Donald Trump fires Mark Esper as Pentagon chief after election defeat
President Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday, an unprecedented move by a president struggling to accept election defeat and angry at a Pentagon leader he believes wasn’t loyal enough. The decision was widely expected as Trump had grown increasingly unhappy with Esper over the summer, including sharp differences between them over the use of the military during the civil unrest in June. But the move could unsettle international allies and Pentagon leadership and injects another element of uncertainty to a rocky transition period as Joe Biden prepares to assume the presidency. Presidents who win reelection often replace Cabinet members, but losing presidents have kept their Pentagon chiefs in place until Inauguration Day to preserve stability in the name of national security. Trump announced the news in a tweet, saying that “effective immediately” Christopher Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will serve as acting secretary, sidestepping the department’s No.2-ranking official, Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist. “Chris will do a GREAT job!” Trump tweeted. “Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service.” In a letter to Trump, Esper referred to his efforts to keep the Pentagon apolitical — a resistance that often angered Trump. Esper said he served as defense secretary and Army secretary “in full faith to my sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution, and to safeguard the country and its interests while keeping the Department out of politics and abiding by the values Americans hold dear.” The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter. Esper didn’t thank Trump, but he also didn’t openly criticize the president or his policies. He said he accepts Trump’s decision to replace him, adding, “I step aside knowing there is much we achieved at the Defense Department over the last eighteen months to protect the nation and improve the readiness, capabilities, and professionalism of the joint force, while fundamentally transforming and preparing the military for the future.” U.S. defense officials said Miller arrived at the Pentagon in the early afternoon to take over the job, and that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows informed Esper of the firing before Trump announced the move on Twitter. Esper and Miller were in the building at the same time for a while, but Esper left by the end of the day, said defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Trump’s abrupt move to dump Esper triggers questions about what the president may try to do before he leaves office, including adjustments in troop presence overseas or other national security changes. More broadly, the U.S. military continued to operate as usual. U.S. officials said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Miller on Monday and also gathered the top military commanders and chiefs for a secure meeting. Officials said Miller’s message so far is that he won’t make immediate changes, and the department will stay the course. Military leaders, meanwhile, were calling top officials in their various geographic regions to assure them that the U.S. military is maintaining a stable presence around the world. In a separate message to the force, Esper expressed a twinge of disappointment, saying “I step aside knowing that there is much more we could accomplish together to advance America’s national security.” He said much was achieved, and “through thick and thin, however, we have always put People and Country first,” he said. Trump’s decision brings to five the number of men who have held the job of defense chief under Trump — either in an acting capacity or confirmed by the Senate. The move was quickly condemned by Democratic members of Congress. “Dismissing politically appointed national security leaders during a transition is a destabilizing move that will only embolden our adversaries and put our country at greater risk,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “President Trump’s decision to fire Secretary Esper out of spite is not just childish, it’s also reckless.” Former military leaders weighed in. Jim Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral, wrote on Twitter that, “Things are already unstable internationally, and this does not help.” Republicans praised Esper but largely avoided criticizing Trump. GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, told reporters it was Trump’s decision and said, “I learned a long time ago I don’t tell the president not to do anything.” Biden has not said who he would appoint as defense chief, but is widely rumored to be considering naming the first woman to the post — Michele Flournoy. Flournoy has served multiple times in the Pentagon, starting in the 1990s and most recently as the undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012. She is well known on Capitol Hill as a moderate Democrat and is regarded among U.S. allies and partners as a steady hand who favors strong U.S. military cooperation abroad. Miller most recently served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center and before that was a deputy assistant defense secretary and top adviser to Trump on counterterrorism issues. He spent more than 30 years in the military, including as an Army Green Beret, and was deployed multiple times to both Iraq and Afghanistan. After his retirement from the military, Miller worked as a defense contractor. Esper’s strained relationship with Trump came close to collapse last summer during civil unrest that triggered a debate within the administration over the proper role of the military in combating domestic unrest. Esper’s opposition to using active duty troops to help quell protests in Washington, D.C., infuriated Trump, and led to wide speculation that the defense chief was prepared to quit if faced with such an issue again. The tensions fueled rumors that Esper would be ousted if Trump won reelection. Presidents historically have put a high priority on stability at the Pentagon during political transitions. Since the creation of the Defense Department and the position of defense secretary in 1947, the only three presidents
Joe Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.
Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, positioning himself to lead a nation gripped by a historic pandemic and a confluence of economic and social turmoil. His victory came after more than three days of uncertainty as election officials sorted through a surge of mail-in votes that delayed the processing of some ballots. Biden crossed 270 Electoral College votes with a win in Pennsylvania. Biden, 77, staked his candidacy less on any distinctive political ideology than on galvanizing a broad coalition of voters around the notion that Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy. The strategy proved effective, resulting in pivotal victories in Michigan and Wisconsin as well as Pennsylvania, onetime Democratic bastions that had flipped to Trump in 2016. Biden was on track to win the national popular vote by more than 4 million, a margin that could grow as ballots continue to be counted. Trump seized on delays in processing the vote in some states to falsely allege voter fraud and argue that his rival was trying to seize power — an extraordinary charge by a sitting president trying to sow doubt about a bedrock democratic process. As the vote count played out, Biden tried to ease tensions and project an image of presidential leadership, hitting notes of unity that were seemingly aimed at cooling the temperature of a heated, divided nation. “We have to remember the purpose of our politics isn’t total unrelenting, unending warfare,” Biden said Friday night in Delaware. “No, the purpose of our politics, the work of our nation, isn’t to fan the flames of conflict, but to solve problems, to guarantee justice, to give everybody a fair shot.” Kamala Harris also made history as the first Black woman to become vice president, an achievement that comes as the U.S. faces a reckoning on racial justice. The California senator, who is also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, will become the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in government, four years after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Trump is the first incumbent president to lose reelection since Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992. It was unclear whether Trump would publicly concede. Americans showed deep interest in the presidential race. A record 103 million voted early this year, opting to avoid waiting in long lines at polling locations during a pandemic. With counting continuing in some states, Biden had already received more than 74 million votes, more than any presidential candidate before him. More than 236,000 Americans have died during the coronavirus pandemic, nearly 10 million have been infected and millions of jobs have been lost. The final days of the campaign played out against the backdrop of a surge in confirmed cases in nearly every state, including battlegrounds such as Wisconsin that swung to Biden. The pandemic will soon be Biden’s to tame, and he campaigned pledging a big government response, akin to what Franklin D. Roosevelt oversaw with the New Deal during the Depression of the 1930s. But Senate Republicans fought back several Democratic challengers and looked to retain a fragile majority that could serve as a check on such Biden ambition. The 2020 campaign was a referendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic, which has shuttered schools across the nation, disrupted businesses and raised questions about the feasibility of family gatherings heading into the holidays. The fast spread of the coronavirus transformed political rallies from standard campaign fare to gatherings that were potential public health emergencies. It also contributed to an unprecedented shift to voting early and by mail and prompted Biden to dramatically scale back his travel and events to comply with restrictions. Trump defied calls for caution and ultimately contracted the disease himself. He was saddled throughout the year by negative assessments from the public of his handling of the pandemic. Biden also drew a sharp contrast to Trump through a summer of unrest over the police killings of Black Americans including Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and George Floyd in Minneapolis. Their deaths sparked the largest racial protest movement since the civil rights era. Biden responded by acknowledging the racism that pervades American life, while Trump emphasized his support of police and pivoted to a “law and order” message that resonated with his largely white base. The president’s most ardent backers never wavered and may remain loyal to him and his supporters in Congress after Trump has departed the White House. The third president to be impeached, though acquitted in the Senate, Trump will leave office having left an indelible imprint in a tenure defined by the shattering of White House norms and a day-to-day whirlwind of turnover, partisan divide and the ever-present threat via his Twitter account. Biden, born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and raised in Delaware, was one of the youngest candidates ever elected to the Senate. Before he took office, his wife and daughter were killed, and his two sons badly injured in a 1972 car crash. Commuting every night on a train from Washington back to Wilmington, Biden fashioned an everyman political persona to go along with powerful Senate positions, including chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees. Some aspects of his record drew critical scrutiny from fellow Democrats, including his support for the 1994 crime bill, his vote for the 2003 Iraq War and his management of the Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court hearings. Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign was done in by plagiarism allegations, and his next bid in 2008 ended quietly. But later that year, he was tapped to be Barack Obama’s running mate and he became an influential vice president, steering the administration’s outreach to both Capitol Hill and Iraq. While his reputation was burnished by his time in office and his deep friendship with Obama, Biden stood aside for Clinton and opted not to run in 2016 after his adult son Beau died of brain cancer the year before. Trump’s tenure pushed Biden to make
Bruised and haunted, US holds tight as 2020 campaigns close
Just over her mask, Patra Okelo’s eyes brimmed with tears when she recalled the instant that a truth about America dawned and her innocence burned away. One moment on Aug. 11, 2017, she thought the tiki torches blazing in the distance at the University of Virginia were “the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, lighting up the darkness.” Later, on television, she could see the fire more clearly. Hundreds of white supremacists carried those torches, sparking 24 hours of fury and death that transformed Charlottesville into an enduring battle cry of the 2020 presidential election. “My heart broke that night,” Okelo, now 29, said on Saturday, as President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden blitzed across the country to make the closing arguments of their bitter contest to lead the divided nation. Presidential elections are traditionally moments when Americans get a high-definition look in the mirror. But by the final, frenetic sprint of the 2020 race, the world had long peered into the country’s darkest corners and seen a battered and haunted image staring back. The presidency and control of the Senate are in the balance, but for many, there was something even more urgent. Survival was the immediate goal, both as human beings and as a country whose very name seems aspirational at a time of such division and angst. The list of threats is long and personal: Coronavirus has killed more than 230,000 people in the U.S., and infections are surging in almost every state. The economy and with it families are suffering from uncertainty. The legacy of slavery ripped through society yet again this year after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests and crackdowns by law enforcement. Okelo can draw a line from the August night in 2017 when she first saw the torches to the last hours of the 2020 election. She voted for Biden. On Aug. 12, 2017, in the hours after the torchlight parade, James Alex Fields Jr. plowed his car into a group of protesters on 4th Street and killed activist Heather Heyer. That intersection is now decorated with purple flowers and messages in chalk. Okelo says she has avoided the area ever since. Trump blamed “both sides” for that conflagration. Earlier this year, he boarded up the White House and used federal forces to protect it from the protests over Floyd’s death. And when asked, he has most often refused to condemn white supremacy. Okelo, who is Black, heard when Biden launched his campaign for president with the words, “Charlottesville, Va.” “My younger brother is in danger,” Okelo said she has come to realize. “So I waited in line today, and I voted as I did.” But the connection between 2017 and now also is marked by contrasts. A year ago, Americans were riveted by the House impeachment proceedings against Trump for his appeals for political help from Ukraine. The Senate acquitted him at the beginning of 2020, followed by Trump’s victory lap and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s show-topping rip of his State of the Union speech. A campaign that started with more than two dozen Democrats competing for the right to challenge Trump ended with Biden the party’s nominee, and one of his rivals, California Sen. Kamala Harris, as his running mate, the first Black or Indian woman to seek the vice presidency. It seems like a distant, more innocent time. When Harris announced her own presidential bid nearly two years ago, she did it before nearly 20,000 people attending an outdoor event in her home city of Oakland, California. Campaigning in the West in the race’s final week, Harris spoke in Las Vegas to a socially distanced crowd of people sitting on blankets spaced 6 feet apart. White circles around chairs denote appropriate social distancing. As for the sound of the 2020 race, car horns have replaced the roar of Democratic crowds. “Honk if you’re fired up! Honk if you’re ready to go!” former President Barack Obama has said in the final swing. On the Republican side, Trump remained energized by large, mostly unmasked crowds in defiance of the advice from his administration’s top public health officials. The president was making a final blur of 10 rallies across battleground states, arguing falsely that the coronavirus was on the wane and falling back on familiar anthems about Hillary Clinton, his vanquished 2016 rival, and building a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. “Tuesday is our big deal as a country!” Trump said on Sunday, as he braved flurries and a stiff wind chill in Michigan. The president is aiming to run up support in the whiter, more rural parts of the state with warnings that a Biden win could be disastrous for the economy. Down in the polls and at a cash disadvantage, Trump expressed confidence and said of Biden at one point, “I don’t think he knows he’s losing.” In contrast, Biden’s campaign rallies through Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania were strictly distanced and often drive-in affairs where mask-wearing is required. At an Atlanta-area event on Sunday, a Biden staffer stepped to the podium and enforced the rules just before Harris spoke. “Y’all need to go back to your cars,” the aide said. “We are not a Trump rally.” Also defining this campaign at its ragged end is a hovering uncertainty and anxiety. Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses to Biden, and his exhortation to supporters to “stand back and stand by” the polls to make sure the vote is legit sounded to some like a call to intimidate voters and elections officials. Images and reports, such as a get-out-the-vote rally in North Carolina on Saturday that ended with law enforcement pepper spraying the crowd, kept the country on edge. State police said participants were blocking the roadway and had no authorization to be there. In Texas, Trump supporters in cars and trucks swarmed around a Biden campaign bus at high speed on a highway. The
Biden works to push Black turnout in campaign’s final days
Joe Biden was spending the final days of the presidential campaign appealing to Black supporters to vote in-person during a pandemic that has disproportionally affected their communities, betting that a strong turnout will boost his chances in states that could decide the election. Biden was in Philadelphia on Sunday, the largest city in what is emerging as the most hotly contested battleground in the closing 48 hours of the campaign. He participated in a “souls to the polls” event that is part of a nationwide effort to organize Black churchgoers to vote. “Every single day we’re seeing race-based disparities in every aspect of this virus,” Biden said at the drive-in event, shouting to be heard over the blaring car horns. He declared that Trump’s handling of COVID-19 was “almost criminal” and that the pandemic was a “mass casualty event in the Black community.” His running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, was in Georgia, a longtime Republican stronghold that Democrats believe could flip if Black voters show up in force. The first Black woman on a major party’s presidential ticket, she encouraged a racially diverse crowd in a rapidly growing Atlanta suburb to “honor the ancestors” by voting, invoking the memory of the late civil rights legend, longtime Rep. John Lewis. She later campaigned in Goldsboro and Fayetteville, North Carolina, two cities with a large share of Black voters. But even as 93 million Americans have cast ballots and election officials prepare to count, President Donald Trump was already threatening litigation to stop the tabulation of ballots arriving after Election Day. As soon as polls closed in battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania, Trump said, “we’re going in with our lawyers.” It was unclear precisely what Trump meant. There is already an appeal pending at the Supreme Court over the counting of absentee ballots in Pennsylvania that are received in the mail in the three days after the election. The state’s top court ordered the extension and the Supreme Court refused to block it, though conservative justices expressed interest in taking up the propriety of the three added days after the election. Those ballots are being kept separate in case the litigation goes forward. The issue could assume enormous importance if the late-arriving ballots could tip the outcome. Biden is focusing on turning out Black voters in the final stretch in part to avoid a narrow outcome that could prompt Trump to seek an advantage in the courts. It’s a challenging dynamic because Democrats have spent months pushing their supporters to vote by mail. But their energy has shifted to urge Black supporters who have long preferred to vote in person or distrust voting by mail to get out on Tuesday. A Biden path toward victory must include Black majority cities, including Philadelphia and Detroit, which will be crucial in determining the outcome in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Those are states where both candidates have spent a significant amount of time in the final days of the 2020 election. “The historical but also cultural reality for our community is that Election Day represents a collective political act and it’s a continuation of our struggle for full citizenship in this country,” said Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director of BlackPAC. “Black voters are showing up in ways that they did not in 2016 and we can take heart in that.” In Detroit, officials are projecting a 50% voter turnout, which would be higher than 2016, yet lower than 2008 and 2012 when Obama’s candidacy drew record voter participation. Grassroots organizers in the Philadelphia area have spent months engaging potential voters, many of whom they expect will be casting ballots for the first time on Election Day. “Most Black voters in Philly have been skeptical of mail-in voting,” said Joe Hill, a veteran Democratic operative-turned-lobbyist from the city. “A lot of us have gotten our ballots already,” Hill said, but added, “Election Day has always been everything in Philadelphia.” Healthcare Pennsylvania, a local union chapter of the Service Employees International Union, is working to increase turnout by at least 10,000 in west Philadelphia and spent the weekend knocking on more than 600 doors. West Philadelphia has a majority Black population and has experienced firsthand the convergence of the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on Black Americans and protests in recent days against police brutality, mirroring what’s occurred nationwide. Biden has also drawn a sharp contrast to Trump through a summer of unrest over the police killings of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and George Floyd in Minneapolis. Their deaths sparked the largest protest movement since the civil rights era. Biden responded by acknowledging the systemic racism that pervades American life, while Trump emphasized his support of police and pivoted to a “law and order” message that resonated with his base but did little to broaden his appeal. Four years ago, Trump made his pitch to voters of color by bellowing “What have you got to lose?” in supporting the Republican candidate and aides have pointed to pre-pandemic economic gains by people of color. He only won 8% of the Black vote, but in a development that has haunted Democrats for four years, Clinton’s margin fell 7 percentage points from Obama’s in 2012, according to Pew Research Center. There’s little chance that Trump will win all that many more Black voters this year, though his campaign believes it has made inroads with young Black men. The president’s primary strategy has been to erode Biden’s support with a barrage of negative advertisements. One replays Biden’s eyebrow-raising “you ain’t Black” comment, in which the former vice president questioned how African Americans could support Trump. Another uses the Democrat’s own past words in support of the 1994 crime bill against him. The bill, which Biden helped write, led to stiffer prison sentences that disproportionately incarcerated Black men. Trump, in a tweet Sunday, claimed that Biden called young Black man “superpredators” — which he did not do, though he used the term “predators” in a 1993 floor speech to describe criminals. Biden, who has a
Tommy Tuberville ad attacks Doug Jones’ participation in rally that turned violent
With the election just a little over a week away, the Tommy Tuberville campaign released a commercial that highlights a recent Doug Jones rally that devolved into a riot that damaged historical monuments and buildings in the Birmingham area. The rally the ad references occurred in June, in Linn Park. The rally was after the shooting death of George Floyd. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and Doug Jones were speakers at the rally, and both men called for peace and non-violence. However, many buildings were damaged and a monument was defaced according to a BirminghamWatch article. Trussville, Alabama Sheriff Mike Hale is featured in the ad. He states, “Jones spoke at a liberal rally in Alabama that turned into a riot where a monument was destroyed and buildings were damaged. Doug Jones is undermining law enforcement, coddling dangerous criminals, and putting Alabama families at risk.” Jones responded to the ad in a Twitter post today. Jones stated, “We are facing a barrage of lies folks.@ttuberville is despararte and we are going to call them out starting now. I can always count on Lu to stand up for me and tell the truth. Everyone should hear this. Watch and please help us keep it on the air:” We are facing a barrage of lies folks. @ttuberville is despararte and we are going to call them out starting now. I can always count on Lu to stand up for me and tell the truth. Everyone should hear this. Watch and please help us keep it on the air:https://t.co/68JlD44ut1 https://t.co/34dqYikoAe — Doug Jones (@DougJones) October 26, 2020
Confederate monument removed from Alabama courthouse
A 115-year-old Confederate monument that was the subject of protests in Alabama this year was removed from outside a county courthouse early Friday. News outlets reported that a small group of onlookers cheered at the Madison County Courthouse in Huntsville as crews took away the stone memorial, which was topped by the likeness of a soldier, in pieces. Music blasted during part of the work. “I’m speechless, literally speechless. It’s an amazing time for our culture and for people of all colors. I’m excited that I’m able to watch this event happen during this time,” said Joretha Wright. Demonstrators sought its removal amid nationwide protests against racial injustice following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota in May. City and county officials went back and forth over legal authority to take it down. Madison County Commissioner JesHenry Malone, in a statement, said the county finally took action after a state commission created in 2017 to protect historic monuments failed to respond in a timely way to the commission’s request to remove the memorial. “The staff of the Madison County Commission executed the plan outlined in my June 2020 resolution for the legal removal of the Confederate Monument,” he said. Hours after its removal, the monument was reassembled at its new home in the Confederate burial section of a city-owned cemetery. First erected in 1905 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the monument went up at a time when Confederate descendants were trying to portray the South’s cause in the Civil War as noble rather than linked to slavery. It’s unclear whether the county will have to pay a $25,000 state fine imposed in 2017 to discourage the removal of Confederate memorials. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Historically black school renames hall honoring KKK leader
A historically black university in Alabama has renamed a dormitory that honored a one-time governor who also led a Ku Klux Klan chapter nearly a century ago. Workers at Alabama State University removed the name “Bibb Graves” from a residence hall on Wednesday. The building had carried Graves’ name since 1928, when he served as the head of a state government that constitutionally mandated white supremacy. At least two other state schools also have renamed campus buildings that honored Graves, who was known as a pro-education, progressive governor despite leading a KKK chapter in the capital city. Klan membership was so large at the time that politicians used connections in the racist terror group to win votes. Alabama State President Quinton T. Ross Jr. said the idea of replacing the building’s name had been discussed at least as far back as when he was a student at the school, located a few miles from the Alabama Capitol. “Many of our alumni have asked for this to happen,” he said in a statement. Alabama State trustees voted to rename the building earlier this year during the national discussion generated by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The school has yet to decide on a new name for the residence hall. Troy University has renamed its Bibb Graves Hall for the late Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who grew up near campus and died earlier this year. The University of Montevallo, near Birmingham, voted to rename buildings honoring Graves and Braxton Bragg Comer, who worked to maintain remnants of the old plantation system as governor. Graves served two four-year terms as governor beginning in 1927 and 1935. He resigned from the Klan and denounced its violence in the late 1920s, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Alabama city takes step to move Confederate monument
An Alabama city has taken a step toward removing a Confederate monument following weeks of pressure. The Florence City Council voted Tuesday to ask the state for permission to move the memorial from outside the Lauderdale County Courthouse, WHNT-TV reported. Other places have sought similar state waivers, which are required because of a law that imposes a $25,000 fine for disturbing such memorials. The city also asked county commissioners to relocate the monument as soon as possible. Dedicated in 1903 during a ceremony that included an overtly racist speech, the memorial was erected by Confederate descendants. It went up at a time many whites were advocating the “lost cause” version of history that played down slavery as a cause for the Civil War and emphasized the nobility of Confederate fighters. Demonstrators organized by a racial justice group, Project Say Something, have been protesting the monument for weeks during a national reckoning over race that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. The monument, which features a Confederate statue atop a stone pedestal, would be moved to the Florence City Cemetery. Published with the permission of the Associated Press.
Mike Pence, Kamala Harris spar over COVID-19 in vice presidential debate
Pence’s message Wednesday night was undercut by the mere fact that the candidates and moderator were separated by plexiglass shields.
Alabama lawyer depicted in ‘Just Mercy’ wins ‘alternative Nobel’
Bryan Stevenson, who founded the Equal Justice Initiative in 1989, was named a recipient of annual Right Livelihood Award.
Anniston removes Confederate monument following vote
Workers with the city of Anniston began removing the stone obelisk from the grassy median of a busy avenue late Sunday.
Alabama Archives faces its legacy as Confederate ‘attic’
Amid a national reckoning over racial injustice, the agency is confronting that legacy in the state where the civil rights movement was born.
