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Funeral For Slain New York City Cop Today; Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Iggy Azalea, And Katy Perry Top Music Charts In 2014; North Korean Government Furious With President Obama After "The Interview" Is Released; Michael Sam Told Oprah Winfrey Some Gay NFL Players Have Privately Reached Out To Him; A Life Journey Of Don Lemon

Aired December 27, 2014 - 18:00   ET

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

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm OK with having all different people that are welfare recipients getting this. But they're asking for help. And that's why there is an issue.

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR/LEGAL ANALYST: But drugs, it is all households. There is a heroine epidemic. In fact, in Massachusetts, the number one killer of Massachusetts residents, 25 and under, is opium overdose. Because of the heroine epidemic brought on by oxycontin.

This is not just a problem limited to people on public assistance. And while I love the idea of getting people the help they need, this is not a program that is designed to do that. It's designed to take benefits away from people who are testing positive.

FERGUSON: Not if you go to treatment.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: Guys, thanks for being here. Got to go. Top of the hour, 6:00. Got to reset with our top stories here.

Mel, Ben, good to have you on the program as always. Have a great weekend.

FERGUSON: Thanks for having us.

HARLOW: Hi there, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Poppy Harlow. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM coming to you live this evening from New York City. That is where our top story also takes place.

Tears and solidarity as some 25,000 police officers from across this nation also from Canada say goodbye to one of their own. One week ago today, Officer Rafael Ramos and his partner, Wenjian Liu, were ambushed, gunned down, assassinated, while sitting in their patrol car. Today, their brothers in blue mourned them at a funeral service.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CHOIR SINGING)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm sure I speak for the whole nation when I say to you that our hearts ache for you. But I do hope you take some solace in the fact that over 25,000 -- 25,000 members of the same fraternity and sorority as your husband who stand and will stand with you the rest of your life.

Your husband and his partner, they were a part of New York's finest. And that's not an idle phrase. This probably the finest police department in the world. The finest police departments in the world.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Nothing will ever defeat or divide our New York family. 9/11 couldn't do it. The lives of Officer Ramos and Liu proved the dedication to it. And with a name of police Officer Ramos, from now forth, let us bow our heads, wish him and his family peace, and remember the principles he died for. To the Ramos family, I say we thank you, and we honor you.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: Our hearts are aching today, feel it physically. We feel it deeply. New York City has lost a hero. I extend my condolences to another family, the family of the NYPD that is hurting so deeply right now.

WILLIAM BRATTON, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY POLICE: We'll heal this department. We'll heal as a city. We'll heal as a country. And wouldn't that be the ultimate, the ultimate honor for Officers Ramos and Liu.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: What a day it was. Remarkable to see in this city.

With me here in New York, Juan Carlo Rodriguez, he is the president of the 75th precinct community council. Also joining me Tony Herbert, community activist in Brooklyn and Dr. Jeff Gardere, psychologist. Thank you all for being here.

Let me begin with you, Juan Carlo. You were there, you know the family, you lived on the same block as them. Tell me what it was like today.

JUAN CARLO RODRIGUEZ, PRESIDENT, 75TH PRECINCT COMMUNITY COUNCIL: It was beautiful. It was beautiful to see that all the officers, not only for the city of New York, but from the whole country, was there to show support, not only to the wife and the kids, but also to their fellow brothers in the city of New York, which is the officers in the community, as well.

HARLOW: There was this moment that stood out to a lot of us when the flag from his casket was handed to his wife, and the two sons. What do you hope people will remember most about Officer Ramos?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, as far as the community wise, I can speak about as neighbors.

HARLOW: Yes.

RODRIGUEZ: You know, he was a good father. He was a good husband. And he was always up and down the block with his kids going either to the supermarket or to do the laundry and very quiet and humble man. HARLOW: And you said his father wasn't around for him.

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, his father died.

HARLOW: And he wanted to be there for his son.

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, he definitely -- he was there for his sons. And so his life was taken aw away -- it's very sad the way this all happened. You know, it is very upsetting.

HARLOW: And his father passed away young, you said?

RODRIGUEZ: His father passed away when he was a young kid as well.

HARLOW: Tony, you work as an advocate, so really working between the police and the community in Brooklyn where these officers were assassinated. What do you think can be done to most honor the memory of these officers?

TONY HERBERT, BROOKLYN COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: I think there has to be -- the mayor's office, along with the police department, reaching out to a number of community leaders and get us all at a table so we can have dialogue to stop this degradation of craziness that's been existing for decades. This is not something that just happened yesterday. This has been a massive buildup of frustration amongst community and police, and we -- what we have never done was actually cut through it, and get to the table so we can have the right dialogue to change that dynamic.

HARLOW: And to you, Jeff, when it comes to the family, right, this is a family thrown in the spotlight. They don't want to be in the spotlight, right? For them, the healing process moving for those young boys, maybe we can show the images of the two, the two, one college age, one younger. These two boys have their entire life ahead of them and their father not there for them. But as the vice president, Joe Biden said today, what they cannot take away is those memories.

DR. JEFF GARDERE, PSYCHOLOGIST: That's right. And even though Officer Ramos' father was not in his life because he died at a young age, officer Ramos was there for his children. And those memories will be very strong. He was known, Juan will tell you this, he was known for knowing a little bit of everything, being a very peaceful man, and therefore, he was an incredible role model to his two sons. And people have stepped up. People have said, we're going to give his older son a scholarship so he can finish up at Bodine University.

HARLOW: Yes.

GARDERE: But most importantly, and this is what is key here, you asked, what can we do? Let Ramos and Liu be a catalyst towards peace. That's what we need between the community and the police. And let's not be mistaken here. It wasn't just the law enforcement family that was mourning these two individuals, especially Ramos in this particular case. Well, now, it was the entire country. It was all of New York. So you can say, yes, we want police officers to do better. But it doesn't mean we're anti-police. We mourn these two individuals.

HARLOW: And we heard NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton saying today in his in his lovely remarks to heal a city could be the greatest honor to these two officers. I was getting on the train to come into work this morning in Brooklyn and I saw an officer standing there. And I looked at him and I smiled. And I sort of got on the train and I wish I had gone up and say hi and thank you. Do you think we need to do more than that?

HERBERT: We encourage that. I do it often. I tell my young kids. I work with an organization that talks to over 600 kids every other week. And we encourage them to do that, you know, for the most part, because the police are not our enemy. It is the system that is creating the atmosphere that needs to be corrected.

HARLOW: What do you mean? What do you mean the system? What needs -- this is a system that allows free speech, that allows the massive protests we saw here in New York City. Look, the police were the ones who helped facilitate the protest. What do you mean the system?

HERBERT: The system is New York City, again, and we said when we were out with the family. The system is a corporation. New York City is a corporation. It is all about the dollar. And what they do is push our officers out there to get in our face. And what I need to make them do their jobs so they can write this summons, write these tickets and what have you.

HARLOW: So do you think there is code, that there should have been there quotes (ph).

HERBERT: There has been quotas and some police officers have told me that. And realistically on what have you, the pressures on them. So naturally if it's on them, they're going to put it on those that they need to get that quota from, and it turn around and create that agitation. So they're placed out there for these kinds of problems.

HARLOW: Juan Carlo, in the previous hour, we had former NYPD detective Harry Houck on. And he said, one thing we need is more money that police department, look, we know all cities are strapped so we're not going to get into the political debate about more money for anything. But what I am saying is that he says that more officers can be on the beat, meaning in the same neighborhood, all the time, getting to know the community and the community getting to know them. And as someone who works between police and the community, is that an answer?

RODRIGUEZ: It's very important. It plays a very important role to have a police officer, you know, work a certain beat in his community, to get to know, because you have officers that do come from other precincts and work in our precinct. Then officers that are being switched around and they don't get time to meet that store owner, the guy who is taking out the garbage from that particular house. And that's what you need, that type of officer.

But most importantly, you need leadership. You need leadership from the mayor's office. Once again, no one has sat down with none of the presidents from any precinct since this man has come into office. And we are placed there to be that --

HARLOW: Have you guys reached out to him?

RODRIGUEZ: I've reached out to his office, looking for his office and nothing. Nothing has been done. So that's the failure right there. How do you want to move forward to have community and police together as one, and to make a better city for all of us to live in, when they're failing from the top.

GARDERE: But Poppy, at the same time, they shouldn't have turned their backs on the mayor in that way. That was disrespectful at the funeral to the people who are mourning too. Two wrongs don't make a right. And so we must dialogue.

HARLOW: All right, we got to get a quick break. Gentlemen, stay with me. We're going to talk about exactly this coming up, because the motto of many police departments is summed up in four words, to protect and to serve.

Right now, though, there are a lot of hard feelings between some communities and their police. What can bridge the gap? That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Today, a day in New York city that was set aside to mourn the two police officers done down in their patrol car one week ago today. We laid today Officer Rafael Ramos to rest. His partner, Wenjian Liu, will also laid to rest in the coming days.

After the burials, then will come the efforts to heal as a city, as communities, and more.

Let's bring back in Juan Carlo Rodriguez, also Tony Herbert and psychologist Jeff Gardere.

So Jeff, to you, that is a tall order to heal what has been a fractured relationship in this city between some officers, some communities, and the mayor, Mayor Bill de Blasio. What needs to happen? What can be done? Because this is a great city, our city, that we have seen overcome insurmountable odds.

GARDERE: Absolutely. But I think even though this sounds strange, we must keep the momentum going as far as the grief and the open hearts that we have to realize that we're not dealing with stick figures here. We're not dealing with an angry community and bad cops. We're dealing with human beings. And these two deaths, these slaughters, have opened up our hearts as to the difficulty that officers have being on the beat. How tough this job is, and how we really do need to talk to one another and have dialogue.

We've got to get Pat Lynch to be able to talk to Mayor de Blasio. They have to stand side by side, no matter the differences and not get into the rhetoric we hear sometimes from the PBA, for example. Not to just point fingers at them, because that doesn't solve anything.

HARLOW: The police Benevolence Association, who said that the mayor has blood on his hands after the death of these two officers.

GARDERE: Which I totally understand as a psychologist, you're very emotional, turning your back to the mayor. That's very emotional. But for now, it's not the thing to do. To honor these fallen police officers, we must now have dialogue to see how we all can do better, because we all need one another, the community and the police officers.

HARLOW: No doubt about it.

Juan Carlo, you know, not only do you work with the community and police officers, right, in Brooklyn, but you know the Ramos family. You lived on the same block as them. What do you think Officer Rafael Ramos would have wanted?

RODRIGUEZ: He wants peace in his community. Definitely, he wouldn't want this, what's going on now, with all of these problems with the community and police.

HARLOW: You've said you're disappointed in the mayor, right?

RODRIGUEZ: I'm disappointed, yes. I'm disappointed with the mayor.

HARLOW: What would he want from the mayor and that conversation?

RODRIGUEZ: What would he want from the mayor? What would I assume what he would want? He wants a better relationship with the community and the police department and also clergy. Because that's what -- that was his dream, to become a clergyman. He was supposed to, a week from now, become a clergy member through the police department.

HARLOW: And he was named an honorary one by the NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton today as the 84th precinct.

GARDERE: That's right.

RODRIGUEZ: So those were his wishes. And I know that I'm going to try my best to go forward, and continue to try to reach that gap between community and police.

HARLOW: Tony, it's very upsetting to see even in the wake of the murder of these two officers threats, dozens of threats against NYPD officers in the days that have followed. Nine arrests being made of people on the phone, threatening them. Juan using -- making a gun gesture with their hand towards an officer. Where do we go from here when things like that are happening?

HERBERT: Well, one, it can't be tolerated. Just as though we don't tolerate black on black crime. We cannot facilitate or tolerate crime where they would commit against those that serve us in the community. I understand the frustration. But that's not the route for us to be traveling. At the end of the day, these officers, we need them on the streets. We still need them to be out there dealing with crime. So to turn around and use that as a tactic, to express yourself, you should go to jail. GARDERE: And I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that

Brinsley, the person who committed these slaughters, this person was mentally unstable.

HARLOW: I'm glad you bring that up, because a number of people have said -- I've heard them saying to me, it's not fair to compare the actions he took to channeling the anger of many of the protesters because this is someone who was unstable.

GARDERE: That's right. And basically, what he did, this was a person who lived a life of chaos and despite his craziness, actually wanted to leave chaos behind. And therefore, took on a cause of these protesters. And many protesters, almost as many protesters as I know, none of them want to hurt the police.

These are people who are pro-police, but they also feel that police brutality is real, and we know it's real. And that's why we all have to come together and figure out how to solve this problem. But don't let the actions of this person who is mentally unstable dictate where we go at this point between us, the community and police.

HARLOW: Very good point. Gentlemen, thank you for being with me. I appreciate it very much. Good to have you on the program. Jeff Gardere, Tony Herbert and also Juan Carlo Rodriguez.

Quick break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Michael Sam, you know that name. The first openly gay man to play in an NFL game, told Oprah Winfrey this week, a few gay players in the NFL have reached out to him, saying they wish they had the courage to come out. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OPRAH WINFREY, TV PERSONALITY: Have other gay players in the NFL called you or contacted you?

MICHAEL SAM, NFL PLAYER: A very few reached out to me.

WINFREY: Very few meaning one, two, three, five?

SAM: Very few.

WINFREY: OK.

SAM: Reached out to me. And pretty much just told me the gratitude and how they were thankful I had the courage to, you know -- they wish they had the courage to come out.

WINFREY: Gay men in the NFL.

SAM: Gay men in the NFL.

WINFREY: Reached out to you and called you. SAM: Reached out to me, yes. And just showed their respect and

showed that -- and admired my courage. And it was very -- it was very good.

WINFREY: And you are using the plural, men, not man.

SAM: Men.

WINFREY: Men.

SAM: There's a lot of us out there. I'm not the only one. I'm just the only one who is open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: As you know, Michael Sam was drafted this year by the St. Louis Rams. He was cut after the preseason.

Earlier this evening, I asked CNN.com sports contributor, Terrence Moore, for his reaction. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRENCE MOORE, CNN.COM SPORTS CONTRIBUTOR: Whether you talk about gay players, or any kind of player or anything you want to assign to anybody, all these people, everybody is different. People have got different mind-sets. People have got different ways that they can tolerate criticism or success or what have you. So you really can't put a -- some kind of label on it and say that this person should do this and that person should do that.

Michael Sam was uniquely built for this moment. Just like a lot of people don't like this comparison, and I don't really like to compare this to maybe a racial thing. But look at Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson was uniquely prepared for that moment. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That thing is Terrence Moore, thank you to him.

Coming up next on the program, these words -- arrogant and gangster- like, two of the words chosen by North Korea to describe the U.S. after the release of the controversial film "the Interview." So is the president reacting? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Well, the North Korean government furious at President Obama, following the release of that movie "the Interview," which was widely seen since its release Christmas day. Here is part of the statement release today from Pyongyang.

Quote "U.S. President Obama is the chief culprit who forced the Sony Pictures Entertainment to indiscriminately distribute the movie and took the lead in appeasing and blackmailing cinema houses and theaters in the U.S., mainland, to distribute the movie."

Our Michelle Kosinski is in Hawaii where the first family is on holiday vacation.

I wonder, Michelle, after North Korea and the statement calling the president arrogant and a gangster, is the White House even acknowledging it?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. They're not making any response this time. I mean, this kind of odd back and forth started last week when first the U.S. put out a statement blaming North Korea. North Korea said we didn't do it. The U.S. needs to apologize. The U.S. said that North Korea needs to apologize. So clearly, the U.S. got to a point where the administration didn't want to keep going that route. And then finally said, you know, we're not going to respond to everything North Korea says. We're not going to get into that kind of tit for tat.

But after putting this out, I mean, at one point in this letter that just spews venom and attacks and threats against the U.S., calling President Obama a -- like a monkey in the jungle, it's really unbelievable. It makes you just think how could this have come from a state, from another government, that claims to be, you know, a player on the international stage, and that the U.S. should be working with in trying to get to the bottom of who hacked Sony. You just have to look at it in disbelief. And a kind of you would be surprised, to be honest, to see the administration respond to something like that, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes. I do wonder, Michelle, because there are some tech experts, hacking experts, even in this country, joining the notion that perhaps North Korea wasn't responsible for this. Even though the FBI came out and said, look, the evidence is that it's North Korea. Is there any indication the administration is going to respond to that and say, put out any of that evidence or are they just saying this is what it is?

KOSINSKI: No. And they're not really getting into the nitty-gritty of their evidence versus what other people are speculating about it. And it's interesting. When you look at what the FBI put out a couple days ago, detailing in three categories why they think this was definitively North Korea, they point to things like similarities and lines of codes to other past attacks known to come from North Korea. Things like the same IP addresses in North Korea were communicating with other IP addresses connected to this attack and so on. And it seems like pretty strong evidence.

But then you have other experts. I mean, these are people who really know about such hacking attacks, saying, well, hey, that code has been out there for a while. Surely, other hackers could have co opted it, and done a similar attack. And they point to other possible culprits, like maybe even former disgruntled employees of Sony.

It really gets to be fascinating. But it doesn't seem like there is anything that anyone can really nail down to say, you know, this wasn't North Korea. And the FBI has said what it said and the administration is standing that, Poppy.

HARLOW: Alright, Michelle Kosinski reporting live for us, from where the first family is on vacation in Hawaii. And Michelle, thank you.

Coming up next on the program, this year's hit music scene was all about the ladies. Taylor and Beyonce and Iggy and Katie, we'll talk about the women killing it on the charts with "Rolling Stone" and Spotify. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

HARLOW: I cannot help, resist dancing, even here at the anchor desk when I hear that song. It is one of a number of fantastic songs by female artists this year -- Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Iggy Azalea, and Katy Perry. What a year it has been. These ladies killed it when it came to topping the music charts in 2014, with combined sales that eclipsed this fall county's yearly GDP.

The year in music is all about girl power. Looking at the top five money makers in the words of Annie Lenox, sisters are doing it for themselves. And it's not only about the money, but creative control.

Let's talk about this with "Rolling Stone" magazine contributing editor, Anthony DeCurtis and also from Spotify, my very good friend, Shannon Cook. Thank you for being here. Good to see you again.

HANNON COOK, SPOTIFY: Likewise.

HARLOW: So let's start with this, Anthony. Why such a banner year for these ladies?

ANTHONY DECURTIS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, ROLLING STONE: Well, it's interesting. I mean, I think during any moment when pop music itself is really kind of at the forefront as opposed to, like, kind of tougher, like sort of harder forms, women come to floor. I mean, they do very well in pop context. And I think there is also kind of a sense of energy attracting energy. I mean, someone like Beyonce, I think, or Taylor Swift that does so well, and that just pulls more women up after them.

COOK: I think they're also really savvy on social media. I think that's really helping. A lot of artists you mentioned --

HARLOW: I thought it was Taylor, it's amazing how she promotes her albums, on Instagram.

COOK: Right. Most ladies you mentioned have twitter followers in the tens of millions. And they're very entertaining and engaging with how they engage with their fans on social media.

HARLOW: Do you think, Shannon, also it is about, you know, independence and creative control, right? We saw Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify. That was her decision. Others have not done that. But also we have seen this billion-dollar lawsuit against You Tube by some artists saying pull our music down. Hasn't this also really been a year of artist independence and making statements? COOK: Absolutely. And that just doesn't go for female artists, all

artists across the board there. The music business is changing so rapidly. And it's kind of murky. And artists are breaking on You Tube. We're finding that artists are now breaking on Spotify. This year we saw that with Hosier, last year we saw it with Lorde. So I think artists are not being shy about taking the reins and taking control and experimenting trying different things.

HARLOW: So to that point, Anthony, I like your take on how you think its working and also if you think about these unconventional ways, right. You Tube, for example, prime example, the release of song of innocence as an automatic iTunes download. Hit or miss, are they finding its working?

DECURTIS: Well, I think it was the kind of thing that you file under it sounded like a good idea at the time. But they ran into a wall, I think, and a lot of people have a sense of what the limits of technology are in a certain way. Or what the kind of possible drawbacks to technology are. And people felt it was intrusive, you know, even though it was given --

HARLOW: Because we all got it automatically.

DECURTIS: Yes, exactly. Like I don't want it, like, why do they have this, why am I getting it, and you know, you would think giving your album away would be a good thing, but you know, it really did backfire against them.

HARLOW: Shannon, looking ahead to 2015, who are you keeping an eye on? I mean, because I feel like Taylor Swift cannot go anywhere but up. But who else are you keeping an eye on?

COOK: Right. We're keeping an eye on several artists, one of them is from the UK. We really think this guy is going to do well. His name is James Bay. He is a soulful singer/songwriter. He has a song out at the moment on Spotify are already gravitating towards. It's called "Let It Go" but not could be confused with the "Frozen" song. It is quite different.

There is also a female pop singer from San Diego called (INAUDIBLE) who we've got our eyes on. And there is a rap artist from Atlanta whose name is Rory. He is 18 years old. And he's interesting because he sings and raps. He kind of sings as well as he rap.

HARLOW: Well, people often like those collaborations between singers and rappers.

COOK: And he -- he's a collaboration within himself.

HARLOW: Anthony, let me ask you and Shannon, feel free to jump in, right. I mean, we did see the big controversy with Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify. What do you think the music distribution systems, like Spotify, like Pandora, et cetera? Google has come out with their own. I think music key. What challenges do they face going into 2015? DECURTIS: I think they face the challenge of artists -- artists are

upset. I mean, there is a sense of, you know -- I don't know what exactly can be done about that. But, you know, they have a sense of, you know, in a way many of them, how things used to work. And there's a new environment that's taking shape. And the new -- you know, companies that are trying to create that future also have to apiece these artists. And I think that struggle is going to be ongoing.

HARLOW: I was going to say, does the model have to change a bit? The Spotify model, the Pandora model, et cetera, to keep the artists on board? Because without the artists there is no --

DECURTIS: Well, where are they going to go? I mean, that's the other question.

HARLOW: You mean, the CD -- someone gave me a CD the other way, by the way. I don't know where to play it.

COOK: Right. I know. And I don't have a CD player either. But, you know, I think there is a lot of misinformation out there. And one of the keys is communication. There needs to be a lot of communication between the artists, between their artists and their managers and artists and record labels and also communication with services like Spotify.

You know, Spotify, we like to think we're pretty transparent about how our model works. And you can read on our Web site a very detailed breakdown of where the funds go. Where we -- since 2008, since we launched, we have paid $2 billion back to rights holders. So we're satisfied that we're doing our part to invigorate the music business.

HARLOW: But the conversation needs to happen more among artists.

COOK: It does.

HARLOW: And platforms.

COOK: Keep it open.

HARLOW: It's going to be fascinating to watch.

DECURTIS: And it is still evolving for sure.

HARLOW: Still evolving, go ladies, what a year, 2014 has been.

Guys, thank you. Happy New Year.

DECURTIS: Happy new year to you as well.

HARLOW: All right, coming up here on the program, one CNN anchor finds out why he maybe shouldn't quit his day job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you cut a long time ago, they would fire you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Take a trip around the world with our very own Don Lemon, as he goes on his search to find his roots. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The holiday season gives us all a chance to spend time, hopefully, with our family and our friends. So we wanted to showcase to show you one of our favorite anchor's journeys to find out a lot more about his family. Don Lemon set off to find his roots. It's a journey that begins in his hometown of Port Allen, Louisiana.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: So one of the favorite questions I like to ask my guests is who do you think you are? So now I'm getting to answer that question.

Growing up in Port Allen, here it is. I grew up in the country and I loved it. This little Brown curly haired kid with big teeth and big ears and who grew into his look.

What am I doing? Are you rolling?

I left Louisiana in my 20s and never really looked back. Now I'm going home to find my roots to learn more about my family tree, the people who are so much a part of who I am today.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on over here.

LEMON: I don't want to see you all. I just want to eat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on, come on come on.

LEMON: Hey, mother.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi!

LEMON: I think I still owe them something.

I spent so many years chasing a dream and chasing a career and missing birthday parties and anniversaries and graduations and babies being born and all those things. And because of this, I have had to reconnect more with my family and talk with my family and what's better than that?

May father, Wilmon, died when I was nine. So I was raised by my mom, Katherine, who worked and by her mom, my grandmother, Mary Henrietta.

My mom is my best friend now. My grandmother was my best friend and she was my buddy. I can't wait to find out more about her because I think she's the lynch pen. You know, I think about her all the time. I even have dreams about her like we are in a communications like she is still alive and then I wake up. And she's not there anymore. And I remember that she's not there. She made me who I am. She is the one who instilled pride in me. I don't know much about who came before my grandmother. She did tell

me her mom, Katherine Jackson, died in childbirth. She didn't know much about her dad except his name, Harry Revault and that he was white. I have always wished I asked my grandmother more about them. So my mom and I asked Michelle (INAUDIBLE) from ancestry.com to dig through the record books and see what she could find.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why don't we start by you telling me about your grandmother or your mother?

KATHERINE, MOTHER: She was a very nice, very good mother.

LEMON: She was very outspoken.

KATHERINE: She was very outspoken.

LEMON: All I ever knew is that her mother died in childbirth.

KATHERINE: And her dad was Harry Revault.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she just didn't talk about it?

KATHERINE: She just didn't talk about it that much. Because my daddy didn't like it at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because Harry is white?

KATHERINE: And because of the way he was with her. You know, like a secret of out of your child did because you're white and she's black.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is him in 1910. He is married and Odele is his wife. So what this looks like is part of the reason why he wanted to keep Mary Henrietta quiet is because he was married. And him and Odele never had any children.

KATHERINE: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They never had children. Who got the house?

KATHERINE: He did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He bought it and gave it to her? So this is someone that he's -- he cares for and is trying to provide for in his own way because you didn't know that he had done that, right?

KATHERINE: No. No one. I never knew that. My mom said she saved the money to buy it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm sure she had her ways, right?

KATHERINE: She has her ways.

LEMON: That's a family thing. Ways.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is an interesting page, too. Harry Revault is right here. LEMON: He was an overseer of a plantation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

LEMON: So my great grandfather was a plantation owner or plantation overseer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He works at a plantation. And the main plantation in West Baton Rouge or in the (INAUDIBLE) area is Sinclair and it's likely this is where Harry and Katherine Jackson met. And it's also likely that the plantation is where your mother was born and where Katherine died.

LEMON: I had grown up in the shadow of Sinclair plantation but had never been there and certainly never imagined that I had a personal connection to it. But if that's where my great grandfather worked, great grandmother died and great grandmother was born, I want to see it for myself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now we are walking along what is known as manager's row.

LEMON: So who lived on this row?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Harry. Harry like lived his life in one of these houses and walked up and down these streets to and from work every day. This is a turn of the century map of Sinclair. Right here is the management. And then here is this Negro quarters. So the layout in the past 100 years has not changed at all. And it kind of gives you an idea of where Katherine might have lived and where Harry might have lived.

I have another document. This is his obituary in the state times advocate, third of March, 1941. You want to read it?

LEMON: It was a funeral of Harry Revault, 54, was held Sunday afternoon at 3:00. Mr. Revault who had been in ill health for several months killed himself by placing a 12-gauge pump gun to his head and pulling the trigger. The coroner jury brought in a verdict of suicide.

KATHERINE: I wonder why, why he shot himself in the head.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. It's gruesome.

LEMON: It is pretty gruesome. Imagine how much pain you have to be in to do that.

I never knew him yet finding out my great grandfather killed himself is disquieting. It hangs heavy. I can't ignore it. But it is part of my story just like this sugar cane plantation where my great grandmother worked for wages doing the same kind of work that her grandparents did as slaves. I wonder what it was like in the (INAUDIBLE) fields under the summer sun.

Kirby Grant (ph) has been harvesting cane here since he was a small boy. He knows what it was like.

If you worked on a plantation you would be there what? Sun up to sun down?

KIRBY GRANT (ph), RESIDENT: Sun up to sun down.

LEMON: This was self-worth?

GRANT (ph): It was.

LEMON: Show me how you used to do it.

GRANT (ph): I used to cut the top, throw it over. If you were cutting cane a long time ago they would fire you.

LEMON: Because I'm cutting it too high?

GRANT (ph): Yes. You got to cut it all the way to the ground.

LEMON: it is got to be here?

GRANT (ph): Yes. This is the way -- mostly, you see sugar is.

LEMON: That's where most of the sugar is.

GRANT (ph): You would see skinny people in those days. They used to work so hard.

LEMON: I wonder if the slaves, among my ancestors, had to work even harder finding out about them is like fighting through a brick wall but Michelle won't rest.

Coming up, see what she has found that leads me half way across the world in search of my roots.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the next part of your story, we are coming here to the West Baton Rouge museum. This cabin was built by slaves, so we're in a building that's very contemporary to the time of when your ancestors lived here as well. And we want to talk about Moses Jackson. So here's a pedigree.

LEMON: All right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So this is your grandmother, and this is your great- great-grandmother, Catherine, and her father, James. So Moses and Catherine are your third great-grandparents.

Katherine, were maiden name was Woods. Now, we don't know who her father was, but there's a candidate. His name was Clemence Woods. This is an 1880 census. This says he was born in Louisiana and his father was born Africa. Clemence was born in 1812. Based on Clemence's age and, you know, what his father's age could have been, anywhere from about 1767 to 1792 is when he could have been born in Africa.

LEMON: He's without a name and age, or face, but he's my connection to Africa. I wonder about his passage to America, his journey, his struggle.

My answers lie 5,000 miles away at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, one of the hubs of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It's hard to believe a place so beautiful and so full of life had such a dark past. A historian (INAUDIBLE) was about to show me just how dark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was constructed in around 1792. It was designed for a thousand people.

KATHERINE: In here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

LEMON: Can you imagine being this dark?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stayed here for about three months on average, work in this darkness, yes.

LEMON: It felt like a descent into hell. I felt like this must what it is like to enter hell. I can't believe that people walked down that path, and then walked through here and then spent months in here if you survived.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a dungeon for the trouble mid-case (ph). Those were inside the rebellions and is (INAUDIBLE).

LEMON: But it was dark in here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was dark in here. Right. They were held here in chains. You see the hole on the wall? The holes on the wall. Were held in chains. The floor now -- removed much of the coverings on the floor. Feces, blood, decomposed bodies, clothes, food, vomit, sweat and tears (INAUDIBLE).

LEMON: I kept looking for places to escape and there was no escape. The only escape was either you had to survive, become a slave, or you escaped through death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are about a enter a religious site.

LEMON: Before leaving the dungeons, we lit a candle in memory of the slaves who passed through these harrowing halls.

We're survivors.

Yes. Survivor spirit.

Door of no return.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Door of no return. Through this door, they left behind the known for the unknown.

LEMON: Then you walked through the door of no return.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, we have the door of return. In 1988, two bodies of ex-slaves were resumed in America and Jamaica. They were brought back through this door to reverse the trend of no return.

LEMON: I was thinking there, and I just can't hold it in anymore. I wake up every day, my life is like a dream. Every day, I feel like I'm dreaming. I have such a wonderful life. I am so blessed and so fortunate. I want all those people who think that they can't survive and all these people who say, I can't do this, I can't do that, I want to show people that that isn't true. You can do whatever you want.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So on behalf of the government and people of this country, it's my pleasure to welcome you back.

LEMON: Who do I think I am? I know that I'm a survivor and I came from a group of people who are survivors.

Did you enjoy the trip?

KATHERINE: I loved it. I'm so glad I came. And it's so beautiful here.

LEMON: It is. Glad you came. Thanks.

KATHERINE: I'm happy you got me into it.

LEMON: I love you, mom.

KATHERINE: I love you, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: And that is an amazing story about a guy we all love a lot, Don Lemon.

Alright, before we go, just in to CNN, former President George H. W. Bush's condition, we are told, is improving. The president was hospitalized in Houston earlier this week after experiencing shortness of breath. He will remain in the hospital through the weekend, but doctors are now discussing a date for his discharge. We wish him well.

I'm Poppy Harlow. Thanks so much for being with me tonight. Right now, a marathon of "THE HUNT WITH JOHN WALSH" begins.