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All-Time Baseball Great Willie Mays Dies At 93; L.A. School District Approved Student Phone Ban; CNN's Victor Blackwell Explores His Family's Fight For Freedom. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired June 19, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CHEERING)

ANNOUNCER: That's a hard drive, way back, way back, and it is gone.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Today, the sports world is remembering the baseball icon who made that legendary catch in the 1954 World Series. The great Willie Mays has passed away at the age of 93.

Known as the "Say Hey Kid," he's among the very best to ever play the game, 660 career home runs, 12 gold gloves, nearly 3,300 hits, and two National League MVP awards, along with 24 all-star appearances.

Mays also broke barriers in the game. And he spoke with CNN's Larry King in 1988 about one memorable moment where he faced prejudice.

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WILLIE MAYS, BASEBALL LEGEND: The only town I had a problem with was Hagerstown, Maryland, I had very, very hard time. I arrived on a Friday afternoon and they called me all kinds of names there. But by Sunday, there was all clapping because I just killed everybody.

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SANCHEZ: CNN's Ryan Young joins us now from the Alabama baseball park where Mays started his storied career with the Birmingham Black Barons.

Ryan, Major League Baseball was actually set to have a game there tomorrow between the Cardinals and Giants commemorating Mays. And obviously the game carries even more emotional significance now.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. When you think about this, Boris, you break down this man's life, you can actually see in two sections.

Yes, he was an all-star on the field, but he was also an all-star in life. And you think about what he meant for Americans in general. Especially African-Americans at a time where a black men and black women did not have the same rights as everyone else, this man stood tall and so much of what he did still stands.

He talked about that field right behind us. This is one of the oldest professional baseball fields that's still in existence. That was built in 1910.

And as you're walking through the street, sometimes the way you pay respect to folks is you almost wear it. So you have fans of Willie Mays who came down here from the bay area.

Greg, you said he touched your heart because of the impact and a special game that you had spent with your father. Tell me about that.

GREG MORIA, TRAVELED TO BIRMINGHAM FOR THE GAME: Yes. My dad -- my dad took me to my first Giants game in 1970. And I remember that Candlestick, the stick. It was called that, that day.

And I didn't know about who the Giants players were then. And this man was introduced, Willie Mays. And I told my dad, Dad, who's that. And everyone was clapping, you know, giving him a standing ovation.

And my dad educated me who Willie was and that's how I became a fan of the Giants. That's how I became a big fan of Willie. He's my idol.

And when he passed last night, I had tears. I had tears coming down. May he rest in peace? He is my idol, my idol forever.

YOUNG: What was it like knowing how tough it was back then to see this man stand and play the way he did. I know you feel some your husband's emotion. What's that like to know that you guys are here to be able to pay honor to him.

MORIA: I mean, it's great. I mean, just be here, be here where he played as a 17-year-old teenager. It was unbelievable, 17, playing professor professional baseball.

It's just the greatest. I mean, I'm just honored. Honored to be here where he walked around the stadium, played in the stadium. I'm just -- I'm just honored.

YOUNG: I appreciate that. Thank you so much, Greg, for doing that.

I want to show something on Bonnie's shirt. You can see all the players and, of course, you can see Willie Mays up here.

There have been special remembrances put all around the city. And, Boris, I know we have to go, but I want to show you something. This was just finished last week. You can see that mural in the distance.

He's still watching over the stadium, still having an impact in the city and, of course, across the country where a lot of people consider that man right there to be the greatest baseball player who ever played.

And even now that catch is something to see, even in black and white -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: It is incredible. He -- he had an unbelievable life and now an unforgettable legacy.

Ryan Young, from Birmingham, Alabama, thank you so much.

[13:34:09]

Ahead, the crackdown on cell phones in schools getting bigger. The nation's second-largest school district just passed a ban. How is this going to be implemented? We're going to discuss with the superintendent in just a few minutes.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The Los Angeles School District just voted to ban phones during the school day starting next year. And a big reason for this, 72 percent of high school teachers say it's a major problem in the classroom.

Ten years ago, 24 percent of teens said they were online almost constantly. And it is roughly double that as of last year, at 46 percent. Teens themselves are worried about it. And 38 percent said they thought they spend too much time on their Smartphones.

Joining us now, we have the superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District, Alberto Carvalho.

Superintendent, thanks for taking the time with us.

And also just to note, the district already bans cell phone use during class time and limits social media use at school to educational purposes. So what else does this new policy do?

ALBERTO CARVALHO, SUPERINTENDENT, LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT: Well, the policy adopted by the school board yesterday reflects two moral imperatives.

Number one, additional guidelines and protection for students during the school day. Not only doing the structural time, during class, but also during breaks, during lunch, to ensure that students actually benefit from real social interaction with one another.

Secondly, it opens a door for possible litigation against the social media giants that, according to well-documented data, have, quite frankly, been victimized through predatory behavior.

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Using complex algorithms to know children, appeal to children and capture their attention in a way that has become deleterious to their mental well-being.

So, look, we have for months of runway to engage with our stakeholders, student voice, parents, teachers, researchers on the best way to actually enable this policy that will give kids their youth back.

KEILAR: So, I mean, when it comes to the implementation here, explain how this goes farther than the current policy and how you're going to implement this.

Are you talking about having devices physically separated from the kids? Are they locked up? How does this work?

CARVALHO: Well, you know, that's certainly one option and that's going to be very much part of the conversations were going to have with stakeholders. There are technologies, there are ways of actually safe storing the devices during the school day.

There are also technological options. Just like when you are about to take off in a plane where you put the device on airplane mode, in essence, disabling its access to resources, to platforms, to applications.

But that's going to be actually the work well be doing over the next few months, is the best possible way, least intrusive way, safest way of detaching students from the cell phones.

Therefore, interrupting that dependency that has become so well documented that students currently have on social media platforms. They use these behaviors that are impacting the social and emotional well-being, the psychological development of children, and their mental well-being.

KEILAR: Yes. Look, no doubt, we've talked a lot about it on this program, in particular.

Airplane mode -- I mean, I don't have to tell you because I know that you're probably thinking about this and talking to the stakeholders. The airplane mode thing on planes, it's -- it's an honor system thing. So you would be relying on kids to comply with that.

But I also want to ask you about a concern that we've heard from some parents if you do go further than that.

Because in an age of constant worry about school shootings, there are parents who have concerns about not being able to reach their children when it comes an emergency. What do you say to them?

CARVALHO: You know, what this is not going to travel without controversy. And we're going to analyze, evaluate those circumstances and those hypothetical situations that, unfortunately, have become too real across the country. We understand that.

We've also heard from experts, safety and security experts, where, as sometimes, the availability or the use of the phone when there is perhaps an armed intruder in the school, maybe a -- maybe a red flag for that student in noises that are emitted.

People speaking, the vibration of the telephone, a ding that emanates from the telephone may actually alert someone who wants to cause harm to the students. We're going to evaluate all of the options, the benefits, also the

challenges, and come up with the best possible way of securely, safely isolating students from the cell phones during a period of time when they should be engaged in learning, social interaction with one another, and not be victims to social media attention that is causing harm to them.

But I understand the concern and that's why we're going to engage parents, safety security experts, researchers, the students themselves to come up with the best possible way of balancing out, honor system, but also approaches that that allow students to separate themselves from these mobile devices.

KEILAR: Yes, I don't think you'll get many arguments from parents saying that they think their kids are spending too much time on these phones.

I will just say, you know, in the case of Uvalde, where we know the police response was terrible, but you had kids who were using those phones to try to touch base with people.

In a situation with a more responsive police department, it could really make the difference. I know you know that. I know you'll be spending the next four months trying to figure this out.

Superintendent Carvalho, we appreciate your time. Thank you.

CARVALHO: Appreciate you. Thank you.

[13:44:09]

KEILAR: Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.

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KEILAR: Today, we celebrate Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day. It commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union Army Major General Gordon Granger announced and enforced the end of slavery in Galveston, Texas.

Up until then, thousands of slaves in Texas didn't even know they'd been freed, despite the Emancipation Proclamation being issued two years before.

SANCHEZ: In 2021, President Biden signed legislation into law establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. He called that moment one of the greatest honors of his presidency.

The president also said it wasn't enough to commemorate the holiday, but also to use it as a day of action and reflection.

CNN's Victor Blackwell, the host of "FIRST OF ALL," on CNN Saturday, joins us now.

And, Victor, you actually trace your family's history back more than 300 years and you're digging even deeper than that into the past. What did you find?

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Names and relatives and places and narratives and perspective. But this started a year ago and continues now.

This really is the story that more people are coming up to me, when we see each other in grocery stores and at the airport, to ask questions about my genealogy.

Well, we've got an update now. And this time, I do some research to find how I got this last name.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL (voice-over): It's been one year since my family learned of our astonishing history that brought me to tears.

(CRYING)

BLACKWELL (on camera): Man, this is -- oh, man.

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(voice-over): I was covering the opening of the International African- American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.

And through the genealogists in its Center for Family History, I learned that in the late 18th century, an enslaved woman in Northumberland County, Virginia named Sarah, my seven times great grandmother, sued her enslaver for her freedom and the freedom of her descendants and won.

Dr. Shelley Murphy is the center's director.

DR. SHELLEY MURPHY, HEAD GENEALOGIST, INTERNATIONAL AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSEUM: Your line started out enslaved and became free to up until where you're at right now.

Give me a hug. How are you?

BLACKWELL (on camera): Good to see you.

(voice-over): Recently, I invited Dr. Murphy to Baltimore to meet my mother and my cousins, all overwhelmed by the discovery.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: All beneficiaries of Sarah's groundbreaking lawsuit.

TONY BLACKWELL, VICTOR BLACKWELL'S COUSIN: To have women step up and speak out about their freedom back then is just -- it was just incredible.

MURPHY: That threat of being killed or sold, unbelievable.

T. BLACKWELL: Yes. Yes. MURPHY: Unbelievable. And that's something that should go generations.

ZELDA MARSHALL, VICTOR BLACKWELL'S COUSIN: That just blew me away that this was in our bloodline, you know. Sometimes you don't think it but, you know, you are -- we are powerful.

VANESSA GIBSON, VICTOR BLACKWELL'S MOTHER: And, you know, it's sad that our parents, especially our fathers --

MURPHY: Yes.

GIBSON: -- who were Blackwells, are not here.

MARSHALL: Not here to see it.

MURPHY: Right.

GIBSON: And didn't know it. It would have been a story that they would have been so proud --

MARSHALL: Proud.

GIBSON: -- and would have passed it on to us --

T. BLACKWELL: Yes.

GIBSON: -- had they known.

MURPHY: Yes.

MARSHALL: Had they known.

BLACKWELL: And last summer, my mother and our cousins drove to the county where Sarah won her freedom to pass that story on.

GIBSON: Well, we took a trip down to Northumberland County --

MARSHALL: Yes.

GIBSON: -- last summer for the Blackwell reunion. We didn't know hardly any of the people there --

MARSHALL: Right, right.

GIBSON: -- from that family.

T. BLACKWELL: I'm longing to find out more about the Blackwell side. Because, unfortunately, we didn't know much about our side of the family growing up.

BLACKWELL: That journey begins here in Montgomery, Alabama, with Bryan Stevenson. He's the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and its new massive National Monument to Freedom.

BRYAN STEVENSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE: It's created by reviewing the 1870 census. And the 1870 census in the United States was the first time that formerly enslaved people had an opportunity to claim a surname that the government would recognize.

BLACKWELL: More than 122,000 surnames on this wall, front and back, about four stories tall and about half the length of a football field.

STEVENSON: Yes, we want to tell the story about the horrors and the degradation and the violence of slavery, but we also want to tell the other story about the resilience of enslaved people, about the courage, the strength, the perseverance.

There you are. Just jumped out at me.

BLACKWELL (on camera): There it is.

STEVENSON: Yes, it is.

BLACKWELL: How about that? Wow. To see that name with the, what, 122,000 others?

STEVENSON: Yes.

BLACKWELL: It is both humbling but also it gives my family a place.

STEVENSON: Yes, that's right.

Forty percent of the people who were enslaved claimed names that were associated with enslavers -- not to honor the enslaver, but they were just trying to create kinship and community with brothers and sisters and parents. They didn't want to give up on that, so they adopted those names.

BLACKWELL: They could have been sold off or traded off.

STEVENSON: Could have been sold off, exactly.

MURPHY: The Blackwell line came into the Virginia colonies in 1636.

BLACKWELL: Hmm.

MURPHY: Joseph Blackwell up into Northumberland.

BLACKWELL (voice-over): Dr. Murphy and other genealogists traced three Blackwell family lines coming into the colonies, but Murphy was only able to connect my line to the start of the 19th century.

MURPHY: There is a Mishack Blackwell and a Mishack Jr. Blackwell. And the first one was born about 1810.

BLACKWELL: My great-great-great-great grandfather.

MURPHY: Just because of the area, Virginia, nine times out of 10, he would have been enslaved.

T. BLACKWELL: I never really heard much about the Blackwell family. So to hear this and to get information on this is -- I'm 65 years old. It feels good.

MARSHALL: Yes.

BLACKWELL: There are so many more questions to be answered. But the more we look and the more we learn, the more we appreciate our ancestors and their will to persevere.

STEVENSON: I think to know that you are the heir of people who found a way to survive, who found a way to overcome all of the hardship, is something that should generate pride.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: I got to tell you, this journey to find more answers and to learn more about my family and my ancestors has fueled this curiosity throughout my family.

[13:54:55]

I want to show you something. These are pictures of the lawsuit, the copy of the lawsuit that Sarah filed in the late 18th century. And they hang in -- there's one in my home, my mother's home, Cousin Zelda's home, Cousin Tony's home now. Cousin Pam wants one. Cousin Bay (ph) wants one.

This is just -- and not only a marker to show gratitude to Sarah in filing that lawsuit against her enslaver and putting so much on the line but it is also acknowledgement of those who simply suffered and survived through slavery.

It's something that we hold onto. And we want to make sure that the younger people in our family know the legacy of those and the blood that runs through them.

SANCHEZ: Wow, Victor, you have touched us. I have to tell you, Brianna and I are both fighting emotions a little bit. That was beautiful and touching. And that monument is so impressive.

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Yes, sure. Thank you, guys.

SANCHEZ: Victor Blackwell, thank you so much.

And don't forget to tune into the CNN special event "JUNETEENTH, CELEBRATING FREEDOM AND LEGACY." You can watch it right here on CNN or stream it on Max tonight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.

KEILAR: And on this week's "HOMEFRONT," a very special Honor Flight touching down in the D.C. area this morning. The Honor Flight Network is a non-profit that flies veterans into see the memorials of the wars that they fought in.

And today, it's hosting its first-ever Juneteenth Honor Flight trip for 26 black veterans. They're here in the nation's capital to visit, among others, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and also Arlington National Cemetery. And one of those veterans is 101-year-old Calvin Kemp, who's a Navy

veteran, who was stationed in the South Pacific and Pearl Harbor during World War II.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CALVIN KEMP, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: Yes, I went into the military in 1943 and they forgot all about us about 80 years ago. And now, all of sudden, they try -- I feel like a celebrity. I feel very good. I feel God blesses and happy to be an America. I'm a happy black America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now this group of veterans also includes three Purple Heart recipients, one of who is also a Bronze Star recipient. And they're also four women.

Stay with CNN. And we'll be right back.

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