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One Killed, 22 Hurt In Shooting At Juneteenth Celebration; CNN's Victor Blackwell Unearths His Family's History; UK Lawmakers Vote On Johnson Partygate Report Findings. Aired 11:30a-12p ET
Aired June 19, 2023 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:30:00]
JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Could feel higher than 120 for the afternoon, so it's going to be a dangerous heat settling in. Feels like temperatures today, 121 for Corpus Christi, San Antonio 114, Shreveport 107. Here's the temperature in Dallas running about 10 degrees above normal, triple digits for Monday and Tuesday. It'll definitely put a strain on the power grid, John, but they do say they should have enough supply to meet demand.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's hope. Jennifer Gray, thank you so much. Rahel?
GRAY: Thank you.
RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR: Well, John, in St. Louis, a 17- year-old was shot and killed during a party. Nine other teenagers suffered injuries. Authorities say they recovered multiple weapons. A 17-year-old suspect is in custody.
Meantime in Washington state, two people were killed in a shooting on campgrounds during an electronic dance music festival on Saturday. The Sheriff's Office says that the suspected gunman shot randomly into a crowd as he ran from the scene. Officers tracked him down and arrested him.
And just west of Chicago, a Juneteenth Celebration took a deadly turn after police say an unknown number of suspects fired multiple rounds into the crowd. One person was killed. At least 22 people were hurt.
CNN's Adrienne Broaddus joins us now from Willowbrook, Illinois. Adrienne, good morning. What's the latest there?
ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rahel, among the 22 who we heard, at least 10 of them were transported to nearby hospitals. The spokesperson with the Sheriff's Department says at least two people are in critical condition. And as you mentioned, one person died.
That's after a parking lot party took place here according to deputies with the DuPage County Sheriff's Department. Some folks who were here said they dropped to the ground for cover.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARTOSZ MAJERCZYK, WITNESS: Out of nowhere, it was like a major gunfight for like 30 seconds. I'd say 60-plus you know rounds. And you could tell it was like two different you know groups of people shooting at each other.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody started running. There was a man. He fell on top of me. He had a gunshot wound on his leg. It was -- it was like something more I can imagine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROADDUS: Investigators say an unknown number of suspects fired multiple shots into the crowd that was here. And here we are Monday, still, no arrest and no one is in custody, Rahel.
SOLOMON: Yes, just often. Adrienne, live for us there in Willowbrook. Thank you, Adrienne. John?
BERMAN: All right, thanks, Rahel. So, our friend, CNN's Victor Blackwell just went on a remarkably emotional journey into his family's in the country's painful past. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:37:06]
BERMAN: Today marks Juneteenth, which basically commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and celebrates the achievements of African-Americans over the past 158 years.
SOLOMON: What was once one of the world's most prolific slave ports is now the site of the International African-American Museum. The space will allow African-Americans to connect back to their ancestors and find answers to their place in American history.
CNN anchor Victor Blackwell joins us now. Victor, always good to see you. So, you worked with the museum for months to try to research your own family's history.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: They work for six months and trace my lineage back 300 years. The first started with a call asking what I knew. And I knew a little, not a lot.
I went back to my grandfather, which is the early 30s. They spoke with my mother who has this habit of holding on to obituaries, which had dates and locations. And that was enough.
I mean, what I thought I knew about my life. Listen, I'm a black man who has deep roots in the American South. So, I thought I knew the story. As you're about to see, I was wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: Very few moments in my career have ever brought me to this. This is -- oh, man. BLACKWELL (voiceover): It happened at the International African- American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, which opens this month. Six centuries of history packed into 150,000 square feet at the historic Gadsden's Wharf.
DR. TONYA MATTHEWS, PRESIDENT & CEO, INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM: Above 40 percent of all enslaved Africans would have come in through Gadsden Wharf. We've been referred to as the ground zero of the importation of enslaved people into the United States.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): Dr. Tonya Matthews is the museum's president and CEO.
BLACKWELL: Space of solemnity or celebration.
MATTHEWS: Yes. I refuse to choose.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): Tribal art and contemporary fashion, relics of protests, and reports of resistance.
MATTHEWS: It's this infusion of trauma and joy constantly that we'd like to talk about here. You get the full story, but you're going to get all the context in it.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): What arguably is the best illustration of full context, is the museum Center for Family History. It's a team of researchers with access to millions of records that can trace African American lineage sometimes back to a slave ship that came into this very port. The expert genealogist here spent months tracing my lineage. And this was the day of the long-awaited reveal.
DR. SHELLEY MURPHY, HEAD GENEALOGIST, INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM: Make sure you got a box of Kleenex by you, and sit there and enjoy.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): That's the museum's top genealogist, Dr. Shelley Murphy on the laptop. She's joining us from the University of Virginia.
MURPHY: This is a tree. Just a snapshot of your tree and I'm following your maternal line.
BLACKWELL: Wow. That's a lot to see in the tree.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): You see that box? Well, that represents David Veney, my great-grandfather's great-grandfather.
[11:40:03]
He lived in coastal Richmond County, Virginia on a farm with his wife, Judy, and their 18 children. And in 1871, he filed this claim to be reimbursed for livestock and supplies requisitioned by Union troops during the Civil War.
MURPHY: Another thing that is significant is that he owned the land that he's on. And it was 23 acres. BLACKWELL: Where did a man --
MURPHY: Yes.
BLACKWELL: -- in the 1870s so soon after the end of slavery get some money to buy 23 acres?
MURPHY: Absolutely. And the thing of it is I would even question if he said he was freeborn.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): Well, for some answers, we have to go back more than 300 years to my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother, Mary. She arrived on a ship in Northumberland County, Virginia in 1712 before America was America.
Her granddaughter, my eight times great-grandmother, Bess, was with her. That's according to this centuries-old deposition that Dr. Murphy's team uncovered. Why a deposition? We'll learn that a little later.
MURPHY: And Bess at the time was about 13 years old. Witnesses apparently said they looked like they were Indians.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): Researchers believe that Mary and Bess were actually Mattaponi like these people of that region of Virginia called the northern neck.
MURPHY: We're not sure where they came from. But Thomas Smith of Richmond County did enslave one of Bess's children. And that was Sarah.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): And it's Sarah. My seven times great grandmother who changes the trajectory of her children and all her descendants who followed.
MURPHY: There was a law back in 1705 that declared that for all children that are enslaved or free, their condition would be based on whatever their mother wanted.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): Remember, Sarah and Bess arrived free people.
MURPHY: So, Sarah has a lawsuit that's filed saying we're free.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): This is the actual lawsuit filed by Sarah suing for her freedom and for the freedom of her descendants. And that deposition. It was from a witness who saw Mary and Bess arrived decades earlier.
MURPHY: So, in 1791, the court agreed with Sarah and her children and grandchildren and all of those relatives who were descendants of Mary and Bess are going to be free.
BLACKWELL: That my ancestors filed and sued for their freedom. It is remarkable.
MURPHY: We're not done. BLACKWELL: We're not done? We're not done. OK. We're not done.
MURPHY: Yes.
BLACKWELL: Let me get a -- let me get a Kleenex, Doctor.
MURPHY: I thought you had a box there.
BLACKWELL: All right.
BLACKWELL (voiceover): Not all of Sarah's family was free. Before the court's decision, Sarah's enslavers illegally sold her daughter, Rachel, and then Rachel was sold again. And for the next 20 years unaware of the court's ruling, Rachel and her children remained in bondage.
When she learned of the decision in 1807, more than a quarter-century after her mother's groundbreaking lawsuit for freedom, Rachel filed this lawsuit against her enslaver claiming that she was the daughter of a free woman, and therefore she and her children should also be free.
MURPHY: And guess what? The witnesses and things all came through, and they were awarded their freedom. So, what do you think?
BLACKWELL: Man, this is -- oh, man, to be an enslaved woman suing a slave master, to do it twice in one bloodline is just remarkable.
MURPHY: In Virginia. Your line started out enslaved and became free to up until where you're at right now.
BLACKWELL: It became free because those women fought for it.
MURPHY: I'm going to tell you what, Victor, the woman in your family is unbelievable.
BLACKWELL: It fills in a lot of gray. A lot of blank space. There was nothing there. There was an assumption. Now there are names, relatives, and places, and stories. It certainly fills in more of the story of my family's place in this country.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOLOMON: Incredible.
BERMAN: That is remarkable.
BLACKWELL (on camera): Every time I watch it, and they gave me a book of all the documents and I flipped through it, I'm still floored. Every time I look through those names and the dates and the places. I knew none of this. I knew none of it.
[11:45:06]
BERMAN: I frankly, didn't even know this type of thing went on. I would not have known that this was even possible and then -- BLACKWELL: The lawsuit.
BERMAN: Yes.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BERMAN: A lawsuit like that.
BLACKWELL: The lawsuit, the purpose initially of the law was to keep people enslaved so that if there were, essentially let's be clear rapes here, that created children of a free man and an enslaved woman, that would be an enslaved child. But this was used in the opposite direction to free people who came in free --
SOLOMON: Incredible.
BLACKWELL: -- and were not supposed to be enslaved because of that law.
SOLOMON: Victor, can I just ask how you're feeling? Because this is a lot. It's a lot to unpack there.
BLACKWELL: It's a lot. Those tears were tears of gratitude, of joy, but that was the moment. I couldn't reach the words. I said remarkable. It was astonishing. I couldn't find what to say in the moment.
But as I went back to the hotel there in Charleston, I sat with the book, there's some responsibility that comes with that. I mean, all the little stuff that I may complain about or the challenges I may have, two generations of enslaved women in my family found the courage and the bravery to sue their enslavers, traveled around the state of Virginia finding witnesses while owned by the defendant in the lawsuit. And won.
SOLOMON: Yes. The genealogists at the end said the women in your family -- I think the word she used was --
BLACKWELL: That I knew.
SOLOMON: -- remarkable.
BLACKWELL: That I knew.
BERMAN: All of your mom for keeping the obits.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BERMAN: That's why they went down this moment, to begin with.
BLACKWELL: Yes. That I knew.
BERMAN: What does -- what does mom think about it?
BLACKWELL: I mean, she is amazed and it started this scavenger hunt throughout my family looking for pictures. SOLOMON: Yes.
BLACKWELL: Do we go to Northumberland County, and take a trip back to see what is there?
SOLOMON: Yes.
BLACKWELL: I've known that I've had some connection to Virginia. But to go back to Richmond County, what is there? It's started this curiosity that -- you know, that was shot maybe 10 days ago, two weeks ago, and it's now continuing.
SOLOMON: Speaking of curiosity, so many people have to be watching this wondering, I would love to fill in those blanks too. I mean, is the museum offering this as a service to other people, or do we know if that's an option?
BLACKWELL: So, this is where they are now. The museum -- the official opening is coming up this weekend.
SOLOMON: OK.
BLACKWELL: They have the resources on the website to start you know the path yourself. You can go through their millions of records. Start where you are, if you know a date, if you know a place if you know a name, marriage records, death records, military filings. And then as they grow, they'll be able to do more of those one-on-one appointments like they afforded me.
It -- I told them and I've told other people here that this is a digital heirloom for my family. There were so many people who knew so little in my family. Now, we have this that gives us back to the early 18th century.
SOLOMON: Filled in the blank spaces.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BERMAN: It also (INAUDIBLE) about how American you fundamentally are.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BERMAN: 1712. Just to hear the -- like you beat my people by like 160 years.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BERMAN: Which is astounding.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BERMAN: Especially on this day, when we think about where we are and what we're commemorating. Victor, that was extraordinary.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
BERMAN: Thank you so much for sharing.
SOLOMON: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: Yes. Thank you.
SOLOMON: Thanks for sharing.
BLACKWELL: Thank you.
BERMAN: And for more information on how you can help empower the black community on Juneteenth and beyond, go to cnn.com/impact. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:52:59]
BERMAN: All right. We have live pictures behind me of the House of Commons in London. Lawmakers there preparing to vote on this damning report detailing Boris Johnson's COVID-era conduct. The year-long inquiry found that the former prime minister deliberately misled parliament over his rule-breaking parties during COVID lockdowns.
London Police are looking into a video of Johnson staffers dancing and singing at a 2020 office Christmas party which was right smack in the middle of the pandemic. At that same time, Johnson was telling UK citizens that holiday gatherings could not go ahead and he was urging people to stay at home.
CNN's Nada Bashir joins us now from London. Nada, we're watching this debate take place. What are the consequences here?
NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Well, look. The findings of this report, John, are serious for any member of parliament, not least the former prime minister. Now, he did, of course, stepped down from his post as a member of parliament just over a week ago. So, it changes the consequences somewhat.
Now, typically, if he was still in office, that could lead him into a 90-day suspension from parliament. And that could, in turn, trigger a by-election in his position. Of course, he is facing very low approval ratings at this point.
But of course, he did step down so now, this decision, which will be taken by the MPs later this evening. Isn't necessarily focused on determining his parliamentary future, but rather focusing on whether they endorse the findings of this report on whether Boris Johnson's access to the Palace of Westminster as a former MP should be revoked.
Now, of course, they are still debating this. But this is very much still in the headlines concern, anger, frustration over the Partygate scandal under the leadership of Boris Johnson, as you saw in that video released over the weekend as well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's for party.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As long as we don't stream that we're like bending the rules.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASHIR: Now, London's Metropolitan Police is assessing this video and other evidence as well. That investigation, of course, still very much ongoing. They are assessing whether this would warrant an investigation. But, of course, prime minister -- former Prime Minister Boris Johnson still in the headlines over that scandal.
[11:55:12]
BERMAN: A very much in the headlines. All right. Nada Bashir, thank you so much for watching that for us. Again, that party -- people swinging and dancing was smack in the middle of the lockdown.
SOLOMON: Yes. And it's the idea that you know he was not necessarily -- he didn't have to follow the same rules that everyone else did. Well, thank you for joining us. It's been so good to be with you.
BERMAN: It's been great having you here.
SOLOMON: Thank you, John Berman.
BERMAN: Come back.
SOLOMON: I think I might. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "INSIDE POLITICS" is coming up next.
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