On Wednesday, Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed into law two bills passed this year by the West Virginia Legislature that pertain to public schools in West Virginia.
Two bills passed by the West Virginia Legislature earlier this year were signed into law Tuesday, as the governor continues traveling the Mountain State to highlight pieces of legislation taking effect.
Among those is House Bill 2003, which bans students from using smartphones in public school classrooms. Under the bill, county boards of education set specific terms for when and where smartphones can be used, plus penalties for students who violate these policies.
The bill creates some exemptions for phone use related to learning or student-specific needs, but broadly grants teachers the authority to confiscate devices and enforce penalties against students who use their phones during class time.
The bill was introduced to the West Virginia House of Delegates on behalf of Gov. Patrick Morrisey by House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay.
Morrisey traveled to Lincoln Middle School in the Harrison County city of Shinnston Tuesday morning to sign the bill into law.
“We know that the use of personal electronic devices in the classroom increases distractions, academic misconduct and bullying,” Morrisey said. “Overall, it creates a negative learning environment.”
Morrisey also signed into law Senate Bill 280, which requires public schools and state colleges to display the U.S. motto, “In God We Trust,” alongside the U.S. flag in a main building on campus, provided that these materials are funded by “private donations” and not “public funds.”
Lead sponsor Sen. Mike Azinger, R-Wood, has tried for multipleyears to get such a bill passed, but was unable during previous legislative sessions.
Azinger joined Morrisey at the middle school Tuesday and said passing the bill was an act of “perseverance.”
“I just want to give honor to God for this bill, because it tells Americans and our kids… what our U.S. motto is,” Azinger said.
This year, Azinger also sponsored a bill to allow for the display of the Ten Commandments — a series of Christian religious directives outlined in the Bible — in public school classrooms, but it was not taken up for a reading.
Morrisey said Senate Bill 280 will help students “learn that, here in West Virginia, we do value God, family and country.”
Dozens of bills passed by the state legislature this year still await review from the governor. Morrisey has until Wednesday, April 30 to veto bills or sign them into law. After that date, any remaining bills passed by the state legislature will automatically become law.
The Huntington City Council approved a resolution submitted by Mayor Patrick Farrell Monday evening to fund a newly proposed, unique homeless shelter rather than providing funds for the ongoing Huntington City Mission’s low barrier emergency facility.
The plan calls for the city to steer the remainder of funds allocated for this fiscal year, plus another $350,000 for FY 2026, away from the Huntington City Mission’s low barrier emergency facility and toward the new shelter instead.
The new shelter will be housed in a shuttered old West End public works building at 96 West 3rd Avenue. The area is dominated by local businesses with little residency. It will operate as a public-private partnership, led by Valley Health Systems, which will lead construction and equipment work. The resolution allows Huntington to spend no more than $1 million for construction, renovation and equipment for the last-ditch shelter.
Last year the city mission broke ground on a new low barrier shelter. With its loss of city-facilitated staff funding, the end game of that project remains up in the air.
Valley Health Physician Sydnee McElroy said in a recent press conference that the new homeless refuge will eventually provide those in need with much more than an overnight shower, hot meal and change of socks.
“You’re also going to be able to access the absolute best in health care services,’” McElroy said. “Along with behavioral health services, recovery Services, meet with peers who can help you in that next step when you’re ready in your recovery journey. Meet with behavioral health counselors who can help you manage your serious mental illness. Meet with case managers and social workers who can help you meet those next needs when you actually become housed, to keep you from getting evicted.”
McElroy believes a vibrant, shelter-operating partnership will show there is much more the community can do to battle local homelessness.
“I will tell you that a lot of the time, the barriers to members of our community accessing all their needs are things like political barriers, financial barriers, bureaucracy, bias,” she said.
The low barrier shelter funding stems from the city’s share of opioid settlement monies, delivered by the West Virginia First Foundation. The resolution says the city will reimburse Valley Health for its expenses using those funds.
**Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect the results of the council vote.
On this West Virginia Morning, we look at the impacts of efforts to pare down Medicaid eligibility and mine safety oversight on residents of West Virginia.
On this West Virginia Morning, new federal work requirements for Medicaid could impact up to 44,000 of the state’s residents.
But a new analysis suggests that reporting one’s employment under the proposed policy could be prohibitively complicated, limiting access to health care even for some of those with long-term work. Health reporter Emily Rice discussed the policy specifics with health care policy expert Katherine Hempstead.
Plus, 33 field offices of the Mine Safety and Health Administration face closure through the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center compiled and analyzed data from the federal Mine Data Retrieval System on the number of inspections conducted and cumulative hours worked by inspectors at these offices. Tom Martin, an editor with WEKU, spoke with Wes Addington, executive director of the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, in Whitesburg, Ky.
Also in this episode, the most diverse collection of wildflowers at any national park in the United States has bloomed in the Great Smoky Mountains. For the Appalachia Mid-South Newsroom, Jacqui Sieber paid the park a visit to learn more about what makes the season so unique.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University and Marshall University School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Maria Young produced this episode.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
U.S. Rep. Riley Moore’s visit to an El Salvador prison detaining individuals deported from the United States has sparked frustration for some, and now a protest in Martinsburg.
Updated on Thursday, April 24 at 10:21 p.m.
On Thursday morning, roughly 100 people toted picket signs to the Martinsburg office of U.S. Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., staging a protest over the congressman’s recent visit to an El Salvador mega-prison.
Earlier this month, Moore traveled to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in Tecoluca, El Salvador and took photographs outside a jail cell detaining dozens of people. In one photo that drew widespread attention, he gave the camera a double thumbs-up.
Protestors called for an apology from the state’s junior congressman, and urged him to break ranks with other Republicans in the United States Congress on issues like immigration. For them, that means pushing back against efforts led by President Donald Trump they say hurt everyday people, from deportations to federal spending cuts.
I just toured the CECOT prison in El Salvador. This maximum security facility houses the country’s most brutal criminals, including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and terrorists. Several inmates were extremely violent criminals recently deported from the U.S.
CECOT is both massive and restrictive, barring those incarcerated from receiving visitors or going outdoors. Trump sent 238 migrants there in March under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a law used just three times in U.S. history.
The Trump administration has claimed these individuals participated in criminal activities in the U.S., but few are confirmed to have been charged with criminal offenses, let alone convicted.
Among those deported to El Salvador was Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadorian citizen residing in Maryland. Trump officials later said Abrego Garcia was deported under an “administrative error,” but that they lack the ability to bring him back to the U.S.
Moore’s social media post met swift blowback from critics who say it makes light of a human rights issue.
Social activist groups from Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties helped organize the Thursday protest.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Roughly 100 people attended the protest, lining up along a sidewalk outside Moore’s office in Martinsburg.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“It was horrifying. It was absolutely horrifying,” said Carol Caflisch of Morgan County. Caflisch helped organize the protest with her county’s chapter of Indivisible, a national social action network formed in opposition to the Trump administration after the president’s first election in 2016.
“Seeing someone standing in front of [the prison] with a thumbs up sign, I mean, it turned my stomach,” Caflisch continued. “His behavior is despicable.”
Protesters expressed particular concern that those sent to El Salvador did not receive a formal trial in the United States.
“We feel like that is in contradistinction to the Constitution, where everybody is entitled to due process of law,” said Richard Mier, an organizer with Berkeley County’s Indivisible chapter. “You don’t have to be a citizen to be entitled to due process of law.”
From left, protesters Richard Mier, Martha Ehlman, Stewart Acuff and Pam Washington meet with Alonzo Perry, special assistant to U.S. Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Shepherdstown resident Scott Acuff argued Moore’s actions do not reflect the will or needs of his constituents.
“We want him to understand that West Virginians aren’t cruel. We don’t like the idea of putting people in barbaric prisons,” Acuff said. “We hate the idea of somebody who says he represents us going to one of those prisons and endorsing it just for the pleasure of Donald Trump.”
Moore told MetroNews last week he does not regret taking the photos, but did not intend to upset residents. A media representative from Moore’s office declined to comment on this story.
Residents push back
Representatives from multiple West Virginia chapters of Indivisible — plus an activist group called Hope in Alliance (HIA) — helped rally attendees for Thursday’s protest.
Representatives from the Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan County chapters delivered a letter to a staff member at the Martinsburg office outlining their concerns and demands. The organizers demanded Moore issue an apology for the photographs, help negotiate Abrego Garcia’s release and oppose wider efforts to restrict immigration.
“We are all now working together,” said Susan Pipes, a leader of Jefferson County’s Indivisible chapter. “We understand that people sometimes just need a place to be able to voice their opinions and to feel safe.”
U.S. Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., has offices in Washington, D.C., Morgantown and, pictured here, Martinsburg.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Some protestors, like Jon DiMarino with HIA, described the deportations as part of a broader federal effort led by the Trump administration to strip away protections for everyday people.
“They’re actively dismantling our entire system of government, trying to privatize it, killing agencies outright, indiscriminately firing people,” DiMarino said. “All of that motivates me. I live in America. I love my country, and I do not want to see it slip into a dictatorship.”
Caflisch said she and organizers want Moore to host a forum within his district to hear directly from constituents about their concerns regarding immigration and other issues.
“We asked him to attend a town hall in our location, and he has not responded,” Caflisch said. “When we were here last week, we were told by his representative that he couldn’t fit it into his schedule.”
But Caflisch said the social media posts from Moore told a different story.
“On that day, he was in El Salvador,” she continued. “We are very concerned that he had time to go for a photo op [in] El Salvador instead of being here and answering his constituents’ concerns.”
**Editor’s note: A previous version of this article listed the West Virginia Hope in Action Alliance as one of the protest’s organizers. In fact, the protest was co-organized by Hope in Alliance, a separate organization. The article has been corrected to reflect this.
More than 1,000 international students across the country have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since March. Most revocations were because the visa holder’s name was found in a criminal records check.
According to the order entered Wednesday night by Judge Robert C. Chambers in the United States District Court for the Southern District Of West Virginia, the plaintiff Shival Vyas disclosed that he had a previous misdemeanor conviction in the United States when applying for his F-1 visa and “was subjected to additional scrutiny before he was allowed to enter the United States.”
Chambers wrote that the government’s revocation of Vyas’s visa violated due process under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law.”
“Government agencies are generally required to follow their own regulations,” Chambers wrote.
Vyas is weeks away from completing his degree program at Marshall University. The order cites “a loss of academic progress in the absence of immediate relief” as another justification for granting the temporary restraining order.
The federal government now has until tomorrow, April 25 at noon to comply with the court order, which includes the restoration of Vyas’s F-1 visa. A preliminary injunction hearing has been scheduled on May 7, 2025 in Huntington.
Vyas is the only international student at Marshall to have their visa revoked. Earlier this month, West Virginia University confirmed that six students and three alumni had their student visas revoked.
DEI programs aimed to expand opportunity—now they’re facing pushback. On the latest Us & Them, host Trey Kay examines the political and cultural forces challenging diversity, equity and inclusion efforts—and why more than 30 states have considered rolling them back.
For decades, polls have shown most Americans believe equal opportunity in the workplace is beneficial and laws like the 1964 Civil Rights Act worked to achieve that goal. More recently, the effort has included voluntary diversity, equity and inclusion programs – known as DEI.
On this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay looks at changing social and political sentiment that’s prompted efforts to dismantle the nation’s DEI programs. President Trump’s executive orders require government agencies to stop the programs calling them illegal and immoral discrimination. State lawmakers are taking a cue from Washington and so far more than 30 states have considered or are looking at anti-DEI legislation, with half having already passed such laws.
While some people say diversity programs provide positive societal change and are positive for a business’s bottom line, a growing percentage say the efforts are discriminatory practices that can lower employment standards and do not improve productivity or efficiency in the workplace.
This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation and the CRC Foundation.
Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond.
The debate over Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — referred to as DEI — is one of the fiercest fronts in America’s culture wars. These initiatives, rooted in the spirit of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, are meant to ensure fair access and opportunity. Increasing opposition to such programs and initiatives includes executive orders from President Donald Trump as well as dozens of state proposals.
Elliott Hicks is a Charleston lawyer and member of Us & Them’s DEI advisory board. He’s pictured here at an event at the West Virginia University Law School.
Photo Credit: West Virginia Executive Magazine
To explore some of the complexities of DEI, we begin with a look inward at the Us & Them project. Our production team is small and mostly white, made up of a handful of producers—most of whom are women — who write and mix each episode. In the past decade, only one person of color has produced content for the show.
A few years ago, at the suggestion of one of our funders, we created a DEI advisory board including people of color from West Virginia to gain input and feedback from a more diverse range of perspectives. We established a six-member board, all of whom are community leaders with experience serving on corporate, nonprofit and civic boards.
Elliot Hicks, an Us & Them advisory board member, is a longtime attorney based in Charleston, West Virginia, who serves on several boards, including Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Hicks says he joined the Us & Them DEI board because he believes the show is genuinely working to include diverse perspectives on complex issues.
“When you have people of color on boards or in organizations where they haven’t traditionally shown up in large numbers, it helps the thinking process and makes the ideas that come out of those groups more palatable to more people. That’s why it’s to the advantage of the organization to do this and to continue those efforts — and to the advantage of our state. We shouldn’t push that aside just because we don’t have a lot of minorities here.”
Felicia Bush is the owner of a mental health agency and member of Us & Them’s DEI advisory board.
Photo Courtesy of Felicia Bush
Felicia Bush is another member of the Us & Them DEI advisory board, but at first, she was skeptical about joining. As a Black woman, she worried she was being asked to participate just to check a box for a funder — not because of her expertise as a successful business owner.
Bush has seen the power of DEI firsthand including a staff retreat when she led a “privilege walk” for her employees.
The Us & Them team found several examples of privilege walks on YouTube explaining the activity designed to help people understand how opportunity shapes our lives.
“[After the killing of George Floyd, when there was a push for DEI training programs,] people were coming from the outside who had seen [the privilege walk exercises I led], and they were like, ‘We can get that and check that box, because we held a privilege walk.’ So they sought me out to provide it. They even offered to pay me, signed contracts and all of that. And then [after the backlash against DEI programs around 2024], they all backed out — which I thought was very telling.”
— Felicia Bush, MA, MSW, LGSW, founder and CEO of Harmony Mental Health Inc., a nonprofit mental health and social services agency serving nine West Virginia counties.
President Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 20.
One of the orders said, “The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government… Nearly every Federal agency and entity submitted “Equity Action Plans” to detail the ways that furthered DEIs infiltration of the Federal Government. The public release of these plans demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination. That ends today.”
John D. Skrentny, professor of sociology at the University of California San Diego, has written and researched the legal and policy issues related to inequality in work and education.
Photo Courtesy of John Skrentny
Sociologist John Skrentny of the University of California San Diego says efforts to promote workplace diversity in the U.S. have long been shaped by whether Democrats or Republicans hold political power in Washington.
After the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, a new agency — the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) — was tasked with investigating complaints of workplace discrimination. This system would become known as affirmative action, requiring the hiring of underrepresented groups. By the 1980s, enforcement of hiring quotas had fallen out of favor, but many businesses, led by their human resources departments, continued pushing forward.
“They began to make the argument that it’s actually good for business to have more minorities and women in the workforce… Diversity is good for the bottom line.”
— John Skrentny, University of California San Diego
Target store at the Southridge Shopping Center in South Charleston, W.Va.
Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, corporate America rushed to embrace diversity, equity and inclusion.The Target corporation, based in Minneapolis, emerged as a leader — highlighting diversity in its recruiting and suppliers and revamping store layouts. But Target is now one of the major U.S. corporations scaling back or abandoning those DEI initiatives.
Yohuru Williams, professor of history and law at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He also directs the Racial Justice Initiative at St. Thomas.
Photo Credit: University St. Thomas Newsroom
Yohuru Williams, a history and law professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, says fear of backlash is motivating corporate decisions to end DEI initiatives.
“I think there was a moment when Target legitimately could talk about being a leader. People were making deliberate decisions to shop at Target. The company was having an impact in the community. They were recruiting from some of the best universities in the country — also from historically Black colleges and universities — bringing in incredible talent who wanted to work for Target because the company embraced diversity as part of its core identity…
But in the aftermath of Trump’s executive orders and Target’s announcement, there was real fear that all of that would go away. The community had a visceral reaction. People were saying, ‘You made this promise, we made this progress together — so if you walk away from this work, where does that leave us?’”
— Yohuru Williams, professor of history and law and director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota
President Donald Trump supported Patrick Morrisey in his successful campaign and election as Governor of West Virginia.
Photo Credit: Patrick Morrisey Campaign
Soon after winning the 2024 election, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey made his intentions clear. In a Facebook post, he wrote: “I will work very hard to implement the Trump agenda right here in West Virginia. Are you ready for a governor who will be fighting to help Trump?”
One of Gov. Morrisey’s first official acts was to sign an executive order eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion across state government. The order applied to public and charter schools, colleges and universities, state agencies, boards and departments.
Just weeks later, West Virginia University — the state’s largest university and employer — announced it would immediately close its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
“Here in West Virginia, we’re going to do the right thing, and we’re going to make sure that West Virginia always stands for freedom, the rule of law and the American ideal. We’re going to keep going — this is just the beginning of our effort to root out DEI. That’s going to happen more and more in the weeks and months ahead.”
— West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey, in a video post praising West Virginia University for its decision to end its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
West Virginia State Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, argued in the 2025 legislative session that diversity, equity and inclusion programs make it harder for marginalized communities to move forward.
Photo Credit: WV Legislative Photography
West Virginia State Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, one of five women in the Senate, is a vocal opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Rucker, who immigrated to the U.S. from Venezuela at age 6, says the push for DEI offends her as a minority.
“I think, in general, people consider diversity a good thing, inclusion a good thing, equity a good thing. Those are all descriptions that are favorable in anyone’s minds, if you just say them in isolation. The real concern and problem is a push using the guise of DEI of those words to really, actually, I think, do reverse discrimination. And as a minority myself. I can tell you, I’m offended. The whole entire DEI push that we have done in this country offends me personally. It is telling me I need help, and that unless someone lowers the standards for me, I can’t get to the same place. And that’s offensive.”
— West Virginia State Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson
Del. Anitra Hamilton, D-Monongalia, the only Black woman in the West Virginia Legislature, speaks at a town hall meeting in Charleston addressing a bill to eliminate DEI initiatives in state institutions.
Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
As West Virginia lawmakers advanced a bill to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts across state institutions, Del. Anitra Hamilton raised concerns during a House Education Committee hearing.
Hamilton, one of the few Black lawmakers in the state Legislature, joined others — both Black and white — in questioning the bill’s necessity in a predominantly white state. Critics, including Hamilton, pointed to the proposal’s vague language and warned it could mislabel legitimate inclusion efforts as discriminatory.
In the final hours of the 2025 legislative session, the Republican-majority state legislature voted to pass the measure to end DEI initiatives statewide. Following the vote, the West Virginia Democratic Party criticized Senate Republican leaders for suspending Senate rules to achieve the vote.
“I think this is a poor piece of legislation that is written to divide us. I think that any time you write legislation and put in policies that’s based on the feelings of people, it will always land you in trouble, because feelings are subjective. At the end of the day, this bill is divisive. There is no need for it. Some of the ghosts of our past we keep alive because we won’t deal with issues. DEI, we don’t have this problem in West Virginia. We create these problems. And when we do have the problems, we won’t stand for what’s right. Today I’m standing and I’m gonna be on the right side of history because it matters. It’s offensive. It’s offensive to me. It’s offensive to my ancestors. My great great grandfather was a slave. That’s how my family got here. But no one else has that testimony here. DEI matters. At some point, West Virginia has to move beyond this. And why we got to have this legislation coming from the governor’s office, I do not know. I’m against it. I will always be against it, vote your pleasure. It’s a no for me.”
— Del. Anitra Hamilton, D-Monongalia
Rev. Matthew Watts, pastor of the Grace Bible Church in Charleston, W.Va.
Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Rev. Matthew Watts, a longtime activist and pastor of Grace Bible Church in Charleston, West Virginia, has been a vocal critic of Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s bill to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across state institutions.
“He produced no data, no information, no statistics, no witnesses. He didn’t tell any anecdotal stories as to why diversity, equity and inclusion is a problem.
“We’re not just going to roll over and say, ‘OK, all is lost. We can’t do anything. We’re back in slavery. We no longer have the right to vote. We don’t have the right to speak. We no longer have our constitutional rights.’ No — we’re going to push back.
“I can only say, I live in West Virginia. It doesn’t apply here. It’s dangerous here. It’s divisive here. It would be destructive here. It would hurt this state. And I believe if you give people truth, facts and information, the people in the state of West Virginia will see through this.”
— Rev. Matthew Watts, senior pastor of Grace Bible Church, Charleston, W.Va.
Karen Williams, a part of the local NAACP’s political action committee helped organize the town hall meeting to bring the community together to form a plan to stop West Virginia’s Anti-DEI bill from passing.
Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Karen Williams greeted a group of Black and white West Virginians at a town hall meeting at Grace Bible Church, held on the 57th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“So we gather here today because the question is: Will the destruction of diversity, equity and inclusion kill the dream? We cannot be silent anymore. We have to have a response when they talk about erasing history, when they don’t even understand the definition of DEI — and we have to get that clear.
“We’re going to clarify that, because it’s not just a Black face. You have women who have benefited from DEI more than anyone. You have people with disabilities, you have veterans, you have all of these groups. But when they talk about DEI, they’re talking about doing away with our history.”
— Karen Williams, a member of the Charleston, W.Va., NAACP’s political action committee
Rev. Marlon Collins of Shiloh Baptist Church speaks at a town hall meeting against legislative efforts to ban nearly all DEI initiatives.
Photo Credit: Trey Kay/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Rev. Marlon Collins of Shiloh Baptist Church voiced urgent concern at a town hall meeting over West Virginia’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“Can we get done with all the sanitized talk now? We can come up with plans and all that, and that’s cool. But we’re dealing with racists. There’s no reasoning with these people.
“They are right in front of our doggone face — executive orders to take Black history out of the Smithsonian, not even under the table. And we still don’t have a plan.
“All the people who are Black — my mother’s age, my father’s age — and all the white people who marched with them and got sprayed, they’re going to vote. But who we need are the people who have new ideas, who have new energy. It ain’t that ‘We Shall Overcome’ energy. It’s that ‘We kickin’ the hell out of the door in’ energy.”
