It was a loving, caring comment.

Beyond that, though, its not certain if it led to any major changes. Patterson did not appear to movefrom his earlier stated regrets, or confront the rhetoric he used in 1961.

I think that a verbal apology would have been nice, Patton said. But then, to back it up. Back up what youre saying. I apologize for such and such and such and such. And I am going to do what I can to make this better in Montgomery. To make that better in Montgomery, to make that better in state of Alabama.

Lillard felt the governor had been evasive when he asked about his past. In a recent interview, Lillard pointed to South Africa, which developed a new constitution and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid ended in that country.

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I dont think progress is how many Confederate monuments you take down, he said. I dont think its how many times you sing We Shall Overcome. There needs to be a fundamental analysis of what the South was, what the nation was.

Thompson said he doesnt believe there could be closure over such issues. But he noted that Lewis could sit down with past enemies without losing sight of present struggles.

He was willing to do all this, but the issues for him remained pressing and looming, he said. If closure means everything is over and its OK, no. If closure means this is help and a healing process so we can move forward and make sure that peoples rights are respected and vindicated, yes. But thats a lifelong process.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brian Lyman at 334-240-0185 or blyman@gannett.com. Updated at 11:43 a.m. with comments from Patterson's 1958 campaign.

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The distance ahead: John Lewis, Gov. John Patterson and the challenges of reconciliation - Montgomery Advertiser