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CNN This Morning
Museum Shines a Light on Unknown History; Gen Z Foregoing Alcohol and Tobacco; Rose Zhang is Interviewed about her LPGA Win. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired June 19, 2023 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:30:00]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Black man with deep roots in the American south. I thought I knew where my story was headed. I was very wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL (voice over): Very few moments in my career have ever brought me to this.
BLACKWELL: This is -- oh, man.
BLACKWELL (voice over): 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 Wharf.
TONYA MATTHEWS, PRESIDENT AND 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 importation of enslaved people into the United States.
BLACKWELL: Dr. Tonya Matthews is the museum's president and CEO.
BLACKWELL: Space of solemnity or celebration?
MATTHEWS: Yes. I refuse to choose.
BLACKWELL (voice over): Tribal art and contemporary fashion, relics of protest and reports of resistance.
MATTHEWS: It's this infusion of trauma and joy, constantly, that we like to talk about here. You get the full story, but you're going to get all the context in it.
BLACKWELL: What arguably is the best illustration of full context is the museum's 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've got a box of Kleenex by you and sit there and enjoy.
BLACKWELL: 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, just seeing the tree.
BLACKWELL (voice over): You see that box? Well, that represents David Veney, my great grandfather's great grandfather. 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 the money to buy 23 acres?
MURPHY: Absolutely. And - and the thing of it is, I would even question, he said he was freeborn.
BLACKWELL (voice over): 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: 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' children, and that was Sarah.
BLACKWELL: 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 all children that are enslaved or free, their condition would be based on whatever their mother was.
BLACKWELL: Remember, Sarah and Bess arrived free people.
MURPHY: So, Sarah has a lawsuit that's filed saying, we're free.
BLACKWELL: 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 arrive 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. Let me get a - let me get a Kleenex, Doctor Murphy.
MURPHY: I - I told you, have a box there.
BLACKWELL: All right.
BLACKWELL (voice over): But not all of Sarah's family was free.
[08:35:02]
Before the court's decision, Sarah's enslavers illegally sold her daughter, Rachael (ph), and then Rachael was sold again. And for the next 20 years, unaware of the court's ruling, Rachael 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, Rachael 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 your slave master, to do it twice in one bloodline is just remarkable.
MURPHY: And 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: A few women.
I'm going to tell you what, Victor, the women in your family is unbelievable.
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)
BLACKWELL (on camera): I am so grateful to the people of that museum. They spent months researching my lineage and they've given me this book. This has the documents -- copies of the documents and maps and death records and military records. This is not what I expected.
HILL: It is remarkable. I --
BLACKWELL: It is not what I expected.
HILL: I have to ask you, what was your mom's reaction?
BLACKWELL: Oh, man. And my mother's reaction -- first, I had to explain it a couple of times, right, because no one expected this. And it then started this kind of scavenger hunt for details. Planning a trip back to Northumberland -- LZ and Ron are still with us -- to go and visit the Mattaponi. I mean to know that these women sued, twice, and won.
HILL: And in that day and age.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
HILL: For a woman.
BLACKWELL: In the 18th century.
HILL: But for an - like a woman who had been enslaved to sue -
BLACKWELL: Yes.
HILL: I can't even imagine. And the witnesses to come forward to support them? You're from strong stock, that's for sure! The women in your family.
BLACKWELL: And - and - and we were talking during the break, LZ, that it's so difficult to trace the lineage of African Americans because for centuries enslaved people were inventory. They didn't keep accurate birth and death and marriage, for as much as marriage was recognized or acknowledged, those records.
LZ GRANDERSON, OPED COLUMNIST, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Absolutely. And because of the constant selling and re-selling and loaning and bringing back, it wasn't possible to keep up.
You know what's so brilliant about the women of your family, is that the law that you were talking about was designed because of all the sexual assaults, there are all these pregnancies, and it was like, what do we do with these mixed race children. They created that law so that those children would be born into slavery. The fact that your - the women in your family took that law -
BLACKWELL: And flipped it.
GRANDERSON: And flipped it.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Yes.
GRANDERSON: Brilliant.
BLACKWELL: Yes.
GRANDERSON: Absolutely brilliant.
BROWNSTEIN: Incredible research and incredible story. And I just found myself wondering, with all the restrictions on curriculum that are being imposed in about half the country, it will become extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many young people to kind of learn this story or its equivalent. I mean it's quite a moment in the country.
BLACKWELL: Our thanks again to the International African American Museum. They have the resources on their website for you to start this journey of your own, as they continue to grow. They will do this on a one-on-one basis. But this is a stunning display of African American history there at the port in Charleston. Again, thanks to them.
Now, a CNN concert event, some big names in music, that's happening tonight. "Juneteenth: A Global Celebration for Freedom" begins tonight at 7:00 p.m. Be sure to watch it.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:43:19]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, it's up to you, Fogle (ph). This guy is either going to think, here's another kid with a fake I.D., or here is McLovin (ph), the 25-year-old Hawaiian organ donor. OK. So, what's it going to be?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am McLovin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Oh, yes. Yes. I mean who wouldn't think that McLovin was 25 and an organ donor from Hawaii.
Kids today, though, may not be scrambling for the fake ID perhaps other people were in past generations. New data shows gen-zers are actually drinking and using tobacco products less than young people in past generations. Many of them forgoing substance abuse entirely. Why are we seeing this shift? The man with the answers, CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten has this morning's number and an empty glass.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: You know what -
BLACKWELL: (INAUDIBLE).
ENTEN: It's -- exactly right.
So, what's today's number? Sober curious TikTok video views, look at this, 833 million, as Google searches for non-alcoholic drink hit record highs. And I will note, take a look here, non and low-alcoholic drink sales in 2018 globally, $8 billion. Look where we are in 2022, 11 billion. So, people aren't just saying it, they're actually doing it.
And I think that this slide really gives you an indication. I just want to stick here for a second. Ninth to 12th graders who drank alcohol in the last month. Look at this, back in 1987, it was 51 percent. Look where it dropped to 2011, 39 percent. Look where we were two years ago, 23 percent of ninth and 12th graders drank alcohol in the last month, less than half where we were 26 years ago.
So, the fact is, they're buying less and they are drinking less.
BLACKWELL: I didn't have my first drink until college and it was an amaretto sour.
[08:45:02]
Like, I feel like -
HILL: Wow.
BLACKWELL: I didn't even really go all the way in.
HILL: Amaretto sour.
BLACKWELL: Yes, I know. (INAUDIBLE).
HILL: Yes, I remember - yes.
BLACKWELL: So, smoking. They're doing the same thing when it comes to cigarettes I guess.
ENTEN: Yes, that's exactly right. You know, this is not just a trend that we're seeing in alcohol. We're also seeing it in cigarettes. So, take a look at this.
OK, nineth to 12th graders who smoked a cigarette in the last month. Back in 1997 it was 36 percent, 18 percent in 2011. Look where we were in 2021, just 4 percent, just 4 percent. What a trendline downward!
And you might be saying, OK, are they going over to use e-cigarettes. Well, this is ninth to 12th graders who smoked an e-cigarette in the last month. Look, it was just 2 percent in 2011! Look how fast it jumped up to 2019 at 28 percent. But we've even seen a decline there where it is just 14 percent now. So, we are seeing a good trend line there, as well.
BLACKWELL: Wow! All right.
HILL: Absolutely.
Harry, appreciate it. Thank you.
ENTEN: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: Twenty-year-old golf phenom Rose Zhang made history, becoming the first player to win an LPGA tournament in her professional debut in 72 years. So, what's next? She'll join us live to tell us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:50:20]
BLACKWELL: From a college golf star to a professional champion, 20- year-old golf phenom and Stanford University student Rose Zhang made history at the Mizuho Americas Open, becoming the first player to win an LPGA event in her professional debut since 1951. After that incredible win, Tiger Woods congratulated the rising star, writing this, incredible few weeks for Rose Zhang. Defends her NCAA title and then wins in her pro debut. Go card.
HILL: Now Zhang is preparing for her first major as a pro at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship. And Rose Zhang joins us live from Springfield, New Jersey, where she is going to be competing in the 2023 KPMG Women's PGA Championship, as we mentioned.
We checked in with you a little bit in the break just to check the audio. You're out there already. Going to play nine holes today. This is huge, though, to go from one win to the next. How are you feeling? Has it sunk in?
ROSE ZHANG, FIRST PLAYER TO WIN LPGA DEBUT IN 72 YEARS: Yes, it's been a little hectic recently, but I'm super blessed to be here and be in this position now. It's been an incredible journey so far. And right when I finished Mizuho, I went back to Stanford to just finish finals, finalize some things, move out of my dorm, say bye to my teammates. And it was a little bittersweet, but I'm excited for the summer. I'm excited for this fall. And then we'll go from there.
BLACKWELL: So, you're a little busy is what you're saying. You've got some things going on.
ZHANG: Just a couple.
BLACKWELL: This weekend you had the opportunity to make history again. Are you feeling pressure?
ZHANG: To be honest, I haven't really felt anything recently, just because I've been on the go constantly. Every single day I have tests and responsibilities to complete. So, I've just been trying to stay in the moment and really try to execute those before I think about anything else. So, rather than thinking about results and potentially making history, whatnot, I'm always thinking about trying to finish what I need to do in that day.
HILL: So are you more just about staying in the moment then?
ZHANG: Yes, I would say so. That's kind of how I grew up and that's how I've been taught to do things.
So, if you're able to complete all that you need to do on a daily basis, then you shouldn't be too far from your end goal.
BLACKWELL: So, you broke fellow Stanford alum Tiger Woods' records, let me make sure I get this right, winning 12 tournaments in 20 events. And then Tiger praised you. I read the tweet there. What's that feel like? Have you spoken with him?
ZHANG: Yes, I mean, it's really hard to say how I feel about breaking his record. I feel like, on a daily basis, it's - it's usually just -- it's not normal to have your name in conversation with his. And Tiger is, obviously, such an inspirational player and he's completely modernized the game. So, if anything, I take it as a surprise that people even have that conversation that I'm somewhat similar to him. So, super honored. And the fact that he shouted me out, I think, it just meant so much.
HILL: Well, it's pretty exciting. Women's golf doesn't always get the same attention, the same money that your male counterparts will get. Do you sense that that's changing at all?
ZHANG: It certainly is. Even from the beginning of my junior golf career, women's purses weren't high at all. And, you know, right now it's a great time for women's golf. You've got great events that are being put on for the women and more people are -- there's more viewership to the women's game.
So, ultimately, that will help bring up purses. And it's just been great to see how trending -- upward trending that is for especially this week and the upcoming couple weeks and majors. There's a good bit of purse money for all the players to play with. So, I think it's just an incredible time that women's golf is slowly evolving.
BLACKWELL: Well, congratulations and good luck on all the things going on.
Rose Zhang joining us from the Baltusrol Golf Course.
Thank you so much.
[08:55:03]
ZHANG: Thank you.
HILL: So, you've heard that there's no crying in baseball.
BLACKWELL: Yes, heard it. HILL: A little exception, though, to that rule it turns out.
Specifically when your little brother throws back the foul ball at Fenway.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no! The little bro ruined the moment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Threw it back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HILL: Today's "Morning Moment," a little drama at the Red Sox/Yankees doubleheader. A fan gives a foul ball to the little boy behind him. Sweet moment. And in that moment of excitement, you saw what he did there. Yes, just practicing a little bit, throws it back on the field. That went over really well with his big brother, as you can also see there.
[09:00:01]
How about that for Father's Day. Dad trying to keep the peace.
BLACKWELL: So, the Red Sox came to the rescue with more than just a baseball for the boys. Thankfully, a happy Father's Day, look at this, for this family. Not so much for the Yankees, though. The Sox swept that doubleheader.
I would never let him forget that.
HILL: That he threw the back ball?
BLACKWELL: That he threw the ball back.
HILL: Ooof.
BLACKWELL: Never let him.
HILL: Oh.
BLACKWELL: "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.
