Entergy is proud to support programing on LPB and greener practices that preserve Louisiana.

The goal of our environmental and sustainability initiatives really is to ensure that our kids and future generations can be left with a cleaner planet.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Zigler Foundation and the Zigler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.

Absolutely heartbreaking.

And wrong.

The governor sets the record straight.

This is very important it's going to set the maps for elections for the next decade, redrawing the boundary lines of where we vote.

six years ago, I had no clue.

A local civil rights activists finally recognized after 61 years, but this was the strongest storm in recorded history to hit Louisiana.

Fish deaths in our coastal cities reached record numbers.

Hi everyone, I'm Kara St. Cyr, and I'm Andre’ Moreau.

Big news for nearly 2000 households that survive hurricanes Laura and Delta in southwest Louisiana in 2020.

They are getting an extension to stay in their FEMA provided housing as they continue to restore their own homes.

The extension was set to expire this month, but it now goes until Halloween.

That's October 31st.

It's a big bit of relief for many of those suffering people.

Switching gears to Black History Month, Louisiana is starting off this holiday with new markers on the national civil rights trail.

Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser presented two of them this week.

one was place and repeats Parish at Camp Beauregard and Pine, built to pay tribute to these 761st tank battalion.

This group of men freed more than 30 towns during World War two.

They were awarded eleven silver medals.

The second marker will be placed in front of MacDonagh 19 Elementary School in New Orleans.

We'll have much more on that story later, and we look forward to that.

And now to other news headlines making news around the state.

More than 100 people have joined a lawsuit against the New Orleans mayor and health director over COVID 19 restrictions that include people in parades on Mardi Gras.

The lawsuit targets mask and vaccination mandates.

Previous challenges against slowing the spread of the virus, though, have failed.

The state can expect to eventually get more than $110 million to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells.

It's part of the 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure law.

Lawmakers say it's a critical first step to protect our communities and our ecosystems.

Southern University in Baton Rouge is among at least half a dozen historically black universities in five states that responded to bomb threats Monday.

All of the threats caused the HBCU to lock down their campuses.

Southern told students to stay in their dormitories Monday until the all clear was given.

Watching Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow this season is giving LSU Tiger fans a bit of deja vu.

Burrow orchestrated LSU's perfect national championship run in 2019, and now just in his second pro season, he has the long shot Bengals in the Super Bowl for the first time since Janet Jackson was bare 1989.

The Bengals face the L.A. Rams next Sunday in the big game, and American Airlines has created a clever flight number nine to honor Joe.

The nonstop will take Bengals fans from Cincinnati to L.A. for the Super Bowl.

Human trafficking is an insidious crime that happens every day, 24 hours a day before thousands of potential witnesses.

But it is rarely reported.

That's right, in Louisiana and across America right now, there is a new concerted effort to help people to know the signs, what to look for and how to get help immediately.

And even more things.

The governor this past week announced the state's first Human Trafficking Prevention Resource Center and campaign, and it will work in harmony with a soon to be announced statewide campaign from the Louisiana District Attorneys Association.

It has been a downright cool winter this winter in Louisiana, but that's unlikely that Governor Edwards has really noticed that, especially after reports emerged last week that he knew about a state police cover up in the Ronald Greene case and he kept quiet.

Those accusations and others began to raise suspicions about Edwards and his time in office.

So Edwards went on the offensive to set the record straight, he says.

We also want to remind you that some of the video you'll see in this story is very disturbing.

But ma'am, I decided to take your time.

What's your name?

Put your hands behind your back.

I am sorry.

An outcry from critics and allies of Governor Edwards to say what he knew and when about the death of Ronald Green Segway into a nearly hour long news conference this week.

When I look at the things that are being attributed to me.

I can only tell you.

There just isn't a shred of truth to them.

Edwards repeatedly defended his actions after reports emerged that he knew about Greene's death hours after it happened, but kept quiet.

In 2019, all I knew was that an incident had occurred, that it was being investigated.

Edwards says he got a text in May 2019 from the former head of state police, saying there had been a violent struggle that led to the suspect being unresponsive.

That text did not mention Greene by name.

The governor says it wasn't until more than a year later when he saw the body cam footage that he realized what actually happened to Greene.

He denied having any connection to a state police cover up following the violent death, blasting an AP article that accused him of the wrongdoing to further his political career.

And I know from what's being written and said without any basis, in fact, by the way, that there are implications that I knew more or that one or more of my staff members tried to cover up what happened, I will say that that is simply and categorically false.

Further, I have said that the manner in which Mr. Green was treated that night was criminal.

I cannot imagine.

That had Mr. Green been white, he would have been treated that way.

State police said the 49 year old died from injuries in a crash after leading them on a high speed chase that ended outside Monroe.

An autopsy later revealed that Greene, who was black, died at the hands of officers who were white after allegedly being beaten and tased.

Cocaine use was also noted as a factor.

What happened to Ronald Green was horrific.

That no family should ever have to experience what the green family has experienced and continues to go through.

No mother should ever have to see her son die a violent death before his meeting with media, Greene's mother, Mona Hardin, insisted Edwards should resign immediately.

His address didn't change her mind.

Edwards told me he will reach out to her and the family again.

State Representative Denise Marcelle and the Black Caucus had a long meeting with the governor before that news conference and came away with concerns but still backing Edwards.

The governor responded that the text message was normal to him that he didn't have any cover up.

He wasn't a part of any up.

That was the statement to the caucus.

Were you satisfied with that?

Well, it's not a matter of me being satisfied.

The question was, is that thorough enough for me?

Is that the final answer, not necessarily just in government, but the entire investigation?

Could it have been handled differently?

Should it have been handled differently from the onset?

Edwards says a number of changes have been made this past year at state police, but they have a long way to go.

The state ACP is stunned that arrests of the officers have not yet been made.

You know, Mr. Green was panicked.

He was terrified.

He was letting the officers know that he was scared.

Colin of their brother.

Absolutely heartbreaking and wrong.

And we would all do well as individuals and collectively if we would just acknowledge that.

And that there is implicit bias.

And many, many people and too often there is outright racism.

And we have to do more to identify that.

Early on and separate people from their badges when they're not worthy of wearing one.

And late Thursday, Ronald Green's family and supporters had a virtual statewide news conference they presented and they continued to bash the governor.

We are looking at a governor that is backed into a corner.

When I heard the governor acknowledge or say to the people that he never once admitted or he never once said that Ronald Green died in a car accident, it just confirmed to me that he knew exactly what happened to Ronald Green at the time that it happened because if it were me and I was running a state in the climate in which Ronald Green died in the timeframe in which he was murdered and excuse me, it would have been incumbent upon me, especially as someone who considers myself to be more progressive than my counterparts to speak on the matter.

Another big story of the Capitol concerns how you will vote for the next ten years the battle over redrawing our political maps.

Data from the 2020 Census shows that 56% of people in our state identify as white, more than 31% is black and nearly 7% is Hispanic or Latino.

Yet only one of the state's six U.S. House members is black.

Civil rights groups say it's an unfair and illegal imbalance and should be addressed during this special session that began Tuesday.

The session was called to redraw district lines for Congress.

The Legislature, Bessie and the Public Service Commission ideas about how the new maps should look are pouring out.

Republicans seem mostly in favor of maintaining the status quo, keeping black voters packed in the second Congressional District from New Orleans East to North Baton Rouge.

Many Democrats suggest adjusting to have varying levels of black representation in six districts, all the while black state lawmakers and civil rights groups are keeping watch.

With me now to talk about this three week session at the Legislature, Steven Procopio, the president of PA Public Affairs Research Council, and Steven Barnes, who is a director at the Plinko Public Policy Center at UT Lafayette.

Steve Rickover, you let me ask you first.

What's happening here and why should we care?

And the legislators call themselves into a special session to essentially turn all the census numbers that we have into new maps for the Legislature and Bessie and the Public Service Commission and Congress as well?

This is something that people nationwide have been talking about.

And why should people in Louisiana be care about this?

Be concerned about it?

This is very important.

It's going to set the maps for elections for the next decade.

So every election you're going to vote on from this point on, it will be influenced by this that will determine who you get to vote for and a lot of times what the outcome will be.

So that's for a decade.

Steven Barnes.

This is right up some of the research and policy making and ideas for policy.

You guys would come up with at the Blink Go Public Policy Center.

What will be happening with students who study this now and for years to come?

Well, the process itself is certainly an interesting one to follow to really see how the Legislature will work together.

You know what, what we'll see in terms of work across the aisle and negotiations to try to bring together a real proposal and of course, the role that the governor plays in reviewing that and having a sign off on that.

So yeah, having mentioned that, the climate this week has certainly turned up talking about temperature on the governor and what's been said in the Ronald Greene case, how will that, if at all, have an impact on this?

I'll ask you both and here.

Sure.

In not commenting on specifically what the governor's done or said, the relationship between the governor and the Democrats will be particularly crucial in the Black Caucus because they're going to look to him to see if there's any vetoes that they need to try and promote some plans to permit more minority participation.

So it's going to be very crucial.

And on the other hand, the governor's also needs to set some clear parameters in communication with the Legislature so that things that run more smoothly and he can set the sort of the guidelines of like, I'm going to veto this, but not this right, right?

He admitted that relationships have been strained for quite some time, so that's one thing right there.

I think we know that.

That's right.

I mean, I think we can always expect this process to be contentious.

You know, there are high political stakes at play here.

And so with this blowing up, this week certainly sort of sets the tone for what may be a very challenging road ahead in this process.

You know, we see a lot of maps, a lot of maps come out about this.

It could be in any newspaper.

It seems like how its technology played a role in this.

This is a completely different redistricting process in error because of technology.

You go back 1020 years and they had to use paper or if they had to get big, you know, UNIVAC machines to sort of figure out some of the GIS is a much different world, not just for the consultants, but for citizens.

You can go to dozens of different websites and not only look at what's being proposed and what the current maps are.

You can actually do your own plan, and the Louisiana Legislature will attempt the submissions they actually have on their website from citizens and interest groups have done their own plans and put it online.

It's it's amazing.

So are you saying and I can ask you this too, that they might look at somebody else's idea and sort of adopt it?

I think they already have.

I mean, from what I've seen it looking, some of these proposed maps from interest groups like the NAACP and ACLU, I see similar things being in the proposed legislation from some of the senators that offer for the congressional maps.

So I definitely think it's already had an impact.

And I think that's great for democracy, that people are taking this seriously when citizens have that information and the ability to make that sort of suggestions.

What kind of impact on policy does that have?

Well, the redistricting process absolutely impacts policy.

In fact, as we've thought about what the legislative.

Regular legislative session may look like just after this redistricting session, I think there's been a lot of concern that that the redistricting process itself may make compromise and new solutions a little harder this year.

But this is redrawing the boundaries.

Suits of this process is going to help determine what the makeup of the Legislature looks like and and what some of those particular districts look like will certainly influence the kind of candidates that we see and ultimately who is at the table making policy for years to come.

All right.

I may bring you both back if you will come because we've got three weeks of this and we're just in the first week.

Thanks so much, Steve and Steve.

Absolutely any time.

Thanks for having us.

On November 14th, 1964 brave little girls integrated the New Orleans school system, one of them, you know, well, and that's Ruby Bridges.

She's a civil rights icon famous for desegregating William Frantz Elementary, but there are three more girls who are working towards progress at McDonnell 19.

I sat down with Leona Tate in the classroom, where it all started.

No violence or plenty of vocal abuse.

When you think of a pioneer desegregating the New Orleans school system, Ruby Bridges likely comes to mind.

Federal marshals make sure no harm came to the children or their parents as they entered and left.

But that's not the full story.

Ruby Bridges wasn't the only little girl breaking boundaries in the city of New Orleans.

There were three more.

Adrienne Tessie Prévus and Leona Tate at six years old.

The girls and agreed at McDonough 19 Elementary School on the same day as Ruby Bridges.

Their school was just two miles away from William Frantz Elementary, where Ruby was enrolled.

Most people would think about Ruby Bridges, but here in New Orleans, there was another group of girls that were doing the exact same thing.

And that's you.

six years old.

I had no clue.

I knew I was going to a different school and I had seen the school.

My old school was a one storey building.

So when I saw this building, I say, Well, I'm going to the big school.

Leona Tate hasn't seen this classroom she's sitting in in 61 years when she was six.

The windows were covered with brown paper bags to keep angry protesters from heckling her and the two other black students.

Bookcases were placed over the doors for protection as they integrated the all white McDonagh 19.

When we drove up and it was a mass of people out in the neutral area in front of the school, you know, we turned that corner, you know, and I could see police on horseback just holding the crowd back.

So I knew a parade passed here, and that's what I think was happening.

I knew I thought, I thought it was Mardi Gras.

The integration process was difficult.

Each of the girls had to take a test to prove they were intelligent enough to learn alongside white children.

When each of them passed, the real trouble began.

The girls were faced with a mob of screaming slurs and death threats every morning.

They needed U.S.

Marshals flanking them on either side before they could safely enter the building.

In this picture, Gail Etienne was instructed not to look out the car windows on her way to school, but she was so young she didn't understand the warnings.

We pulled up at the same time we entered the building and asked to take a seat on a bench that was right outside the principal's office, and we sat on that bench practically half the day waiting to be placed in a classroom.

We sat out there so long that gale testing I played hopscotch.

White parents started pulling their children out one by one.

Tate's class was empty after the first week of school.

It was just the three girls and their teacher, Miss Myers McDonagh, 19, will remain empty for the rest of the school year.

I didn't learn about this in school.

I only learned about Ruby Bridges.

Why do you think that happened?

I blame it on.

People don't do their homework.

But that's changing.

The McDonagh 19 building is bringing hate story to the forefront.

The classroom where she sat will be converted into an interactive exhibit that explains what happened here in the front of the building, a brand new marker on the civil rights trail presented by the Louisiana Office of Tourism.

Tate says the feeling of being acknowledged is overwhelming.

This marker is one of nine sites in the civil rights trail being revealed this year.

There are two in Baton Rouge, two in New Orleans, one in Pine Ville, one in Bogalusa, and the last location is in Lafayette.

Dooky Chase's restaurant in New Orleans was the first to be revealed, and the lieutenant governor, Billy Nungesser, has presented each one with a ceremony thus far.

Hurricane Ida is 150 mile per hour, winds destroy Louisiana's coastal cities in the way of life for commercial and sports fishermen alike.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries estimates millions of fish deaths from Hurricane Ida alone.

Robbie Maxwell with the department outlines why that's concerning.

In a sit down interview with me, back to back hurricanes are hurting Louisiana's coast, its damaging infrastructure and the wildlife sustaining coastal economies.

Robbie Maxwell, the inland fisheries technical adviser for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, estimates Hurricane Ida killed 280 million fish, so he had 1.8 million acres of.

Fish kills reported, and almost all of those were within the path of hurricane force winds.

Why is this dangerous to have so many fish killed in one incident?

We have these kind of compounding fish kills following one of these storms that can go on for weeks or we have low oxygen conditions, sometimes up to a month and certain water bodies after a hurricane.

How does that compare to past hurricanes?

Well, this was the strongest storm in recorded history to hit Louisiana tied with the hurt with Hurricane Laura in 2020 and the 1856 hurricane.

And I can tell you, the Hurricane Laura was a very different storm than Hurricane Ida, even though they hit at similar magnitudes.

Hurricane Laura spread fish kills over eight or 9 million acres, where IDA was about 1.8 million acres.

The fish kills in Hurricane Laura from what we saw were a lot more scattered.

We've been having really overactive hurricane seasons for the past couple of years.

Suppose there's another hurricane and it wipes out more fish.

Where does that leave our fishermen and where does that leave our fish populations?

Those sport fish don't live past five years of coastal Louisiana because a tropical system of one type for another generally rolls by and causes some level of fish kill.

Now, if we start seeing this magnitude of it over and over and over with back to back years, we're going to need to rethink what we know about this kind of disturbance, this kind of uncharted territory.

So you told me how long it'll take to recoup the population.

Is there anything else that I should know about the fish deaths, how they affect fishermen, how they could affect us regular folks?

It will take a while for the system to really recover, and they will naturally recover in time if all things remain remain favorable.

It's going to be tough fishing for a while.

And you know, I feel for the commercial fishermen out there who make their living off this that need to.

It's just going to it's going to be tough.

It's something that's been going on in south Louisiana for time immemorial and.

Thankfully, the systems are fairly resilient to it, and hopefully we could figure out a way to go forward and make the best of it.

Areas like Lake More Poor Homa and Lake Pontchartrain, where some of the hardest hit by Ida, you know, last month we told you about our specially choreographed Tik Tok challenge to save Mardi Gras .

We've looked through some of our submissions and we found a group of ladies that did a pretty good job.

Did Hey, Louisiana?

Come on.

They get.

Now.

Come on.

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

You got to get on the same page.

They are the venues one, yes, they got out there and they did that dance perfectly.

Much better than Andre's rendition, if I might add.

Keep reminding me it got a lot of hits, though never let you forget it.

So you can catch this on LTVs tick tock page.

You can learn the moves.

You can listen to the original music.

So just make sure that you tag hash tag, save Mardi Gras 2022, get vaxed and be very good.

And everyone that is our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our website.

You can catch all TV news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Yes, for everyone.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Andre’ Moreau and I'm Kara St. Cyr next time.

That's the state we're in.

Entergy is proud to support programing on LPB and greener practices that preserve Louisiana.

The goal of our environmental and sustainability initiatives really is to ensure that our kids and future generations can be left with a cleaner planet.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Zigler Foundation and the Zigler Art Museum located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.