A Tribe Called Red is mixing Native Canadian Powwow with electronic dance music to create a unique sound. Photo by Falling Tree Photography

In 2007, Witness had been playing the Ottawa club scene for over a decade when he and his friend Ian Campeau, who spins records under the name “Deejay NDN,” decided to host “Electric Pow Wow,” a party night geared at the city’s indigenous community. They advertised around Native spaces like the local community center. That first night, they drew fans, Native and non-Native alike, from across the city.

A few years later came what Witness called the “eureka moment.” At that point, with the addition of Dan “DJ Shub” General, the group of indigenous Canadians was spinning under the name A Tribe Called Red. Experimenting with producing their own mashups, they were laying tracks using standard club fare — electronic, hip hop, reggae, dubstep — when someone dropped in a Powwow sample.

It fit perfectly.

Powwow music is typically played at intertribal gatherings to accompany dancers, so “you’re remixing dance music with dance music,” said Witness. “[Powwow] is really music that’s in the same vein, specifically made for dance parties. The two music [forms] just really clicked together because they have that same energy.”

Since then, A Tribe Called Red has produced two full-length albums of highly danceable, politically charged music that combines traditional Native singing and drumming with club music and hip-hop beats along with samples from pop culture and the news. The group toured North America in the spring of 2013, and then toured Europe after adding Tim “2oolman” Hill, who replaced DJ Shub after he left in the spring of 2014.

Their trademark “Powwow step” style defies easy categorization, but is attracting recognition. Last year they won a JUNO, Canada’s highest music award, for Breakthrough Group of the Year, the first Indigenous artists to win in a non-Indigenous category.

It’s a sign of “this amazing diffusion that’s happening,” said Anya Montiel, a Yale Ph.D. candidate who studies Native American art and culture and who has written about the group for the Smithsonian’s “American Indian” magazine.

“With A Tribe Called Red, they’re all from Canada, but they’ve really shown…how those borders are government-produced,” she said. “It’s so fantastic that they really are dissolving these borders. They are able to bring this contemporary Native experience to so many people.”

They accomplish this in part by “holding true to some of the core musical features of Powwow music,” Christopher Scales, an ethnomusicologist who specializes in Native American music and Powwow culture, said. The pulsing, unceasing dubstep beat the group uses mirrors the steady, central host drum that anchors Powwow music.

Scales also points to a particular rhythmic structure — a unique syncopation, where the melody or vocals are purposefully off-beat — that is sometimes lost when non-Native musicians sample Native music.

“People who have tried to incorporate Native singing into steady 2:4 or 4:4 rhythms, they don’t get that floating quality to the music,” Scales said. “That’s something that Powwow musicians and dancers understand, that off-the-beat singing. They understand that that’s an essential element of what makes cool Powwow songs.”

By using these same musical elements, Tribe is reclaiming the right to carry on their own heritage. In the song “General Generations,” the group samples from 80-year-old archival recordings of some Cayuga tribe rituals. In the 1930s, anthropologist Frank G. Speck worked with Cayuga chief Alexander J. General to observe and record the rituals. Those recordings were tucked away in the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University before Tribe sampled them.

“Some people might think, those recordings sit in that time,” said Montiel. “But [A Tribe Called Red] are able to pull it forward.”

Native culture “is very much a continuance,” Montiel said. “That culture is not static, there is this continuum that goes on.”

A Tribe Called Red engages in that continuum as a way of protesting forms of cultural appropriation that objectify, fetishize or mock Native tradition. This has long been an important issue to the group. Campeau fought to change the name and mascot of an Ottawa-based football team that was named after a Native racial slur. (Washington, D.C.’s football team bears the same name and mascot.)

And before he DJed full time with Tribe, Witness was an experimental video artist, crafting installations specifically “looking at misrepresentation of Indigenous people in media, recontextualizing it, taking it apart, finding ways to take the negativity away from images and focus on things that I find empowering,” he said.

Now Witness’ video work is central to the group’s live shows. He creates visual mashups of stereotypical, racially charged representations of Native people – think “Cowboy-and-Indian” scenes in Westerns, old Disney cartoons or that moment in “Back to the Future 3” when Marty McFly gets chased by a whooping tribe on horseback. The group DJs in front of huge screens displaying this work, which they say is intentionally jarring in the context of a dance party.

“We’re forcing people to be confronted with this imagery in a non-confrontational environment,” said Witness. “At some point you’re having to encounter it on a personal level. Rather than us saying, ‘This is racist and you’re racist for not knowing that,’ we’re allowing people to interact with [these images] through their own experiences.”

The performances let the audience draw their own conclusions about how Native people are represented, Montiel said. “For the non-Native audience, they’re becoming inundated by these racist and troubling images, which causes them to say, ‘I grew up with this and thought it was OK, but now that I’m seeing this, one after the other, this isn’t a proper portrayal of a people,’” he said.

Sometimes the substance of Tribe’s music is expressly political. The song “Woodcarver” splices together news footage about John T. Williams, an unarmed Native man killed by Seattle police in 2010, which sparked protests against law enforcement’s interactions with indigenous communities.

In fact, the act of creating Powwow music is “itself a political act,” Scales said. Powwow was banned in North America for much of the 20th century in a wave of “assimilation” laws that outlawed many Native religious practices and the teaching of traditional languages.

For Witness, being Native is inherently political. “I come from a position where it’s not a choice to be political, it’s the nature of who I am and the environment that I was raised in,” he said. “[I]t would be irresponsible not to address indigenous issues and politics … We don’t have the luxury to ignore that.”

The group’s “Electric Pow Wow” club night is still going strong: it frequently sells out Ottawa’s Babylon Nightclub every second Saturday of the month. A rare instance of Native youth seeing themselves represented in broader pop culture, the club night is a powerful presence in the city, Witness said.

“When you’re an Indigenous person living in a colonized country, you find yourself underrepresented or misrepresented when growing up in that environment, and it’s difficult to find heroes,” said Witness. “When you’re from a group of people generally depicted fairly negatively, it becomes really hard to find those anchor points that most people have within pop culture.”

A Tribe Called Red tours reservations to engage with Native youth and just wrapped a tour this month. And the group frequently hosts workshops before its concerts, so attendees have an opportunity to speak explicitly about how they relate to the group’s work and the ideas that come up within their performances.

Witness pointed out that young Native kids do have role models and revered elders within their own communities. But it’s different when the figures that you relate to and admire are accepted, and respected, within a larger cultural realm, he said.

“We’ve always had those people in our community, but only in our communities,” Witness said. “It’s different when every community is looking at the things that we identify with.”

In this way, A Tribe Called Red connects Native and non-Native fans alike with a rich, diverse, living, dancing culture. That was apparent even at the first Electric Powwow club night. That party “was never specifically for Indigenous people,” Witness said. “It was geared toward them but everyone was invited and everyone showed up … We made the party to be inclusive of indigenous people, and everyone who feels unincluded at some point decided to show up and be part of it.”

“That’s one of the beautiful things about this project from the start,” he said. “Everyone felt included.”

Listen to more of A Tribe Called Red’s music below.

The post This is what happens when Native Powwow meets electronic dance music appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley made his White House bid announcement today. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

He is a former Baltimore mayor and two-term Maryland governor who now works as a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. Martin O’Malley is known for his sweeping gun control push, cap-and-trade carbon emissions policy as well as his state’s flawed Obamacare roll-out and his now controversial get-tough-on-crime approach. Able to do a mean Johnny Cash impression, he was part of the inspiration behind a character on HBO’s “The Wire.” Here’s where the Democrat stands on eleven top issues.

In op-eds and speeches, O’Malley argues for increased structural reform of America’s financial system. He supports reinstating Glass-Steagall, a repealed policy dating back to the Great Depression that separated commercial and investment banks. He has also called for more strict oversight of all financial institutions and harsher penalties for those found guilty of wrongdoing.

Budget: Mix spending cuts with tax increases. Restructure pension plans.

Required by Maryland law to pass a balanced budget, as governor, O’Malley tackled a $1.7 billion deficit by cutting government funding and raising taxes (see more in “Taxes” section below). He also turned to borrowing from the bond market and restructuring the state’s pension program. It is not clear whether O’Malley believes the federal budget must be balanced.

Climate Change: It is real and a “natural threat.” Government should regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

O’Malley believes that climate change is real and called it a “natural threat” on ABC’S “This Week” in April, distinguishing it from “man-made” threats in that interview. In 2007, while governor, he signed a cap-and-trade program to curb greenhouse emissions and established a statewide Statewide Commission on Climate Change with the goal of an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. O’Malley believes hydrofracking should be allowed with strict limits. As governor, O’Malley passed subsidies for wind farms and called for greener waste reduction practices.

Guns: Increase gun control. Ban dozens of assault weapons. Limit size of gun magazines. Require fingerprints to buy a handgun.

The Democrat is a critic of the National Rifle Association and proponent of gun control measures. As governor of the Old Line State, he pushed for and signed sweeping gun control legislation, banning 45 types of assault weapons, limiting magazine clips to ten bullets and requiring anyone purchasing a handgun to enter a fingerprint database.

Immigration: Create a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. Pass the DREAM Act. Allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates.

O’Malley told the Des Moines Register he supports immigration reform with a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally now. In his interview with ABC’s “This Week,” the Democrat advocated for the DREAM Act, which would give legal status to undocumented immigrants brought to America as children. As governor, O’Malley signed a bill allowing undocumented students in Maryland to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities.

Obamacare and health care: Expand the Affordable Care Act. Move to an “all-payer” system.

An Obamacare advocate, O’Malley supported expanding Maryland’s health insurance options before the Affordable Care Act became law. When implementing the new healthcare law during his tenure, Maryland’s online health exchange saw repeated problems. It was overhauled in 2014. O’Malley supported and approved a unique statewide Medicare waiver, designed to move Maryland hospitals away from a fee-for-service payment method. Considered the nation’s only “all-payer system,” the state sets medical costs, capping what hospitals can charge. O’Malley has said he wants to the system to be a model for the nation.

Social issues: Legalize same-sex marriage. Allow access to abortion. Abolish capital punishment.

While governor, O’Malley sponsored the law legalizing gay marriage in Maryland. A practicing Catholic, he argues the stance squares with his faith’s belief in maintaining “human dignity.”

O’Malley has described his view on abortion as “pro choice”. Aides have said he supported a 1992 Maryland referendum which stated that abortions should be legal, without government restriction, until the time in pregnancy when a fetus can survive outside the womb.

The White House hopeful is opposed to the death penalty, a practice he outlawed in Maryland in 2013. In one of his last acts as governor, in December 2014, O’Malley commuted the sentences of Maryland’s four remaining death row inmates.

Taxes and wages: Use tax increases to fund government programs. Raise the minimum wage. Strengthen union bargaining.

While governor, O’Malley advocated the use of tax increases to fund significant budget items. He signed an increase on the state gas tax to fund transportation projects, a boost in the state sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent and a state income tax change that raised rates for Maryland individuals earning over $100,000 or households making over $150,000.

As part of a campaign against income inequality, O’Malley signed a bill raising his state’s minimum wage to $10.10, phased in gradually. He has since indicated that he could support raising wages to $15 an hour. In addition, he advocates reforming the overtime pay system, and strengthening collective bargaining.

Trade: Block the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

O’Malley recently criticized the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an international trade deal backed by the Obama administration and Congressional Republicans, arguing that it would hurt the middle class. He has since expanded on the point, telling NPR he wants increased labor regulations.

Israel and Iran: Continue negotiations with Iran. Work for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestinians.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” O’Malley called the potential of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon one of the world’s greatest man-made threats. He supports ongoing nuclear talks between the Obama administration and Iranian leadership. O’Malley advocates a two-state solution between Israel and Palestinians and has said, as allies, both the United States and Israel need to work to ease the tension between them.

Islamic State and Iraq: No specific stance yet. Congress should set clear parameters for any use of ground troops.

O’Malley has yet to announce a specific policy for how the United States should address the threat from Islamic State and current issues in Iraq. In February, he posted a short statement to Facebook saying that any plan should explicitly define its timeframe and that Congress should pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force that clarifies the parameters for use of ground troops.

The post What does Martin O’Malley believe? Where the candidate stands on 11 issues appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

After William Shakespeare died, on this date in 1616, his contemporary, Ben Jonson, wrote that “He was not of an age, but for all time.”

April 23 is believed to be the day of William Shakespeare’s birth and death. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Johnson was spot on, because nearly 400 years later, the Bard lives on in the era of the smartphone.

That’s where the New York Shakespeare Exchange’s “Sonnet Project” fits in. Since 2013, the company has partnered with actors and directors from around New York City to film readings of his 154 sonnets. To date, they have recorded 102.

Each video is uploaded to a mobile app, which then notifies users that a new video is available. Ross Williams, Founder and Artistic Director of the New York Shakespeare Exchange, says he hopes to reach 1 million viewers across the globe this way.

“We realized early on that live programming has limitations: geographically, the size of a theater, how many performances we can host,” Williams said. “But with mobile technology, we can get it into people’s pockets all over the world.”

Williams’ aim is to release the final video on this date — which is also believed to be Shakespeare’s birthday — next year.

You may already be familiar with some Shakespearean poetry without realizing it. Sonnet 18 begins with “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” And perhaps you read the tongue in cheek “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (Sonnet 130, above) in a high school English class.

The Sonnet Project hasn’t gotten to No. 18 yet. They’re waiting for the perfect actor, said Williams, for what is arguably Shakespeare’s most famous poem. But as the project has unfolded, releasing a new video every week for the past two years, they’ve gained momentum. Now well-known actors seek them out, for their chance to perform a classical text in an iconic New York setting. On Tuesday, the weekly video was of Tony-award winner Joanna Gleason reciting Sonnet 23 at the New Amsterdam Theatre:

Indeed, the city of New York plays a role far greater than mere incidental backdrop. At the Project’s outset, each sonnet was paired to a specific location in the city, spanning all five boroughs and a swath of cultural and historic spots. Actors were sent to Grand Central Station (Sonnet 143), the Brooklyn Bridge (Sonnet 9) and Edgar Allen Poe’s cottage in the Bronx (Sonnet 67), to Yankee Stadium, Columbia University and Coney Island (Sonnets 13, 62, and 151, respectively). A map in the app drops a pin at each site, so users can sort the poems by geography.

“It encapsulates the idea of melding the poetry of Shakespeare with the poetry of New York City,” Williams said.

He believes, too, that setting these storied, but sometimes challenging, words before a recognizable landscape will render them friendlier to a wide audience. “The locations serve as inspiration but also as a kind of grounding in a space that is … accessible to a lot of the world, because these locations are so well-known,” he said. “It allows us to look at the language of the sonnet with a new perspective.”

And once a viewer becomes familiar with a sonnet, they can apply that comfort toward exploring the Bard’s other works, Williams said.

“They’re a great gateway,” he said. “They’re little jewels of Shakespeare that can open up a larger experience.”

The post 400 years after his death, Shakespeare’s sonnets live on in your smartphone appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

North Charleston police officer Michael Slager, right, is seen allegedly shooting 50-year-old Walter Scott in the back as he runs away, in this still image from a bystander’s video in North Charleston, South Carolina, taken April 4, 2015. Handout photo via Reuters

In the days after police officer Michael Slager shot and killed a suspect in North Charleston, S.C., he maintained that he was justified in his use of force.

Then, a video emerged that changed everything.

According to an initial statement from the North Charleston police department, the suspect, Walter Scott, had fought with Slager over control of a Taser. Slager, fearing for his life, employed lethal force.

But cell phone footage appears to show Slager shooting Scott in the back eight times from a distance of several yards.

On Tuesday, Slager was indicted on murder charges.

“We’re living in a time of a technology revolution,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the ACLU, who wrote a photographers’ guide to recording police activity. “Cameras are being spread more and more throughout our living spaces and our community spaces which will have far reaching social effects, and one of the first areas we’re seeing it is policing.”

Broadly speaking, it is always legal to record the police in public places or when they are on-duty, so long as the witness does not interfere with police proceedings. And the proliferation of smart phones and social media has made citizen monitoring of police activity easy: people carry high-quality photo and video technology in their pockets, and can share their records almost instantaneously.

What’s more, mobile phones apps now exist specifically to record interactions with the police. Different ACLU state offices have apps that record video and immediately back them up to a server, so records aren’t lost if a phone is lost or destroyed.

The existence of this kind of record shifts the conversation, said Lumumba Bandele, Senior Community Organizer at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a co-founder of a Brooklyn-based grassroots cop watch program.

“Before the knowledge of this tape [of Walter Scott], the police account was totally different. Now that it’s present, we can see what would have been presented and likely accepted as the narrative.”

But civilians should not only record law enforcement while a serious incident is occurring, said Mary Angela Bock, an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism who researches photojournalism practice and ethics.

“All citizens should be in the habit of documenting the public work of police in public places,” she said, “It shouldn’t be only in times of crisis, and not just people in groups that are marginalized in society. Everyone needs to make it a respectful habit.”

So what should this kind of civilian monitoring look like? Simple, said Bock: “It would look like journalism.”

Documenting public officials at work, she said, is what journalists do every day.

“Now that everybody can be a journalist, everybody needs to learn the ethics and think like one,” Bock said.

Should you find yourself in the position to be a citizen journalist, heed these tips from Bock and the ACLU’s Stanley:

Maintain your right to record. Police do not have the right to take your phone if you’re not committing a crime, and they need a warrant to search it. In Sharp v. Baltimore City Police Department, the court ruled that the public has the right to videotape or photograph public police activity in public places.

Capture as much information as you can. The video out of North Charleston was powerful because it was a wide shot, said Bock. “The person who was taping that was far enough away to not get involved, but close enough to see what happened.” Moreover, the video was released as one continuous shot, which makes the timing look more faithful. Context is critical to capturing as full a story as possible.

Be respectful. You legally may not interfere with police procedure, and you should not be argumentative or aggressive, said Bock. Instead, she recommends, a civilian monitor should maintain a distance and remind the officer of their rights: “I’m a member of the public, I’m in a public space, you’re doing public work, and I’m just documenting what’s going on.”

Be mindful of other laws. Just because you have the right to record doesn’t mean you have the right to trespass or damage property in the process.

If you are stopped, ask to leave. You cannot be detained without reasonable suspicion that you have committed, or are about to commit, a crime. If you ask to leave and are denied, this constitutes unlawful detention.

A man pays respect at the site where Eric Garner died after New York police put him in a chokehold in July in Staten Island, New York. Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Remember that a video is not the be-all-end-all. Both Bandele and Stanley point to the story of Eric Garner, whose choking death while in police custody was recorded and viewed widely, as evidence that a video may be just one part of an overall justice process. In Garner’s case, the officer’s use of force was deemed justified, and he was not indicted. Video technology “is neither a silver bullet nor useless,” said Stanley. “Cameras aren’t going to solve every problem in our criminal justice system, but sometimes they can reveal those problems.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article credited Lumumba Bandele with co-founding the Brooklyn Cop Watch Alliance. In fact, he co-founded the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s cop watch program, one of several teams under the umbrella of the Brooklyn Cop Watch Alliance.

The post How and why you should record the police appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Children sit on the south lawn of the White House after the 1953 Easter Egg Roll. Photo courtesy Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas

Each Easter Monday, thousands of children and their families flock to the White House for an annual day of spring festivities. Originally, it was held in from of the Capitol, but in 1876, the celebration took a toll on the Capitol grounds and Congress subsequently passed a law banning the lawn to be used as a playground for children.

The “Easter Egg Roll” as it is known today dates back to 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes opened the South Lawn to the neighborhood children recently forbidden from playing with colorful Easter eggs on the yards of the Capitol.

The First Family has hosted a day of games, music and food nearly every year since.

Children and adults on grounds of the White House for the annual Easter Egg Roll, 1889. Photo courtesy Library of Congress

Boys at the White House Easter egg roll, 1911. Photo courtesy Library of Congress

Children at the 1923 White House Easter Egg Roll. Photo courtesy Library of Congress

Easter at the White House, 1926. Photo courtesy National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress

First Lady Grace Coolidge brings pet Raccoon Rebecca to the 1927 Easter Egg Roll. Photo courtesy White House Historical Association

Boys chase after eggs at the 1929 Easter Egg Roll. Photo courtesy Library of Congress)

Children dance around a maypole at the White House Easter Egg Roll, circa 1930. Photo courtesy White House Historical Association

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt greet visitors at the 1939 Easter Egg Roll. Photo courtesy Library of Congress

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wecomes first of Easter Egg Rollers, 1940. Photo courtesy Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress

Easter Egg Roll at the White House, 1961. Photo courtesy Robert Knudsen, White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

Tricia Nixon signs autographs at the 1971 Easter Egg Roll. Photo courtesy National Archives

Jimmy Carter with grandson Jason Carter at the White House Easter Egg Roll, 1977. Photo courtesy National Archives

Basket of wooden eggs for the Easter Egg Roll in 1982. Photo courtesy White House Historical Association

Children participate in the Easter Egg Roll at the White House, 1989. Photo courtesy George Bush Presidential Library and Museum

President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush at the Start of an Easter Egg Roll Race, 2006. Photo courtesy National Archives/George W. Bush Presidential Library

President Barack Obama is joined by his daughters Sasha and Malia at the 2009 White House Easter Egg Roll. Photo by Chuck Kennedy, courtesy the White House

People attending the annual Easter Egg Roll walk along the South Lawn of the White House, April 5, 2010. Photo by Lawrence Jackson, courtesy the White House

The post Photos: the White House Easter Egg Roll throughout history appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Former Senator Jim Webb has worn many hats in his long career: U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy, best-selling author and officer in the Marines.

He is also an Emmy-winning journalist, thanks to a special report he produced for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” in 1983.

Webb was sent to Beirut in September of that year to offer his perspective on the U.S. presence during the Lebanese Civil War. Anchor Jim Lehrer introduced the video essay as “personal, a commentary.”

Now, as Webb explores the possibility of a presidential bid in 2016, his 30-year-old segment offers some insight into his views of governmental leadership. In particular, Webb returns to the disconnect that can exist between those who make policy in Washington, and those who implement it militarily.

“The military does not make policy. That responsibility belongs to members of Congress and, of course, the President,” he said in the essay’s outset. “The military simply implements their policy, often at great cost. A politician might suffer bad press or a lost election if things go wrong. The military man suffers the loss of his friends, early and often.”

He also speaks about a politician’s responsibility to American service members and veterans.

“I and many of my fellow Vietnam veterans still feel the pain of having made greater a commitment than the political process was willing to uphold,” he said. “These men are trusting their very lives to the wisdom of our leaders. Our government’s obligation to them … is to proceed with a clarity of purpose that matches their own trust and commitment.”

A week after his essay aired, 241 Americans were killed in a suicide bombing at military barracks there. Webb returned to the program to reflect on those events.

The post NewsHour flashback: Jim Webb’s Emmy-winning report on Lebanese Civil War appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

“Texas 22 October 2001. One bag of assorted Jolly Ranchers.” Photo courtesy of Julie Green

“Three fried chicken thighs, 10 or 15 shrimp, tater tots with ketchup, two slices of pecan pie, strawberry ice cream, honey and biscuits, and a Coke.”

At the time, Oklahoma had the highest per capita execution rate in the country. And the morning after an execution, newspapers statewide would post death notices, detailing the inmate’s life and crimes, the time and manner of his or her death – and the final meal.

“California 27 September 1929. Hearty breakfast.” Photo courtesy of Julie Green

Green knew about capital punishment, but the tradition of offering the condemned a special final food startled her. She clipped that menu, and other notices as she found them.

And soon after, she began painting the details of these meals onto second-hand porcelain plates, using a cobalt blue that reminded her of traditional English and Japanese china.

Learning about the final meals “humanized the inmates on death row for me,” she told Art Beat in a phone interview from her studio in Corvallis, a city south of Portland, where she now teaches at Oregon State University.

If she couldn’t find a final meal listed, she’d call prison wardens for the information. After she moved to Oregon, in 2000, she scoured the web for information about executions across the country. Final meal information nearly always came up quickly in her searches.

“Montana 16 February 1917. One apple.” Photo courtesy of Julie Green

Over time, she delved into historical records to paint older final meals, too, like the single apple given to a man in Montana in 1917. She spends six months of every year on this project, sometimes churning out a plate a day in her quest to create 50 a year.

To date, Green has completed 600 plates, which will be on display this spring at the Dayton Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio, in conjunction with The University of Dayton, in an exhibit titled “The Last Supper: 600 Plates Illustrating Final Meals of U.S. Death Row Inmates”.

In her artist’s statement, Green says that her goal is “to continue painting fifty plates a year until capital punishment is abolished.”

Julie Green at home. Photo by Ha Lam, Whole Foods Market

Green spoke to Art Beat about her experience creating and displaying this project over the past 15 years. The transcript below was lightly edited for length and clarity:

Art Beat: Is your goal to cover every last meal?

Julie Green: The goal of the project is dialogue, and then to continue to show the plates. I’m looking for longer-term exhibitions, ideally a year, because the transport of 600 or more plates is challenging. Those are my goals, dialogue, and to continue to exhibit the work.

Then, it’s my plan to continue to paint 50 plates a year. Those would be both contemporary executions as they happen, and then I also go back and do historical, very early ones as well as ones I’m behind on.

I try to do an overview … to keep it somewhat appropriate, so that the project has a lot of executions from Texas and Virginia, since those have the highest number in the country.

But my goal is grander than your question. My goal is to be part of the conversation of capital punishment, and to stop painting plates, to end the project.

Julie Green applies cobalt blue mineral paint. Her technical advisor, Antoni Acock, kiln-fires every plate. Photo by Ha Lam, Whole Foods Market.

Art Beat: So you have political ambitions for the project?

Julie Green: It’s actually important to me that the piece is presented neutrally … So while I am political in the piece, you can’t really tell people how to think, and my idea here is more to just point to our system and the meals.

Art Beat: What does the tradition of offering death row inmates a special last meal mean to you?

Julie Green: That’s a question I’ve thought a lot about, why we have that tradition. Our prison system is sort of based on Europe, and specifically England. That goes back to the gallows and the last beer. That’s certainly historical all over the world, actually. But I think the reason we continue the tradition is perhaps that it is something positive for the prison to focus on [for] its reputation.

“New York 15 August 1963. A pack of Pall Malls.” Photo courtesy of Julie Green

Art Beat: You identify each inmate by state and execution date. Why do you choose not to use their names?

Julie Green: When I first read the meals in the paper, I was struck by how much they humanize, how personal they are. There’s a saying in painting, and maybe in life, too: “When in doubt, leave it out.” For my project, it wouldn’t add anything to have the prisoner’s name. I’m pointing to the state much more, and then the date. At this point, you can look it up if you’re curious, but I’m more interested in the system than in the individual.

I didn’t really want to point to the family of the inmate, and also, for the same reason, [to] the victim. I think about all the sorrow that that might represent, a murder and then an execution. There’s so much attached to each plate that I didn’t feel that I needed to add that.

“Indiana 05 May 2007. Pizza and birthday cake shared with 15 family and friends.” Photo courtesy of Julie Green

Art Beat: Have any meals in particular stood out to you?

Julie Green: Some of the really humble ones stand out, like a Honey Bun, or a bag of Jolly Ranchers, or a jar of dill pickles. Those are not the common ones, there are a lot of huge meals that are more common, but those quiet meals stand out to me.

There’s a birthday cake and a pizza. The inmate said that he’d never had a birthday cake, so they made a birthday cake for him. For me, I think all the plates tell a story, but that one tells a bigger story about the circumstance and childhood of that person who’d never had a birthday cake.

The Last Supper, 2000-ongoing. Installation view of 357 plates in the 2009 exhibition Counter Intelligence, California State University, Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Julie Green

Art Beat: Have you learned anything surprising about the practice of administering final meals?

Julie Green: There’s a lot of state-by-state variations. The ritual, the eating of the meal varies a lot. Sister Helen Prejean has written some fine essays on this process that has influenced me. In Louisiana, you’ll have a meal with family and friends and the prison warden — they’ll all eat together. That’s an anomaly. That’s the only state I can think of that’s like that. Most often, the meal is eaten alone, or with a guard, perhaps. And then even the rituals of having a cigarette; you’re not supposed to have a cigarette, it’s illegal, and alcohol is illegal. I think about that, the variations from state to state, or the relative standards from state to state.

Mississippi 23 July 1947. Fried chicken and watermelon to 15- and 16- year old boys. Photo courtesy of Julie Green

Art Beat: What kind of reactions have you gotten from people who have seen this work in the past?

Julie Green: I have a comment book. Part of the reason I started the plates was, I realized people don’t know about this, and it’s of interest to them as it is to me, and people also are not informed that well about capital punishment, but they’re opposed simply because of the cost of it or whatever. The comments, sometimes there are several hundred comments for each exhibition. I really encourage people to write them down. It’s really fascinating, keeping all of them. It’s kind of a document of … say, Chattanooga, Tenn., or Chicago, what that particular region that year, who went to the exhibition feels about it.

And it does vary quite a bit. [University of California at Santa Cruz] is more of a liberal audience, as you would expect. And then sometimes there are angry people, the full range. Angry is not the right word, but people opposed to the project, or opposed to capital punishment. And that’s great, I want conversation.

Usually their responses are actually not about the meals but often go into our feelings about capital punishment. People seem to want to express their views or think about it out loud. And that’s been great.

“Oklahoma 29 April 2014. 20 boneless hot wings from KFC, large potato wedge, two fruit cocktail cups, cole slaw, 20 ounce Coca Cola. Inmate has since been granted stay of execution.” Photo courtesy of Julie Green

Art Beat: Do you feel that you provide a venue to start those conversations?

Julie Green: I hope so, and it feels that way. I’m an optimistic person, and it’s been far more conversation than I even hoped for. And it helps sustain me to continue. Because it’s a sad project. I’m ultimately hopeful, but it’s not light, happy painting. So to see this conversation I think is really healthy, and it definitely helps sustain the project.

Art Beat: You’ve said you want to keep doing this till the death penalty is abolished. Do you foresee that happening in your lifetime?

Julie Green: Yes, I’m hopeful that it will. Even in the years that I’ve been working on this, a number of states, including the one I live in now, Oregon, either have stopped having capital punishment or have a moratorium. So I think as a country we’re really looking at it. So I am hopeful.

Editor’s note: this article originally stated that Corvallis was located in southern Oregon. Corvallis is actually in central Oregon, in the Willamette Valley. The corrected was made on Feb 25.

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Afaa Michael Weaver has received numerous awards for his poetry, including a Fulbright scholarship, a Pen Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and an NEA fellowship.

Twenty-one Chinese characters mark the start of “City of Eternal Spring,” poet Afaa Michael Weaver’s newest book.

“So that I might hear the quiet voice of the union of heart and mind,” the inscription reads, “help me forget the past and the future.”

Weaver wrote the epigraph, inspired by a chapter of the foundational Doaist text Dao De Jing, to guide him through writing “City of Eternal Spring.” The book concludes a trilogy that deals with a painful childhood that included sexual abuse.

The first book, “Plum Flower Dance,” was a way of understanding how trauma had impacted his writing for years. The second, “Government of Nature,” brought Weaver into what he described as the “valley” of his trauma.

“Once I was down there in the valley, struggling with those … primal elements inside the trauma itself, I knew I had to come out of it,” he told Art Beat.

“City of Eternal Spring” presented him with a space in which to heal. But first, he had to be present, he said, neither dwelling “in the actual space of the pain,” nor fretting over what his pen might yield.

“I was exploring the interior of healing itself,” he said. “To be a survivor of incest is to have to work through deep issues of betrayal. In the process of healing and recovery, you have to reconstitute those bonds and renegotiate those boundaries that are both internal and external and try to hold on the best you can to the love of family.”

The poems in “City of Eternal Spring” span hemispheres. Many take place in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China, where Weaver has traveled extensively, first as a Fulbright scholar in 2002, then again on sabbatical from Simmons College, where he teaches. But, often, there is a pull back to the United States. In his poem “Archaeology of Time: Gambling”, the speaker’s experience on a boat in the South China Sea evokes memories of his time working in Baltimore factories, of the men who raised him and the women he loved. In his poem “The Long Walk Up to Mao Zedong’s Retreat,” a visit to the Chairman’s mountain hideaway sparks a dream of Virginia poplars.

Listen to Afaa Michael Weaver read his poem “The Long Walk Up to Mao Zedong’s Retreat” from his new collection “City of Eternal Spring.”

The Long Walk Up to Mao Zedong’s Retreat

In the museum that was his house, his books
are on the bed where a woman should be, except
he is not here either, we walk up the steep hill
to the courtyard, the gate looks down to Beijing.

I see the places the fires of the foreigners
did not burn, the stone left from buildings that stood
up to the invasion, and I lean against the gate,
my stomach upside down and full of the unfamiliar.

It is a cold chill over the harmony of mountain
and river, and we take tea against the shivers, old
and young poets, my American tongue now naming
the things it knows, cup, tea, cigarette, sky.

Chinese is the long drive here from the city,
standing next to Sun Wenbo, waiting to start his car,
listening to Zang Di speak of what it is to lead
poets along the riverbanks of metaphor, and I am

the one whistle in poplars in a state far away,
Virginia, where a tall young man finds his baby brother
sleeping in the grass, hiding from school, wakes him
so they can dream of families and sons that go searching.

Long before he had ever traveled to Asia, though, Eastern philosophy offered Weaver a way to work through hardship or pain. He was 21 when his infant son died, and a coworker at the factory where he worked offered him a copy of the Dao De Jing. Some years later, also at the recommendation of a coworker, he began practicing Tai Chi. He then started publishing his work regularly in local literary magazines and regional presses.

“The Dao de Jing and Tai Chi became a way for me to create a space inside myself where I could begin to accept my contradictions, and gave me an intuitive method for grounding myself,” he said. “Tai Chi and Daoism became the vehicle for my way of dealing with the troubles in my life.”

Weaver’s poems are not merely personal meditations, though. When he writes of his experiences as a stranger in a strange land, for example, he is also reflecting on some of the political and social experiences of African Americans. In “Tea Plantations and Women in Black,” the speaker recognizes that, though the Chinese women who stare at him see him as exotic and foreign, their context for him does not include America’s troubled racial history.

Listen to Afaa Michael Weaver read his poem “Tea Plantations and Women in Black” from his new collection “City of Eternal Spring.”

Tea Plantations and Women in Black

It is dusk in the city and here in the mountains,
inside the thick green way of a place where rain
is breath, and summer mist the gas that lets
you dream of being lost, cast away in a paradise

that is not a paradise for those who live here.
I am too familiar to nightmares that pushed me
here to hide from them, but they sit on the edge
of the sun’s light pushing down into morning

in the middle of the Atlantic. The tea comes
with a young woman who stares at me, the black
she has heard of, the black she cannot see, and
we light the fire in the table, hear it puff up.

I am full of reasons, strings of hurt I cannot let
loose here where no one knows the sirens on corners
of black homes, hard hands on the grips of guns,
bullets made for Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser,

or for me, black man daring to live, black man
following the trance of women tipping on loose
stone tablets of sidewalks in thin, black dresses
under parasols to hide them from the sun.

Whether he’s reflecting on his own personal experiences or on large social contexts, Weaver uses poetry and language to contemplate the process of crossing between cultures and identity.

The journey from one half of the world to the other, Weaver said, is like a translation, which he describes as the process which “reveals to you the foreign element that exists inside you.” It’s what happens when he, as a Westerner, travels to Asia, but it is also a part of his lived experience as an African-American man. His transcontinental journey, in other words, helped him understand his home, too.

“You come face to face with yourself in many ways,” he said.

As he maneuvered through these different landscapes and worked towards healing, the idea behind his epigraph served as a reminder to remain open to those confrontations, a constant struggle while writing “City of Eternal Spring” and the books leading up to it.

“Being in the present means being present for myself emotionally, and being in the present creatively for the audience,” Weaver said. “It’s something that I hope comes to another kind of closure in this book.”

Then, he reconsidered. “I hesitate to say closure,” he added. “You can’t really say this kind of work is ever done.

“The Long Walk Up to Mao Zedong’s Retreat” and “Tea Plantations and Women in Black” from “City of Eternal Spring,” by Afaa Michael Weaver, © 2014. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

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A young girl holds up signs during a rally to show support for Walmart workers on Black Friday outside the Walmart store in Lakewood, Colorado, in November. The signs refer to the strikers’ demand to have a $15 minimum wage for Walmart employees. Today, Colorado’s minimum wage rose to $8.23 an hour, up 23 cents from last year. Photo by Rick Wilking/Reuters

In the course of just the past two days, the minimum wage jumped up in 21 states — and odds are, you’ve got an opinion about that.

So does the academic world, which has studied — and argued over — the minimum wage’s impact within the labor market for more than 70 years.

Supporters and opponents of the minimum wage have clashed since the Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938. Advocates argue that a wage hike improves the quality of life for low-wage workers, who then funnel higher earnings back into the economy through consumption. Opponents say forcing employers to pay workers more deters hiring, slows business growth and ultimately leads to job loss.

On the state level, many voters have recently sided with the advocates. Twelve of the 21 minimum wage increases come because of legislation passed in the past two years. That includes four states — Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota — whose voters passed minimum wage ballot initiatives in November. Nine other states’ minimum wages will increase automatically according to the inflation rate.

The 21 states which raised their minimum wages over New Year’s bumped up pay by different amounts, but this shows they generally were two kinds: incremental increases less than a quarter and large increases around a dollar an hour. Graphic by Laura Santhanam

After Delaware and Minnesota raise their minimum wages this summer, a majority of states, 29 in all, will have pay rates above the federal minimum.

The debate swirling around the change in pay doesn’t just boil down to whether increasing the minimum wage will be, on balance, positive or negative. Economists disagree on nearly every aspect of the policy: how many people will be affected, who those people are, how much they will be affected and what the minimum wage does in the U.S. economy.

Poverty vs. Jobs

The public debate here centers around a wage floor’s impact on employment and income rates. Does it raise the circumstances of the working poor by increasing paychecks or does the higher wage rate choke employers and trigger unemployment?

If employers are forced to pay more to their lowest-paid workers, opponents argue, they will have to cut jobs overall to make ends meet.

“They’ll lay off less skilled workers, and place a more intense focus on reducing labor costs through automation and technology,” said James Sherk, senior policy analyst in labor economics at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and former White House economic advisor in three Republican administrations, added that a higher minimum wage discourages future hiring.

“If you’re an employer hiring at $15 an hour, you’d hire a different person, someone with more skills, a different type of worker and maybe use different types of technology,” she said. “The people most impacted are those who want to work but can’t.”

And “when you don’t get your first job, you can’t work up and get your second,” she added.

Advocates believe that a pay increase will boost the standard of living for workers and even pull some out of poverty.

“People understand that the lowest wage workers have the least [social] bargaining power, and the issue of income inequality and most growth accumulated at top is well known and understood,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former economic advisor to the Obama administration. “Increases in minimum wage are pretty a simple, direct way to do something about that.”

The benefits to the workers then extend into the greater economy, added David Cooper, an analyst with the Economic Policy Institute. “When you raise the minimum wage, you put more money into the hands of low income folks, they’re more likely to go out and spend, so it leads to a boost in consumer spending.”

Supporters of the minimum wage argue that risks to employment are overstated.

Because turnover in low-wage jobs tends to be high, businesses may actually save in the long run “from not having to recruit, hire and train new workers all the time,” said Cooper. Or they can cut into their profit margins. Or raise prices.

“Those price increases tend to be small, just because the share of labor costs from low-wage workers tend to be small,” the EPI economist added.

Bernstein and others argue the quality of the jobs is a key component of the policy. “I think it’s wrong to say no one ever loses their job,” he said, but “if you do lose your job, the next one will be better because the wages will be higher.”

For years, both sides have had a wealth of studies to back up their respective claims. Proponents quote surveys that found no adverse effects on employment, and positive impacts on poverty levels. Opponents have their own literature. But earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office published a widely-accepted report whose conclusions back up parts of each argument.

According to CBO, hiking the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would increase wages for some 24.5 million workers, lifting some 900,000 people out of poverty. But the agency also found that a $10.10 minimum wage would eliminate the equivalent of 500,000 jobs.

Instead of changing the debate, the report has further fueled the cases proponents and opponents make.

Cooper believes the CBO report demonstrates that the benefits of raising wages would outweigh the costs. He points to the broad figures: millions of workers receiving higher earnings, versus a few hundred thousand lost jobs.

“You’re saying that 97 percent of people would benefit and maybe 3 percent would be worse off,“ he told NewsHour, “If all policies had 97 percent success, we’d be happy with that.”

The lost jobs figure is the central problem for the Heritage Institute’s Sherk, who worries about the long-term impacts of lost opportunity.

“There’s tremendous value in developing labor market skills. Experience makes you more productive,” he said. “That forgone experience, the productivity you’re not getting, that can hurt [workers] on into the future.”

Why The Disagreement?

What causes similarly qualified and credentialed researchers to interpret similar data so differently?

Part of it stems from academic complaints. Economists critique each others’ survey methodologies, the structure or timing or size of their studies and their chosen data points. A single piece of research could be praised as well-conducted and significant by those who support its conclusions, while those who don’t may point to flaws in data or method.

“It’s a bit of an indictment against economists,” said Bernstein. “You can hold the graphs up whichever way you want.”

In a larger sense, the dispute comes down to a simple, fundamental difference in philosophy: what role should government play in the labor market?

“People who like the minimum wage like it because they like other forms of government interventions into the marketplace,” said Richard Burkhauser, a professor of policy analysis at Cornell. “Some of us are more skeptical of those interventions. We think they do more harm than good.”

These skeptics say that wages will rise naturally when workers are able to increase their value in the marketplace through education or training.

“Our labor is not all worth the same,” said Sherk. “People have different levels of productivity. The best thing to do is helping people be more productive in the working place, [so they can] be more valuable.”

Low-wage jobs, he added, “are entry-level jobs. They provide skills and productivity to command more than minimum wage in the future.”

But Cooper, the progressive economist, believes that such government fiat is necessary to address problems in the marketplace.

“Any time you have an environment of high unemployment,” of the like that accompanied the Great Recession, “that puts downward pressure on wages, because employers know they don’t need to raise wages to attract or retain workers, which causes wages to stagnate or decline,” he said. “In that environment, one of the only ways to raise wages is to increase the minimum.”

There are also important principles at stake, he added.

“Poverty alleviation is part of it. Everyone recognizes that a job is the best anti-poverty tool,” he said. “At the same time, the minimum wage isn’t really designed as an anti-poverty tool. It’s a basic labor standard, the same as saying you don’t have to breathe asbestos on the job.”

“You can argue over where that standard should be set,” Bernstein agreed, “but it’s pretty radical to say there shouldn’t be a standard at all.”

Some Agreement

This is one area of broad consensus. Economists generally agree that moderate increases in the minimum wage — such as those that have gone into effect this week — are likely to have moderate impacts overall. Neither side would sniff at those impacts on individuals — a few extra dollars a week in either a paycheck or in employee payroll can make a significant difference to either workers or employers struggling to make ends meet. But both sides tend to recognize that incremental minimum wage increases are neither an all-encompassing economic solution nor an all-destroying economic disaster.

“You get into this mess, where one side says this will fix everything, and the other side says this will ruin everything,” said Bernstein, “and the truth is never so extreme.”

Cornell’s Burkhauser went further, calling the minimum wage “relatively small potatoes.”

“This isn’t a major issue like some of what we have before us, like how can we increase economic growth, how do we pay for Social Security.These are much bigger and more encompassing,” he said. “It’s odd to spend so much time on the minimum wage.”

Whether time spent on the debate is too much or too little, both sides hope to gain one thing from the stream of minimum wage increases going into effect: data. With 29 states requiring a minimum wage higher than the federal $7.25 rate and 21 states staying at $7.25, economists will have a laboratory for their next sets of arguments.

The post Want to watch economists fight? Bring up the minimum wage appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch announces the grand jury’s decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson Monday in Clayton, Missouri. Photo by Cristina Fletes-Boutte/Reuters

Residents of Ferguson, Missouri, have been on edge for months as jurors deliberated the facts behind Michael Brown’s death at the hands of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

Wilson shot and killed the unarmed Brown, 18, on Aug. 9. Police say Wilson, who is white, struggled with Brown over his service weapon before firing the fatal shots. Others, including Brown’s family and some witnesses, say Brown was running away, or surrendering with his hands up, at the time of his death.

Michael Brown’s family released a statement immediately following the announcement:

We are profoundly disappointed that the killer of our child will not face the consequence of his actions.

While we understand that many others share our pain, we ask that you channel your frustration in ways that will make a positive change. We need to work together to fix the system that allowed this to happen.

Join with us in our campaign to ensure that every police officer working the streets in this country wears a body camera.

We respectfully ask that you please keep your protests peaceful. Answering violence with violence is not the appropriate reaction.

Let’s not just make noise, let’s make a difference.

Lawyers for Wilson asked for calm and also thanked supporters:

There should be an embedded item here. Please visit the original post to view it.

McCulloch spoke for several minutes before announcing the decision, cataloging the state’s evidence presented during the three-month process.

“Physical evidence does not change because of public pressure or personal agenda,” he said.

Late Monday night, St. Louis Public Radio began uploading the grand jury testimony, evidence and witness interviews.

In the days following Brown’s death, protesters took to the Ferguson streets for marches that were often peaceful, but sometimes turned violent. Law enforcement alleged that some protesters were rioting and looting, while activists claimed police used excessive force.

Speculation swirled throughout the days leading up to the decision; information leaked in dribs and drabs from the courthouse’s closed doors as activists and ordinary citizens alike tried to predict, and prepare for, any verdict.

Demonstrators chanted slogans as they marched through the streets of St. Louis on Sunday in anticipation of a decision from the grand jury in the shooting of teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this month, Gov. Jay Nixon announced a multi-agency contingency plan for the moments and days immediately following the decision. Saying he expected peaceful protests, he nonetheless made clear the state was prepared to respond to violence.

“My hope and expectation is that peace will prevail,” Nixon said. “But I have a responsibility to plan for any contingency that might arise.”

Nixon employed the National Guard during the first waves of protests following Brown’s death. County police also stockpiled riot gear and non-lethal crowd dispersal tools, such as tear gas and rubber bullets.

Anthony D. Gray, a lawyer for the family, repeated the family’s plea to remain peaceful. “As a lawyer for the family, and on behalf of the family, I reiterate for the umpteenth time — and they wanted me to make it crystal clear — they do not advocate any violence, any looting, any rioting,” he said at a press conference Friday.

[Watch Video]Protesters marched peacefully through several neighborhoods across St. Louis on Sunday night. But those who are marching aren’t only there to speak out about Michael Brown. Many said they were marching for all victims of police shootings.

But he has also expanded that demand for peace to include law enforcement. Some have criticized police officers’ response to August’s first wave of unrest, when they used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds.

While Brown’s death initially incited anger about police brutality, subsequent responses to protesters have expanded the national debate about race and police procedure.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced new guidance for law enforcement responding to demonstrators in a video address on Friday. While not singling out Ferguson by name, he said that certain protests have highlighted “real and significant underlying issues involving police practices, implicit bias, and pervasive community distrust.”

But he also encouraged protesters to behave peacefully. “History has also shown us that the most successful and enduring movements for change are those that adhere to nonaggression and nonviolence,” he said.

The Justice Department, which Holder oversees, is conducting an ongoing investigation into allegations of discriminatory practices within the Ferguson police department.

Brown’s parents testified before a U.N. committee on torture on Nov. 12, as part of a coalition speaking out against racial profiling and police brutality. In a written report from that session, the delegation called for Wilson’s arrest, and urged the Justice Department to investigate police harassment of minority communities.

In a video released Thursday by the group STL Forward, Brown’s father echoed that call, but also called upon protesters to respect the grand jury’s decision.

“I thank for you raising your voice to end racial profiling and police intimidation, but hurting others or destroying property is not the answer,” Brown Sr. said. “No matter what the grand jury decides, I do not want my son’s death to be in vain. I want it to lead to incredible change, positive change, change that makes the St. Louis region better for everyone.”

Since Aug. 20, the 12-person St. Louis County grand jury has been meeting in secret to hear evidence in the case. Nine votes were required to send Wilson to a public trial.

St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch, who brought the case without first arresting Wilson, attracted criticism for leaving the officer’s fate in jurors’ hands without endorsing a specific charge.

Paul Butler, a scholar of criminal justice and race relations law at the Georgetown University Law Center, said the community’s distrust of McCulloch would color any response to the grand jury’s decision.

“The problem is that the community has no confidence in its prosecutor, or in the integrity of the process,” Butler said. “If another prosecutor had examined the case or presented evidence to the grand jury, a decision not to go forward would have more credibility.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that protesters called on Gov. Nixon to appoint a special prosecutor for the case, a request the governor denied.

Churches announced advance plans to offer sanctuary and shelter to Ferguson residents in case civil unrest followed the jury’s announcement. Reverend F. Willis Johnson, pastor at Ferguson’s Wellspring Church, said his church would offer around-the-clock community support, including resources to students affected by school closures.

Speaking at the U.N. commission last week, Brown’s father said he just wanted justice for his son.

But, he added, “Whatever the grand jury decides in Missouri will not bring Michael back.”

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Minnesota’s U.S. Senate candidates will meet for one last debate at 8 p.m. EST (7 p.m. CT) on Sunday, Nov. 2, just two days out from Election Day.

Incumbent Sen. Al Franken (DFL) will defend his record against opponent Mike McFadden (R) live from Minnesota Public Radio’s Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn. Kerri Miller and Cathy Wurzer, two program hosts for MPR, will moderate.

Franken, a former comedian and writer for Saturday Night Live, squeaked into office by 312 votes in 2009, after a lengthy recount and court battle. He has since taken up a classically progressive stance within the Senate, notably writing provisions into the Affordable Care Act.

Minnesota Senate candidate Mike McFadden (left) and Sen. Al Franken (right) will square off in a debate Sunday.

McFadden is a businessman and political newcomer. Since winning handily in the primaries, he has focused on Franken’s record of backing President Obama’s policies, calling his opponent “the most partisan Senator in the Democratic Party.”

Until recently, that tactic didn’t appear to be working: in September, McFadden was still down by 13 points. But a new poll out this week shows Franken’s edge has narrowed to single digits, with McFadden gaining among independents.

It’s relatively unusual to debate the weekend before Election Day. Many voters have made up their minds by now, and campaigns typically conduct their final outreach efforts now, to ensure high turnout.

But if the candidates’ most recent meeting in Minneapolis is any indication, there are still plenty of issues to discuss out in the Gopher State. Sparks flew at that debate, with both men interrupting and occasionally shouting at one another over health care, tax policy, and negative campaign ads.

McFadden later paid to replay the debate in its entirety as a campaign ad of sorts.

The post WATCH LIVE: Minnesota Senate Debate appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Gwen Ifill reported from Colorado earlier this month. Join our team of politics reporters and producers for a viewing Wednesday of PBS NewsHour’s 2014 election stories.

Throughout the 2014 campaign season, PBS NewsHour has been reporting on some of the most exciting races directly from the field. With a week left until Election Day, revisit some of our favorite segments alongside the producers and reporters who made them happen and experts who will tell us more about what’s at stake in these contests.

This Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. EDT, PBS NewsHour will host a special live chat and live stream of four field reports from this midterm season. These segments focus on some of the most contentious races. Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill report from the ground in Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa and Georgia.

Log on to join the event, hosted by OVEE, a social video platform. Once the screening starts, you’ll be able to chat with other viewers, as well as political producers and reporters from across the country.

PBS NewsHour’s politics team will be on hand, including Domenico Montanaro, Senior Producer for Politics; Mary Jo Brooks, Producer; Rachel Wellford, Politics Reporter/Producer; and Simone Pathe, Economics Web Editor.

Plus, we’ll be joined by two award-winning journalists who can speak to the state of the races we’re covering. Craig Gilbert is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Washington Bureau Chief and author of “The Wisconsin Voter” blog. And Kay Henderson is the News Director at Radio Iowa and a featured reporter and commentator on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press.”

Follow our ongoing politics reporting on our Politics page and on Twitter and on Facebook.

And don’t forget to tune in to PBS NewsHour for our special Election Night coverage, starting at 6 p.m. EST Nov. 4.

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The two candidates for Colorado governor will face off for the final time this election cycle at a Denver debate at 8 p.m. EDT (6 p.m. MDT) tonight.

This will be the eighth debate in the race between Colorado Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper and Republican challenger Bob Beauprez.

Colorado Public Television presents the hour-long event in partnership with CBS4. Shaun Boyd, a political specialist with CBS4, Alan Gionet, a CBS4 anchor, and Eric Sondermann, an analyst with CPT, moderate.

When PBS NewsHour carried an earlier debate between the two candidates earlier this month, Beauprez had been consistently ahead of Hickenlooper in the polls, though the Democratic incumbent was steadily narrowing that gap.

Now, with a week and a half left before Election Day, the latest poll puts the sitting Governor ahead by a nose.

Bob Beauprez (R) and Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) are in a heated battle for the Colorado governor’s mansion. Images courtesy Wikimedia.

As the numbers have gotten closer, the debates have become increasingly heated. At an event hosted by the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry Thursday, Beauprez consistently referred to his opponent as “Obamalooper,” in an attempt to link the Governor to an unpopular president. Hickenlooper likened the moniker to a schoolyard bully’s taunts.

Energy, specifically the state’s oil and gas reserves, were the central focus of Thursday’s events, but the two candidates have sparred over taxes and jobs, school funding, gun laws and public safety, and abortion.

The post WATCH LIVE: Colorado’s final Gubernatorial debate appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

With less than two weeks to go before Election Day, the four candidates in one of this cycle’s most intriguing U.S. Senate races will meet for a live debate at 9 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. MT) tonight.

Mike Rounds (R), Rick Weiland (D), Gordon Howie (I), and Larry Pressler (I) will face off on the campus of the University of South Dakota, each vying to replace retiring Sen. Tim Johnson (D). South Dakota Public Broadcasting is hosting the hour-long debate alongside AARP and the S.D. Newspaper Association. Stephanie Rissler, a producer and journalist for SDPB, moderates.

Long thought a lock for the Republican Rounds, a former governor, this race has been thrust into the national spotlight in recent weeks as Weiland and Pressler have gained on him in the polls, raising concerns among the GOP, who need to gain six seats this cycle to win control of the U.S. Senate.

The race even received a “Colbert Bump” last week, when the comedian poked fun at the sudden attention being showered on a state usually neglected during election cycles.

Controversy entered the competition when questions began to arise about Rounds’ knowledge of and participation in an alleged scheme to sell immigration visas during his tenure as governor. Following the death of Richard Benda, who directed the program through which the EB-5 visas were administered, investigations revealed that key documents had been destroyed, and that the alleged embezzlement had likely lost the state millions of dollars.

Weiland and Pressler, Rounds’ closest competitors, have hammered upon these accusations in recent weeks. Weiland, a former FEMA administrator and CEO of a building safety advocacy group, has made reforming the role of money in politics a centerpiece of his campaign.

Howie, a former state legislator who is running the most traditionally conservative campaign, trails his opponents.

Mike Rounds (R), Rick Weiland (D), Larry Pressler (I), and Gordon Howie (I) will face off on the campus of the University of South Dakota, each vying to replace retiring Sen. Tim Johnson (D).

Tonight’s debate come on the heels of one more round of accusations being levied on the former Governor. On Wednesday, a Sioux Falls newspaper published an article asserting that, shortly before leaving office, Rounds had granted state funds to a private company Benda was about to begin working for. It is unclear whether Rounds knew of his cabinet member’s conflict of interest before signing off on the grant.

In light of these allegations, as well as a spate of outside ad spending pouring into the Mount Rushmore State, the outcome of this race is guaranteed to be a squeaker. Expect passion to run high at tonight’s debate, especially as new polls show Pressler, a former Republican congressman and Senator for the state, now running as an independent, making an increasingly strong showing.

Notably, Pressler has recently been joined on the campaign trail by John Good, a retired FBI agent who oversaw a sting operation that offered bribes to several Congressman in 1980. Pressler was the only lawmaker to refuse the offer.

In case alleged corruption and outsider spending do not entirely dominate tonight’s debate, the state of the economy is sure to be up for discussion. South Dakota is one of five states considering a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage. Healthcare may also be a topic of debate — Pressler recently came out in favor of the Affordable Care Act — as well as the Keystone XL Pipeline.

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