🥁 Axios PM: Justice after 125 yrs.

Photos from a 65-year-old Speed Graphic | Wednesday, January 05, 2022

Open in app View in browser   Presented By Walmart   Axios PM By Mike Allen ·Jan 05, 2022 Good afternoon: Today's PM — edited by Justin Green — is 590 words, a 2-minute read.     1 big thing: Justice after 125 years Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendants of the principals in Plessy v. Ferguson, visit a historical marker for the case in New Orleans in 2011. Photo: Bill Haber/AP Homer Plessy has finally been pardoned, 125 years after the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson case. "This is a day that should have never have had to happen," said Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who issued the pardon. The big picture: Back in 1896, Supreme Court Justice John Harlan said the ruling "will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case." Harlan was the only dissenting vote in the 7-1 decision, which entrenched "separate but equal" segregation. 58 years later, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned Plessy v. Ferguson with Brown v. Board of Education. Plessy's crime: Boarding a whites-only rail car in 1892 and refusing to leave, AP notes. The 30-year-old shoemaker was "white enough to gain access to the train and black enough to be arrested for doing so," Keith Weldon Medley wrote in the book "We As Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson." The bottom line: Relatives of Plessy were in attendance at today's pardoning, Axios' Oriana Gonzalez reports. "I'm holding back tears, y'all," said Keith Plessy, a descendant of Homer Plessy. "I feel like my feet are not touching the ground today because the ancestors are carrying me." Go deeper on the case.     2. Merrick Garland's Jan. 6 promise Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP Acknowledging frustration with the pace of the federal investigation of the attack on the Capitol, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a major speech this afternoon: "The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last." Garland said the Justice Department "remains committed to holding all January 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on your democracy." "We understand that there are questions about how long the investigation will take and about what, exactly, we are doing." "Our answer is, and will continue to be, the same answer we would give with respect to any ongoing investigation: As long as it takes, and whatever it takes, for justice to be done." Video of the speech.     A message from Walmart Walmart is creating educational pathways with the NAACP     Walmart is joining forces with the NAACP to offer the Empowering a Better Tomorrow Scholarship to assist in the creation of educational pathways for returning citizens. The scholarship will provide 20 recipients with a $5,000 award for a total of $100,000 in scholarships paid. Learn more.     3. Catch up quick Photo: Matt Rourke/AP Above: Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney gets emotional at a news conference near a row-house fire that left at least 13 people dead — including seven children. Fire officials said four smoke alarms in the building appear not to have been working. Get the latest. Fed officials see forces fueling inflation lasting potentially beyond 2022. That could mean raising interest rates sooner than they had thought, reports Axios chief economic correspondent Neil Irwin. The Grammys have been indefinitely postponed due to Omicron. Sundance canceled its in-person film festival.     4. 📷 Bearing witness: Jan. 6, 2021 Photos: Frank Thorp V/NBC News. Used by kind permission Amid the look-backs for tomorrow's first anniversary of the assault on the Capitol, here's an unusually solemn, memorable collection: Frank Thorp V, a Capitol Hill producer and reporter for NBC News, has a sideline for taking photos with a large-format Speed Graphic camera from the 1950s, like the old-fashioned news cameras you see in the movies. Above (left to right) are the Speed Graphic's view of Capitol Police Lt. Rani Brooks, Officer Anthony Booth and Capt. Carneysha C. Mendoza — photographed by Thorp ahead of the insurrection's 100-day mark. Thorp, who was in NBC's Senate booth when the Capitol was breached, told me: "After a natural disaster, there's no debate about how bad it was for the people involved." "The people who experienced this — particularly the police officers — have to read the news and see politicians saying the attack wasn't that bad." Go deeper: "After the Riot."     A message from Walmart Walmart welcomes leading HBCUs into Live Better U education program     Walmart will add three leading Historically Black Colleges and Universities to its current roster of academic partners. Through Live Better U, nearly 1.5 million eligible U.S. associates can now pursue a degree or learn trade skills without the burden of education debt. Learn more.   Like this email style and format? Bring the strength of Smart Brevity® to your team — more effective communications, powered by Axios HQ.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. If you're interested in advertising, learn more here. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 1300, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? 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