Newsweek International 6/19-6/26/2020

1966  When activist James Meredith began his March Against Fear on June 5, he intended to walk solo from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, as a way to stand up to American racism and inspire black Americans to register to vote. Newsweek reported that after he was shot and hospitalized on his second day of marching, civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael continued the march on Meredith’s behalf. On June 26, the marchers, now numbering over 15,000, arrived in Jackson. This remains the largest civil rights march in Mississippi history. 1985 On June 14, TWA Flight 847 was hijacked going from Athens to Rome by Arab gunmen, forcing the pilot to fly off course, which began “a terrifying odyssey over the Mediterranean—and a cruel hijack…

I FIRST HEARD ABOUT GEORGE FLOYD THE morning after it happened. A reporter called me, and when I learned the details of how he died, I had an immediate lump in my throat and jolting pain in my heart. It brought me back to July 17, 2014, the day the police put my son, Eric Garner, in a chokehold and ultimately caused his death. Tears rushed to my eyes. It felt like what happened to Eric had happened all over again. It was such an eerie feeling when I found out the young man said, “I can’t breathe,” the same way Eric did. And when I learned why he couldn’t breathe, everything came flooding back to me. The police refused to release George Floyd, pinning a knee into his throat…

I ACQUIRED PALMER’S BAR A couple of years ago. I just celebrated my two-year anniversary as owner, but we’ve been closed since March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I woke up and had a good cry that morning. The bar is still shut down. It’s a very weird time. And then these riots started a few nights ago. It’s heartbreaking. George Floyd was a bouncer at a bar not far from here. I didn’t know him, but I know people that did know him and worked with him over the years. Everyone’s hurting. We all saw that video and had the same reaction. It was heartbreaking. But now with the riots and the looting—though I don’t often discuss race or get political—I felt I had to write a “Black Owned…

I HAVE BEEN A NEW YORK CITY police officer for more than 14 years, and I have lived on this earth for 35 years. I have heard stories about how decades ago, Times Square was a place you didn’t go to. From prostitution, to the drug trade and larceny, crime ran rampant through that area, and most of Manhattan was also dangerous in the ’80s and ’90s. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would see the day that this great city was once again under siege. These past few days in New York have been hard to watch. Years of hard work and dedication from police officers has been erased and set back. My heart hurts seeing the extreme looting and violence. Storefronts have been damaged and…

“We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”—SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MARK ESPER “RACISM IS IGNORANCE. LOVE IS INTELLIGENCE.”—FRENCH SOCCER PLAYER PAUL POGBA “I am the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and was not given even a courtesy call, that they would be clearing [the area] with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop.”—BISHOP MARIANN BUDDE “I am a human, a father and a black man in pain and I am not the only one.” —jay-z “THAT MEANS I GOT WORK TO DO.”—Ella Jones, on being elected the first black mayor of Ferguson, Missouri “Structural racism has been a public-health crisis for much longer than the pandemic has.”—EPIDEMIOLOGIST MAIMUNA MAJUMDER “I WENT DOWN DURING…

HONG KONG’S VICTORIA PARK WAS largely empty that day—unlike last year, and the year before that, and the 28 years before that. Usually on June 4th the park is thronged with crowds commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, perhaps the most infamous single atrocity committed by the Chinese Communist Party since the death of Mao Zedong nearly a half-century ago. Hong Kong and Macau—the two semi-autonomous regions of China—are the only places in the country that have been allowed to mark an event the Party has tried to scrub from the national memory: the killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pro-democracy activists by Chinese soldiers. But this year, for the first time, Hong Kong authorities refused permission for the Victoria Park event. They cited concerns about the coronavirus. For pro-democracy…