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CNN Live At Daybreak

Remembering Rosa Parks; Aftermath of Hurricane Wilma; Big Shoes to Fill

Aired October 25, 2005 - 05:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Tuesday, October 25. Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks has died. She started out as an Alabama seamstress and became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement. We'll take a look back at her life.
Also, Hurricane Wilma took just seven hours to dash across Florida and definitely made the most of that time.

And he's been tapped for one of the most powerful jobs in the world, but just who is Ben, Ben Bernanke? You'll soon find out.

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you. We'll have more on the death of Rosa Parks in just a minute.

Also ahead, it's getting hot under Dick Cheney. "The New York Times" reporting today that in the CIA leak case all roads lead directly to the vice president.

But first, "Now in the News."

Two roadside bombings in western Baghdad this morning. Both targeting U.S. military convoys. Two Iraqi civilians killed. No casualties among U.S. troops. Also, gunmen attacked an Iraqi police patrol in the same area, wounding five officers.

More pressure on Syria. In about five hours, the U.N. Security Council gets briefed on a probe into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister. Syria is suspected of being involved in Rafik Hariri's assassination.

Indonesia has confirmed two new cases of bird flu in humans. The nation also confirms a fourth death from the virus. It's killed some 60 people across Asia and has now spread to parts of Europe.

To the forecast center. And we're still dealing with Wilma.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Can you believe it? This is still a hurricane.

COSTELLO: Oh.

JERAS: Not just a hurricane, a major hurricane, 115-mile-per- hour winds. But the good news, it is way off the coastline. It is losing some of its tropical characteristics. Eventually this is going to become an extra tropical later on tonight, and the good news also is that it's not going to come together and create that perfect storm scenario that we are talking about.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Thank you, Jacqui.

She helped to change a nation with a simple act of protest. We're remembering Rosa Parks this morning. The civil rights pioneer has died at the age of 92.

CNN's Gary Tuchman looks back at her life and her legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Historians point to the courage Rosa Parks showed as a turning point in the civil rights movement. December 1, 1955, Montgomery, Alabama, a seamstress, Parks was on her way home sitting in the so-called colored section of a crowded bus. Several white passengers got on. But she refused to give up the seat.

ROSA PARKS, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: And the driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us. We didn't move at the beginning, but he said, "You all (INAUDIBLE)." And he says, "Let me have those seats." And when the other three people moved and I didn't...

TUCHMAN: Driving the bus was the same man who ejected her from a bus 12 years earlier. Parks was arrested and fined $14. She recalls, as the officer took her away, she asked, "Why do you push us around?" The officer's response, "I don't know, but the law is the law and you're under arrest."

In protest, a new minister in town organized what would become a 381-day bus boycott. That minister was 26-year-old Martin Luther King Jr.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER: This is a nonviolent protest. We are depending on moral and spiritual forces, using the method of passive resistance.

TUCHMAN: Black people walked, rode taxies and organized carpools. The boycott severely damaged the transit company's finances. It ended when the Supreme Court ruled segregation on public transportation illegal. Parks lost her job at a department store because of her activism.

PARKS: I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind in segregation and being arrested for just wanting to go home and wanting to be comfortable and wanting to be treated as any passenger should.

TUCHMAN: She and her husband left Alabama for Detroit, where she worked for a congressman for more than 20 years. She would remain an important force in the civil rights movement until her death. Parks co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to help young people pursue educational opportunities, get them registered to vote, and work towards racial peace.

PARKS: As long as there is unemployment and while crime, and all the things that go to -- for the infliction of man's inhumanity to man, regardless, that there's much to be done and people of goodwill need to work together.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Thank you.

TUCHMAN: Even into her 80s, she was active on the lecture circuit, speaking to civil rights groups and accepting awards.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow. It's beautiful.

(APPLAUSE)

TUCHMAN: Including Congress' highest order, the Congressional Gold Model, marking that December day more than 40 years ago, when Rosa Parks said no to a bus driver and no to segregation.

Gary Tuchman, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: She looks so nice in retiring, doesn't she, Jacqui?

JERAS: She does.

COSTELLO: But what a courageous acts she did on that bus.

JERAS: Absolutely. And what a way to live your life, too, you know? Stand up for what you believe in, and staying active all through your older years.

COSTELLO: She never stopped. It's been a half-century since Rosa Parks was on that Montgomery bus. But to this day, her lesson is being taught in schools everywhere. Civil rights leaders say Parks forced the nation to recognize the dignity of every person.

But how far has the United States really come when it comes to racism? That's what we're wondering this morning.

Actually, that brings us to our DAYBREAK e-mail "Question of the Day." And Jacqui, I'll let you pose the question to our viewers.

JERAS: All right. Fifty years after Rosa Parks, how much progress has been made in the civil rights movement? E-mail us, DAYBREAK@CNN.com. Let us know what you think.

It seems like it was longer than 50 years ago. It's hard to believe, half a century. COSTELLO: I know, because it's unbelievable that a black person couldn't sit down on the bus wherever they wanted. I mean, it's just unbelievable now to think about that. But, you know, there are more subtle forms of racism going on right now.

But we want to know what you think this morning, DAYBREAK@CNN.com.

Now for the latest of what Hurricane Wilma left behind in Florida. At least six deaths are being blamed on the storm. Most of those deaths were caused by flying or falling debris.

More than three million people were left without power. Power crews from several states are in the area now to help, but officials still say it could take months to fix all the outages.

Low-lying Key West has a flooding problem. Three to five feet of water cover much of the area there. But Key West's mayor says all that water should be pumped out by some time today.

Some of south Florida's airports may see some limited action, too, today. All flights in and out of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach canceled due to Wilma. It could take days to restore full service.

FEMA says hundreds of tractor trailers full of food and water on their way to affected areas. A new CNN "USA-Today"-Gallup poll taken before Wilma hit Florida asked if the federal government was prepared for Hurricane Wilma. Sixty-five percent said yes, 32 percent said no.

Asked what you'd do if you were in the path of a storm, a large number, 88 percent, said evacuation was the way to go. It's unlikely many of those people were from the Florida Keys, where only about 10 percent of the people left their homes.

Places like Miami and Fort Lauderdale expect hurricanes to come in from the east. But Wilma came across from the back side, from the west. So how did those areas fare in the storm?

CNN's David Mattingly took a ride through some of those areas while the winds were still blowing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hours after Wilma crashed Florida's west coast, the hurricane was slashing its way east for a violent exit into the Atlantic. And we hit the road heading north, attempting to rendezvous with the eye of the storm.

(on camera): I can't see too well. I can't feel the road. And the wind has actually got a little more control of the car than we do right now.

(voice-over): Driving through sheets of rain in near whiteout conditions, we made our way up I-95, where outside Boca Raton, we came across a tractor-trailer rig, blown over on its side. The relentless winds almost knocked me over as well. Fortunately, the driver was not there.

As the storm beared down on us, we exited into Boca Raton, headed for the beach. Some streets we found were blocked.

By now, trees, signs and power lines were down everywhere. I made the mistake of rolling down the window for a better look.

(on camera): Oh, man! The window is going back up.

(voice-over): There are occasional gusts of hurricane-strength winds as we reached the beach, but as the eye approached, there was an abrupt calm. Enough of the lull for local residents to run out for a peak at the pounding surf.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some real good waves. Real big. It never gets this big here.

MATTINGLY: But as quickly as the calm arrived, it was gone. Wilma hit the Atlantic with a roar.

(on camera): It hits you almost exactly like a punch in the face! And in textbook fashion, as the eye passes through here, the wall on the backside is definitely stronger than the leading edge.

It's time to get out of here!

(voice-over): Even back on the road, we found Wilma was far from done.

(on camera): The real hazard are these lights.

(voice-over): Heading south, fallen light poles blocked up to five lanes on I-95. Near the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale, streets of entire neighborhoods were flooded.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: That was CNN's David Mattingly reporting. A number of high-rise buildings in and around Miami also had windows blown out, many windows. Flooding is a problem, as we saw in Fort Lauderdale. It's also a problem a little farther south.

Cuba was hit by a serious storm surge from the hurricane. Waves as high as 45 feet broke over Havana's sea wall. Flooding extended well into the downtown areas. Army troops helped rescue some of the people stranded by that high water.

Coming up on DAYBREAK, Wall Street apparently likes him, but what will he mean to your checking account, to your retirement plan? I knew that was coming. Sorry about that. We'll have a full report on President Bush's pick to head the Fed.

Plus, the insurgency in Iraq. Multiple attacks on hotels. The attackers growing bolder. And out from the shadows. He's one of the movers and shakers behind the vice president. We'll bring you some details about Scooter Libby and the CIA leak story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: International markets mixed this morning. Tokyo's Nikkei is up 174 points. The London FTSE is down 11. And the German DAX up 13 points.

In futures trading, let's take a look at oil prices, shall we? Oh, they're down 24 cents, $60 a barrel this morning.

Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:15 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.

She's been called the mother of the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks has died. She was 92. The Alabama seamstress sparked the movement when she was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in 1955.

Fewer than five percent of HIV-positive children get treatment. And the United Nations says that's a global disgrace. U.N. relief agencies are now launching a worldwide campaign to help kids affected by AIDS.

In money news, Cendant plans to split into four companies. Cendant owns well-known brands like Century 21, Orbitz and Days Inn. The CEO says the sum of the parts will be more valuable than the current stock price.

In culture, you'll have to shell out even more to see a top Broadway musical. Ticket prices for shows like "Monty Python's Spamalot," $110. You've got to be kidding. That does not even count the fees some theaters tack on.

No wonder people aren't going to Broadway shows as much.

In sports, USC is no longer number one in college football. The new Bowl Championship Series Rankings put the University of Texas on top. Southern Cal drops to number two. The teams are still on track to meet for the national championship in the Rose Ball -- the Rose Bowl, that is. I was saying it like a Bostonian.

Anyway, that comes your way on January 4 -- Jacqui.

JERAS: I love that parade.

COSTELLO: I do, too.

JERAS: It's like the best one out there that I can think of.

COSTELLO: Better than the Macy's Day Parade?

JERAS: Close call. They're different types of parades.

COSTELLO: True.

JERAS: Balloons versus floats. Big difference. I kind of like the traditional.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Have you ever heard of Ben Bernanke? Well, it might be a good idea to learn what you can about him. The fate of your 401(k) could soon be in his hands.

Bernanke is the man President Bush picked to replace Alan Greenspan at the Federal Reserve.

CNN's Kathleen Hays has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHLEEN HAYS, CNN FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's like Johnny Carson being replaced on "The Tonight Show" by Jay Leno, as Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, a legend on Wall Street, gets ready to step down after 18 years on the job and President Bush nominates his replacement, a highly-regarded former Fed governor named Ben Bernanke.

DIANE SWONK, MESIROW FINANCIAL: His SAT score was 1590 out of 1600, nearly perfect SAT score. I'm not sure if that is testimony to his brilliance, which he is very, very bright, or his good test-taking skills. But the bottom line is this is someone who is very solid in his thought process and has a lot that he brings in terms of that intellectual capability to the Federal Reserve.

HAYS: There's no doubt Bernanke's a really smart guy.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Over the course of a career marked by great accomplishment, Ben has done path-breaking work in the field of monetary policy, taught advanced economics at some of our top universities, and served with distinction on the Fed's board of governors.

HAYS: Mr. Bush tipped his hand in June of this year when he tapped Bernanke to head up the president's Council of Economic Advisers.

(on camera): So what does Bernanke lack? One big thing: real- world experience dealing with financial markets.

(voice over): For now, Wall Street's giving Bernanke the benefit of the doubt. Stocks staged a big rally after the president announced his choice. And the betting is his Senate confirmation will be a slam-dunk, in part because he's expected to follow in Greenspan's footsteps.

BEN BERNANKE, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN NOMINEE: My first priority will be to maintain continuity with the policies and policy strategies established during the Greenspan years. HAYS: In the short run, a Bernanke Fed could mean more interest rate hikes and higher mortgage rates and more expensive car loans on Main Street. In the long run, it could mean a stable economy and healthy financial markets, and fatter 401(k)s for American workers. And that's the sort of thing that could turn Bernanke into another superstar.

WILLIAM DUDLEY, GOLDMAN SACHS: Certainly Alan Greenspan is viewed as sort of equivalent to Johnny Carson, as sort of being an icon in his field. Whether, you know, Ben Bernanke turns into the next Johnny Carson or not remains to be seen.

HAYS: Kathleen Hays, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Still to come on DAYBREAK this morning, Hurricane Wilma pounded Florida. Now the residents there need help. We'll hear from relief workers on the ground with the Red Cross. That's still ahead.

And don't forget our e-mail "Question of the Morning." Fifty years after Rosa Parks, how much progress has been made in the civil rights movement? Have we come far enough?

We want to hear from you this morning. E-mail us at DAYBREAK@CNN.com. That's DAYBREAK@CNN.com.

You're watching DAYBREAK for Thursday, October 25.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Some shocking entertainment headlines for you this morning. Janet Jackson, a mom. Actually, a former in-law says the singer has been a mother for about 18 years.

Young DeBarge told a radio station that his brother James and Jackson had a child during their brief marriage in 1984. He says 18- year-old Renee Jackson is living with Janet's -- one of Janet's older sisters. E! Online reports that a Jackson family attorney calls the story an urban legend.

Janet's brother Michael also making news. Attorneys saying Michael Jackson settled a lawsuit brought by a Los Angeles-area antiques dealer. The dealer claimed Jackson didn't pay for some items he took from the store. The settlement involves no money, but some of the antiques were returned.

The Screen Actors Guild may be getting tough with production companies. SAG fired its national director in a power move by several newly-elected leaders, seen as the first step towards tougher negotiations with producers.

Here's what's all new in the next half-hour of DAYBREAK.

As the CIA leak probe winds down, a new name keeps popping up. And it's a big name.

Also ahead, Wilma sliced across Florida, and she's not done yet. It is still a Category 3 hurricane, racing toward the next target. Just where that is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello.

COSTELLO: And good morning to you. Thank you for waking up with us.

Coming up in the next 30 minutes, coordinated attacks in Iraq target hotels and the journalists who stay there. Our Nic Robertson has that report just ahead.

But first, "Now in the News."

Two roadside bombings in western Baghdad this morning. Both targeting U.S. military convoys. Two Iraqi civilians were killed. No casualties among U.S. troops. Also, gunmen attacked an Iraqi police patrol in the same area, wounding five officers.

It could take several days for some of south Florida's airports to get back to normal. Hurricane Wilma caused the cancellation of nearly 2,000 flights. Limited flights out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale could start up again today.

The main airport in Cancun, Mexico, expected to open up later today as well. Some 20,000 tourists have been stranded there since Wilma came ashore last week.

The Mars Rover Spirit is on the move today after two months at the summit of the so-called Husband Hill. The Rover now moves to another point on the planet. NASA wants Spirit to collect more rock and soil samples from the area they call home plate.

To the forecast center and Jacqui with more on Wilma.

JERAS: Yes, Wilma's still out there and holding tough as a Category 3 storm, but way offshore.

(WEATHER REPORT)

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