judy woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight: tragedy in berlin. at least nine people are dead and many othersinjured after a truck plowed into a christmas market. also ahead: escaping a nightmare. after days of delays, evacuations resume inthe war ravaged syrian city of aleppo. then: protests greet electoral college votersas they gather at statehouses across the country to finalize president-elect trump's win.
our politics monday duo analyze the latestin the transition. plus: a rare look inside bruce springsteen'spersonal studio. the rock legend opens up about his creativeprocess. bruce springsteen, musician: most artistsi know consider themselves to be phonies, along with the feeling that there's somethingthat you're doing is essential, essential to communicate, and deeply, deeply real. judy woodruff: all that and more on tonight's"pbs newshour." (break) judy woodruff: it's been a day of horror inthe capital cities of germany and turkey.
first berlin, where a truck drove into a crowdof christmas shoppers, leaving the street full of dead and wounded. we get more now from ira spitzer. he's the berlin bureau chief for feature storynews. and a warning: some images might be disturbingto some viewers. let me start, ira spitzer, with this commentwe just saw crossing the wires. and that is the german interior minister sayingthat more information now does seem to point to an act of terrorism. what do you know?
ira spitzer, feature story news: well, theberlin police have confirmed that nine people have been killed in the scene of violenceearlier in berlin, and one of those -- one of the dead was a passenger in that truck. in addition to the nine people who died, atleast 50 others are injured, some seriously. so, the -- as you mentioned there, the germaninterior minister saying that there are signs here that point to a terror attack. no one has come out and explicitly said thatthis was intentional, but we also heard from -- the white house issued a statement notlong ago, and they also referenced that this was possibly a terror attack.
so, investigations are ongoing here in berlin,trying to uncover what happened, but an important piece of information here, the driver, thesuspected driver of the truck has been taken into custody. so much, of course, will hinge on who thatperson is and what they are able to uncover from him. but, at the moment, police have asked peopleto stay off the streets in berlin. there is an ongoing rescue operation that'shappened at a christmas market right near the heart of berlin, so a tragic situationunfolding right now. judy woodruff: ira spitzer, tell us a littlebit more about where this happened.
you describe it as a christmas market. what exactly was the location, the situation? ira spitzer: so, this happened in the districtof charlottenburg, right near the gedachtniskirche, which is a famous landmark here in berlin. it is a church where they have not repairedthe steeple from world war ii, so it's visited by many tourists throughout the course ofthe year, and this christmas market is someplace where thousands of people congregate in themonth leading up to the holidays here. people go there with their families. they eat, drink, do christmas shopping.
so, christmas markets are a very big traditionin germany, a much loved tradition in germany. and there also has been a lot of speculationin the past few months that perhaps a christmas market could be the target of a terror attack. so they have stepped up security across theboard. however, at these open spaces like this, itis, of course, very difficult to predict and then to prevent an attack from taking place. now, again, we don't know a hundred percentthat this was an intentional act. however, the authorities are certainly treatingit as such right now. judy woodruff: ira spitzer watching this unfoldingstory in berlin for us, thank you very much.
and, meantime, hours before that berlin incident,the russian ambassador to turkey was assassinated by a lone gunman in ankara. andrey karlov was addressing an art exhibitionwhen a turkish policeman in civilian clothes opened fire. he shouted slogans about syria, where russia'smilitary is heavily involved. the gunman later died in a shoot-out withpolice. russian president vladimir putin and turkey'spresident recep tayyip erdogan condemned the attack. in the day's other news: here in the unitedstates, the electoral college confirmed that
donald trump's victory in the presidentialrace. he was on track for 304 electoral votes, losingtwo defectors in texas. hillary clinton lost four electors in washingtonstate. otherwise, it went mostly as expected, despitea day of demonstrations. john yang reports. john yang: election day, part two. in some states, protesters urged electoralcollege voters to dump president-elect trump. in pennsylvania: woman: i'm here today because i feel likeit's the last chance we have to really save
this country. i mean, hillary clinton won the popular vote. i'm hoping we can make some kind of differencein the electoral college. john yang: the outcome didn't change, butcontroversy still swirls around evidence of russian cyber-attacks aimed at influencingthe election. sen. john mccain (r), arizona: there's no doubtthey were interfering and no doubt that it was cyber-attacks. the question now is, how much and what damageand what should the united states of america
do? john yang: senator john mccain and fellowrepublican lindsey graham have now joined with democrats chuck schumer and jack reedto call for a special senate committee to try to find the answers. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell saysexisting panels should handle the investigation. clinton campaign chairman john podesta suggestedtrump aides may have colluded with moscow. john podesta, former clinton campaign chairman:what did trump, inc., know and when did they know it? were they in touch with the russians?
i think those are still open questions. john yang: mr. trump's incoming chief of staffsaid the president-elect isn't convinced russia was behind the hacking. reince priebus, incoming white house chiefof staff: i think he would accept the conclusion if these intelligence professionals wouldget together, put out a report, show the american people that they're actually on the same page,as opposed to third parties through the washington post. john yang: mr. trump is spending the christmasholidays at his mar-a-lago resort in florida. for the "pbs newshour," i'm john yang.
judy woodruff: also today, the trump transitionteam announced that he's naming businessman and veteran vincent viola as secretary ofthe army. state legislators in north carolina appearready to repeal a law that curbs protections for transgender people. the democratic governor-elect, roy cooper,announced it today. republicans who supported the law said thatthey're now open to repeal in a special session on wednesday. the law has cost the state major sports events,concerts and corporate expansions. the head of the international monetary fund,christine lagarde, was convicted today of
financial negligence. a special french court found that she shouldhave blocked a huge arbitration award to a business tycoon in 2008. lagarde was french finance minister at thetime. despite the guilty verdict, the court optedagainst any punishment. that left lagarde's lawyers questioning thepoint of the proceedings. christopher baker, attorney for christinelagarde: the result of this last five years is nothing, which leaves us in kind of a complicatedor strange, again, situation. we have an unusual court, with an unusualhearing, with no accusation and no sentence.
so, where are we exactly? judy woodruff: late today, the imf's executiveboard decided to retain lagarde as the managing director of the organization. in south korea, the extortion trial of choisoon-sil opened today. she's the longtime confidante of the now-impeachedpresident park geun-hye. choi appeared in court in seoul wearing whiteprison clothes. she denied using her ties with park to makebig companies give millions to foundations she controlled. park has received extensive immunity fromprosecution.
she, too, denies wrongdoing. cities in the north of china were engulfedin a choking haze of air today, and the government issued a red alert for a third straight day. hundreds of factories and schools were closedand restrictions on driving were in place. many in beijing wore face masks to try tokeep the smog out of their lungs. woman (through translator): i think it's veryinconvenient for going out. i really don't like putting on the face mask. i can't go to the supermarket or take my childto play outside. we spent the last two days at home over thisweekend.
judy woodruff: china's severe air pollutionis blamed on its heavy reliance on coal and carbon emissions from older cars. back in this country, the u.s. interior departmentset final rules to limit damage from coal mining. they'd protect some 6,000 miles of streamsby barring mining within 100 feet of the water. industry officials, though, warn that theregulations will kill jobs, and the incoming republican congress could well vote to blockthem. the city of new orleans today announced settlementsin fatal shootings by police after hurricane katrina.
two people were shot dead on the danzigerbridge, and a third at a strip mall. the settlements in those killings, and onebefore the hurricane, total more than $13 million. mitch landrieu (d), mayor of new orleans,louisiana: the city is here today to try to the extent that is humanly possible to bringclosure to this dark, dark, dark time and to pledge that it shall never happen again,because, as i have said, change is going to come. judy woodruff: the settlements are with 17plaintiffs who sued over the killings. in addition, 20 current or former new orleanspolice officers were charged in federal civil
rights investigations after katrina. a number of them were convicted or pleadedguilty to criminal charges. president obama today pardoned 79 people convictedof crimes and shortened the sentences for 153 others. it's the most in a single day by any president. mr. obama has focused mainly on drug offenders. the white house says he has now pardoned orcommuted the sentences for more than 1,300 people, more than any of his predecessors. wall street managed modest gains today.
the dow jones industrial average was up 39points to close at 19883. the nasdaq rose 20, and the s&p 500 addedfour. and zsa zsa gabor died sunday in los angeles,after years of ill health. the hungarian-born actress was known for herglamorous image and multiple marriages, including to hotel mogul conrad hilton in the 1940s. and she made divorce an art form, once quipping:"i am a marvelous housekeeper. every time i leave a man, i keep his house." zsa zsa gabor was 99 years old. still to come on the "newshour": evacuationsresume in aleppo after delays and dangerous
conditions; protest greet electors castingtheir vote for the next president; our politics monday duo take on today's political importance;and much more. the united nations security council demandedthat the syrian government and other interested parties allow the u.n. to have unhinderedaccess to aleppo, so that monitors can watch those trying to flee that war-ravaged city. it was a welcome sight for thousands of syrianstrapped in eastern aleppo, waiting in the cold. evacuations resumed overnight, after daysof delays, under terms of a fragile cease-fire. man (through translator): we were very hungry.
god will take revenge on our behalf. hopefully, we will return to aleppo. judy woodruff: forty-seven children trappedin an orphanage were among those rescued, but the u.n. children's agency, unicef, reportedsome were in critical condition. the evacuees were being ferried to idlib province,widely expected to be the next front in the government's offensive. at the same time, buses evacuated civiliansfrom two shiite villages in idlib besieged by rebels. the syrian army and its allies demanded thatevacuation in exchange for letting thousands
of civilians and rebel fighters leave easternaleppo. many of the evacuees were taken first to therebel-held town of al-rashideen, west of aleppo. they received much-needed food, water andhumanitarian aid, and, by nightfall, they huddled around fires to stay warm, and recountedthe horror they left behind. mahmoud abu mohammad, evacuee (through translator):we left aleppo to escape the relentless shelling. all the houses were damaged. not a single one remained undamaged. we left because of the heavy airstrikes. judy woodruff: late in the day, turkish officialsestimated some 20,000 people had been bussed
out of eastern aleppo so far. for more on what comes next for aleppo's evacuatedcivilians and what u.n. monitors will be able to do, i'm joined by former british foreignsecretary david miliband. he's now ceo of the international rescue committee. david miliband, welcome. i think it's pretty self-evident, but whyare these monitors necessary? david miliband, former british foreign secretary:the simple reason for these monitors is that aleppo has not just been a site of terribledeath and destruction over the last few months. it's also been the site of the destructionof basic norms of international humanitarian
law, not just the besiegement or the randomizedbombings of civilian centers, including a hospital supported by the international rescuecommittee, but also door-to-door, cold-blooded murder by militias working their way throughthe city. and i think it's very important that thereare people on the ground who can, by bearing witness or threatening to bear witness towhat's happening, try to put a stop to it. everything that we're seeing and hearing frompeople who have fled the city is that the fear levels are at terrifying levels. judy woodruff: but can they put a stop toit by monitoring? david miliband: i think that the monitoringon its own is only part of the answer.
obviously, there's got to be a decision fromthe syrian government, and their russian backers, and the hezbollah militias that have beenworking their way through the city, about what they're going to do next. obviously, the russians voted for this resolutionin the security council today. some people were surprised by that. and if it does mean a halt to the terriblescenes that we have seen over the last week inside aleppo, that's obviously a step forward. the people that we're meeting 20 kilometersto the west of aleppo in the governorate of idlib are concerned that they're moving fromone killing zone into another, because obviously
the great fear is that the tactics that havebeen used in aleppo are now deployed in idlib, which is 1.9 million people across the wholegovernorate. the bombing, the murder, the great dangeris that that flows with the people to the west. judy woodruff: and i want to ask you aboutthat, but when it comes to aleppo, is it believed, is it understood that these monitors are goingto be in a position to stop whatever indiscriminate killing or other terrible things are happeningto these people as they leave? david miliband: well, at best, they can bearwitness to it. they're obviously not in a position to intervenemilitarily.
it's not a u.n. peacekeeping force that hasbeen deployed as a result of this resolution today. it's a group of monitors who are unarmed andwho are there to monitor the conduct of the security and other forces and report on it. now, it is right and better for there to besome degree of international presence, but, obviously, that is cold comfort to very, veryscared residents of aleppo who have been the subject of this brutal assault not just overthe last few weeks, but over the last few years. judy woodruff: well, to the point you weremaking a moment ago, david miliband, the place
where these evacuees are going, idlib province,as we reported, is expected to be the next front in the government's focus. why are they any safer there than they werein aleppo? david miliband: well, i think that the wordsof the people who are fleeing tell it all. they say, we had to get out of hell. and they don't know where -- whether the placethey're going to is going to be any better, but there is a chance that it might. idlib has a different composition, populationcomposition, and a different group of rebel fighters who are dominant there.
it's an area that combines a large governmentwith idlib city, which is a confined urban area like aleppo. it's going to be a much tougher military effort,i think, on the part of the syrian and the russian forces. and the great plea -- and i'm afraid it isonly a plea from the international community at the moment -- is that the tactics of bombardment,besiegement and then door-to-door murder are not deployed in idlib. and in the absence of international militarysupport, then it can only be a diplomatic plea that the way this war takes its nextturn is going to be critical for whether any
stability comes back to syria in the future. you reported yourselves that isis have beenresurgent in taking palmyra. judy woodruff: right. david miliband: and we know from history thatthe way wars are concluded is absolutely the key to whether or not there is any peace tobe kept. judy woodruff: so, i guess my question is,is there an expectation that what these monitors are doing in aleppo could -- they could justbe moved next to idlib to prevent the same kind of thing from happening there and thenonto the next place where the government is moving in?
david miliband: well, the terrible truth ofthe last few weeks is that there has been plenty on social media and elsewhere explainingwhat's been going on in aleppo, but it's not been possible to rally any kind of sufficientdiplomatic, political or other pressure on those taking part in these activities to preventthe kind of horrific scenes that you broadcast last week and that are feared in the future. this is now a real test of whether or notthe russians and their iranian backers are serious about winning a sustainable peacein syria, whether they are serious about taking on some of the rebel elements who are affiliatedwith al-qaida, or whether this is simply a pretense and a fig leaf for a wider attemptto drive large sections of the syrian population
out of their homes as part of a bloody attemptto restore order. judy woodruff: finally, do you believe theyare serious, based on what you know? david miliband: well, i have had -- over thelast five years of this conflict, the international rescue committee has had between 1,200 and2,500 local staff on the ground through this. and it has been the most appalling descentinto hell for all of the people who work for us. all of the norms under which internationalhumanitarian organizations work have been violated. never did i think we would see the day ofu.n. convoys being bombed.
and never did i think we would go back tothe days when there seemed to be no accountability for the most grotesque abuses of human rights. so, i cannot -- of even human life, nevermind human rights. so, for me to sit here comfortably and tellyou i'm confident about the future would be quite wrong. this is a desperate situation in syria. i have got my own staff in the front line. and we're desperate for the kind of coordinatedand impactful political and diplomatic pressure that can ease some of the plight of the civiliansand allow us to get on with our work.
judy woodruff: david miliband, the ceo ofthe international rescue committee, we thank you. david miliband: thank you very much. judy woodruff: back in this country, president-electdonald trump is now one step closer to officially sealing his victory. but the debate over the value of the electoralcollege has intensified this year, in part because hillary clinton won the popular voteby almost three million votes. william brangham has our report. william brangham: at the maryland statehousein annapolis today, a rare sight for our cameras:
members of the electoral college gatheringto cast their official votes for president and vice president. woman: i vote today for hillary rodham clinton. william brangham: after a simple roll callvote, maryland's 10 electors have spoken and certified the official results for the state. hillary clinton swept maryland on electionday, and, as expected, she received all 10 electoral votes. in just 40 minutes, more than a year of presidentialcampaigning comes to an end. but it's not just here in maryland.
across the country today, electors from all50 states and the district of columbia gathered to do the same, from pennsylvania and virginiato colorado and michigan. even bill clinton is an elector in new york. now, in most years, no one pays much attentionto this process. the electoral college vote is something ofan afterthought. but this time, electors have been under alot of pressure. some even received hate mail and death threatsbecause some voters wanted them to change their votes, and deny donald trump the presidency. we all know the white house hinges on thatmagical 270 number.
that's the simple majority of 538 electoralvotes. it's a number mr. trump clearly reached onelection night. judy woodruff: the associated press is callingwisconsin, so that puts him over the top. donald trump is the next president of theunited states. william brangham: that's the theory, at least,because most states have laws that bind electors to cast their vote according to the popularvote in their state. if they don't, they can be replaced or punishedwith a fine. but some states do allow for what's calledfaithless electors, and they can vote for whomever they want, regardless of how theirstate voted on election day.
now, these faithless electors are pretty rare. there have only been about 160 in history,and they have never flipped the outcome of an election. to have upended trump's victory this year,it would have taken 37 electors to change their votes, and that didn't happen. there were a handful of would-be defectorsthis year, including ones in georgia and texas. they chose to resign as electors, rather thanvote for mr. trump. they were replaced today by trump supporters. but only one republican had come out publiclyas faithless elector, chris suprun from texas.
chris suprun, elector: i am not voting fordonald trump because i don't think he's the right man for the job. william brangham: and harvard law professorlawrence lessig, who briefly ran for president as a democrat this year, argues electors havea moral obligation to vote their conscience. lawrence lessig, harvard law school: our goalis to let the electors exercise their judgment. the electoral college was made for this election,precisely. william brangham: but trump's incoming chiefof staff, reince priebus, says these efforts are just sour grapes. reince priebus, incoming white house chiefof staff: it's about democrats that can't
accept the outcome of the election. it's about delegitimizing the american system. william brangham: as they have done in electionspast, the states will now send their vote totals to washington, d.c., where congresswill tally them in a joint session next month and officially announce the election results. dick cheney, former vice president of theunited states: barack obama of the state of illinois has received for president of theunited states 365 votes. (cheering and applause) william brangham: for the "pbs newshour,"i'm william brangham.
judy woodruff: and, as we reported earlier,one additional republican elector in texas voted against donald trump, bringing his numberof defectors to two. stay with us. coming up on the "newshour": building a memorialfor victims of a terrible legacy; and an intimate look at what makes bruce springsteen a rocklegend. but, first, it's time for politics mondaywith tamara keith of npr and amy walter of the cook political report. and welcome to both of you. a lot going on today.
tamara keith, national public radio: yes. judy woodruff: namely, as we just saw in thatreport, amy, that donald trump is over the top. the outcome is not surprising, but there werea lot of protests, a lot of noise made around state capitals around the country. is the electoral college process in any danger? amy walter, the cook political report: well,no, i don't think so. there were a lot of protests, but, at theend of the day, there were nor defectors on the democratic side than on the republicanside.
you had one in minnesota, one in maine whowanted to vote for bernie sanders. now, ultimately, the state law doesn't allowthat. they ended up both casting -- in one case,an alternate cast for hillary clinton. but there were four in washington state, astate that she carried, that voted for someone other than hillary clinton. so, i don't think that we're seeing a breakdownof the electoral college by any measure, but electors are using the focus on them to makea broader point on the democratic side much more than the republican side. one final note.
it's amazing how much winning brings peopletogether. and at the end of the day, the democrats werethe ones who lost. they had more of a stake in making a biggerstatement than republicans, who won, and they just simply want to move on and get the republicancongress and the republican president in office. judy woodruff: but, tam, this is a reminder,though, that this election, that a lot of people are not content just to let this electionsit, that they are going to go on a protest, even though they knew the odds were reallylong they were going to change anything. tamara keith: yes, this was one of the thingswhere people felt like they needed to try. so, people were contacting -- mostly peopleon the left were contacting electors trying
to do something. there were a handful of electors who wantedan intelligence briefing. ultimately -- about the alleged russian meddlingin the election. ultimately, that didn't happen. the person who won the electoral college onelection night won the electoral college tonight. and it will be finalized and made officialon january 6. judy woodruff: so, let's talk about the russianmeddling piece of this. amy, you now have senators commenting. donald trump, of course, his -- the peoplearound him has commented.
the intelligence community is united now insaying it does look as if not only did the russians hack the democrats, the democraticnational committee and john podesta, but they did it to help donald trump. what is the political fallout? where do we go from here... (crosstalk) amy walter: the political fallout becomesvery difficult, because it's hard to separate, at least in the minds of many in the politicalcommunity, the difference between russian meddling, which the intelligence communitiesagrees on, and russian meddling to help donald
trump, which then gets us right into the politicaland partisan debates. and whereas you have at least four senators,two democrats, two republicans, john mccain and lindsey graham on the republican side,and two democrats with them, saying we should have a special committee, you're not hearinga groundswell from the grassroots on the republican side and from republican leadership to supporta special committee. once you get into a special committee to enforceit, then it becomes partisan and political. and this entire debate about russian involvement,you can't -- you theoretically can separate it from the politics, but we really can't. judy woodruff: so, where does it go from here,tam?
tamara keith: well, the relevant committeeswill investigate, the intelligence committee certainly on the senate side. that's where mitch mcconnell, the senate majorityleader, has said he thinks this should be. obviously, john mccain and chuck schumer andsome others would like a select committee. but it's not clear that will happen. it truly is remarkable. if you took the names off of it, and you justsaid, russia meddles in the u.s. elections, people would be extremely alarmed, and itwouldn't break along partisan lines. but because it is, russia meddled, donaldtrump may have been aided, hillary clinton
may have been harmed, suddenly, it does becomesignificantly more political. but we should also say that no one is saying-- people like john mccain are saying that russia clearly did something, clearly didthis hacking. but john mccain, president obama, variousothers are saying that election systems were not hacked, votes were not hacked. however, those e-mails were. and they were leaked out at inopportune timesfor one candidate. judy woodruff: is there hangover, though,amy, in all this from what president obama did or didn't do?
he had a news conference on friday. he defended his own actions. is there any lingering -- we heard some pushbackfrom donna brazile, the acting democratic party chair, about what the president saidabout how he told vladimir putin cut it out. and she said, well, no, actually, they didn'tcut it out. they kept at it after he talked to putin. amy walter: that's right. to go right on tam's point, there was verylittle that the president could do that wouldn't have made this the partisan political issuethat it is today.
and it would have been even more highly chargedin the middle of a campaign. and, at the end of the day, i think the folksin the white house, as with many people here in washington, believed that hillary clintonwas going to win on election night and that this issue brought up post-election wouldbe less contentious than in the middle of a campaign. judy woodruff: i want to turn you both nowto what we are just learning about literally in the last few minutes. and that is donald trump put out a statementand has been tweeting, tam, about these incidents in europe, in turkey.
he is lumping together the assassination inturkey of the russian ambassador and the terrible incident in berlin with the truck drivinginto a crowd in a christmas market. there was also a shooting at an islamic mosquetoday in zurich, switzerland. but he's saying these are -- i'm quoting nowfrom his statement. he condemned the berlin attack, said: "theislamic state and other islamist terrorists are slaughtering christians as part of theirglobal jihad." and he said the u.s. -- he said civilizedworld must change its thinking. we don't have clear evidence yet of what wasbehind these attacks. he's assuming that it's all an islamic -- oran islamist motive here.
tamara keith: and the civilized world linecame in a tweet. this is not new. what is new is that donald trump is now president-elect. donald trump turning to twitter to declarethat something is islamist terrorism before the broader security community, before thewhite house, before others have been willing to declare that, before investigators havebeen willing to declare that, that is not new. he's done that before in past instance. judy woodruff: we saw that during the campaign,amy.
do we expect that this is just going to continuewhen he's president? amy walter: absolutely. and then the question becomes, what do wedo about it once he's in office and hear, of course, the broader dialogue from him andthe people around him? judy woodruff: well, we are -- as we haveknown about these, we have been waiting ourselves to decide or to know what exactly we can say,because the german authorities, the turkish authorities were only putting out so muchinformation. but it appears that donald trump has alreadydrawn these conclusions, and so we report them.
amy walter, tamara keith, thank you both. tamara keith: you're welcome. amy walter: thank you, judy. judy woodruff: next: of the stains left onour national heritage by the country's history of slavery and jim crow segregation, perhapsthe least discussed is the practice of racial lynchings, executions of african-americansdone outside the judicial system and often intended to subdue black communities intopassivity. hari sreenivasan looks at a plan to help bringthat conversation to the fore. hari sreenivasan: the plan is to commemoratevictims of racially motivated lynchings with
a memorial in montgomery, alabama. the design calls for some 800 columns, which,upon closer viewing, reveal themselves to be suspended from above in a way that mimicsa hanging. each will bear the names of lynching victims,over 4,000 in all, as well as the date and location of their deaths. a companion courtyard will hold duplicatecolumns which will be moved to the county of the lynchings each commemorates, once thatlocal community accepts it. a recent $10 million donation from siblingphilanthropists pat and jon stryker brings the project closer to its planned 2018 opening.
for more on all this, we turn to bryan stevenson,the founder of the equal justice initiative, which created the concept and is overseeingits completion. bryan, thanks for being with us. first, why do we need a memorial like this? bryan stevenson, founder, equal justice initiative:well, i think we're still haunted by our history of racial inequality. we are really burdened by this legacy. and i don't think we have acknowledged itadequately. we terrorized african-americans at the endof the 19th century and through half of the
20th century. the demographic geography of this countrywas shaped by this era of racial terror and lynching. the black people who went to cleveland andchicago and detroit went there as refugees and exiles from terror. and we haven't owned up to it. and i think we need to. it took us 15 years to build a 9/11 memorialhere in new york. and i think that's important.
i think it's critically necessary that weremember what happened on that day. but it's equally important that we acknowledgethis history of terror that i think still undermines our ability to be free, to be justwith one another, to kind of shake the burden of racial inequality that still underminesus in many areas. hari sreenivasan: this is part of a longerproject that you have been working on. you documented, i think, 8,000 lynchings overalmost a 75-year period. you even grabbed jars of soil from each ofthese sites. why? bryan stevenson: the american south is litteredwith the iconography of the confederacy.
and there are communities where the devastationof slavery, where the devastation of the genocide of native people has not been acknowledged,has not been recognized. lynchings provide an opportunity for us togo to very specific places. many of these acts of terror took place oncourthouse lawns, in front of schools, in front of churches, in front of places thatstill exist today. so, we have been asking people in the communityto engage in acts of truth-telling and acts of recovery, reconciliation, reparation. i think we need that in this country. in south africa, you have seen that.
in rwanda, you have seen that. in germany, you have seen that. i think they are healthier communities becausethey acknowledge their histories of mass atrocity and violence. i think we're less healthy because we haven'ttalked about the genocide of native people, we haven't talked about slavery, we haven'ttalked about lynching. and i think, to get there, we're going tohave to do these tasks. we're going to have to take these steps. and the community involvement, the soil collectionsare part of that process.
hari sreenivasan: the countries you mentioned,they didn't get there very quickly. there was resistance. is there resistance, especially in the southin the united states, when you bring up the idea of this memorial? bryan stevenson: i think there is certainlya reluctance. we have denied this history for a long time. i think we have become such a punitive society. we have the highest rate of incarcerationin the world. i think a lot of people are afraid to talkabout slavery, are afraid to talk about lynching
and segregation because they fear they willbe punished. we don't have an interest in punishing americafor this history, but we don't believe we can be free until we acknowledge this history. issues of police violence, issues of discrimination,issues of lack of diversity are rooted in an absence of truth-telling about our history. and so we have to just persuade people thatthere is something powerful and positive and beautiful that can come when we acknowledgethese histories, however painful, and make our ways forward. germany is a nation that we trust more todaybecause they don't have these -- they don't
have statutes to adolf hitler. they don't celebrate the nazis. rwanda is a healthier place because they haveacknowledged that legacy. so is south america. i think america has to replicate that if we'regoing to really be free. hari sreenivasan: i tried to give a groupdescription of what it looks like or what it will look like, but what are you hopingthat people take away if they walk through and visit the space? bryan stevenson: i hope people will beginto think differently about who we are and
what our past is. you know, this donation comes from jon andpat stryker, who are honoring their father, who stood for civil rights, who understoodthe importance of civil rights. and i think we have to create spaces. the holocaust memorials are very powerfulplaces. you walk through them, you understand things,you come out and you say never again. and i think we need to create spaces in americawhere we begin to confront this history of racial inequality and we walk out and we saynever again. we want them to be sober places.
we want them to be informational places, butwe also want them to be places where there's beauty, where there's hope, where there'sthe chance for transformation. and i think we can do that. but we can't do it without spending more timecreating the kind of cultural infrastructure that i hope this memorial will contributeto. hari sreenivasan: is there a through-lineor a legacy of lynching in the criminal justice system today? bryan stevenson: oh, absolutely. i mean, you know, at the end of the civilwar, we didn't really deal with the great
evil of american slavery. the great evil of american slavery was aninvoluntary servitude of forced labor. i believe the great evil of american slaverywas the narrative of racial difference that we created to legitimate it. and because we didn't address that in the13th amendment, i don't think slavery ended. i think it just evolved. and what we did in this country is, we beganto criminalize black people. in the late 19th century, convict leasingwas a new kind of slavery, where we put black people in jails and prisons, and then leasedthem to do the same work they would have done
as enslaved people. and that narrative of criminality was verymuch behind lynching, even though black people were being lynched for things like not usingthe colored entrance, for asking for better wages, for scolding white children. elizabeth lawrence was lynched in birmingham,alabama, because she told white kids to stop throwing stones at her. and even though these acts were not crimes,they challenged this racial hierarchy. they challenged this narrative of racial difference. and so we used the apparatus of punishment,the narrative of punishment to carry out these
lynchings. and when lynchings were shut down becauseof federal pressure, they moved indoors. and we had a criminal justice system and stillhave a criminal justice system that operates where too often there are presumptions ofdangerousness and guilt that get assigned to black and brown people. the wrongful convictions, the overincarcerationof people of color, these disparities in sentencing are rooted in this history of criminalizingand demonizing people of color that is made most dramatic in this era of lynching. and i think, if we understand it, we willdo better at overcoming it.
but we have to understand it first. and that's why these projects on slavery andlynching, for me, are so critical. hari sreenivasan: bryan stevenson of the equaljustice initiative, thanks for joining us. bryan stevenson: thank you. judy woodruff: he was proclaimed rock's nextbig thing in 1975, and he became the real thing with albums like "born to run," "darknesson the edge of town," "born in the usa," and many more. now bruce springsteen tells his own storyin a memoir. jeffrey brown paid him a visit to hear first-hand.
jeffrey brown: in his new memoir, bruce springsteenlooks back at his young, struggling and then little known self and writes: "i wasn't modestin the assessment of my abilities. of course, i thought i was a phony. that is the way of the artist. but i also thought i was the realest thingyou had ever seen." bruce springsteen, musician: that's right. most artists i know consider themselves tobe phonies, along with the feeling that there's something that you're doing is essential,essential to communicate, and deeply, deeply real.
jeffrey brown: springsteen has been rockinghis way through marathon, arena-sized concerts for decades, a kind of working-class rock'n' roll hero to millions of devoted fans. in the recording studio he built at this ruralnew jersey home, we talked about becoming bruce springsteen, the story he tells in hisbook, "born to run." bruce springsteen: it was a very differenttype of writing from songwriting. jeffrey brown: in what way? bruce springsteen: a pop song is a condensedversion of a life in three minutes, whereas, when you go to write your prose, you haveto find the rhythm in your words, and you have to find the rhythm in the voice thatyou have found and the way you're speaking.
jeffrey brown: what about that voice, though? because in songs -- i think of writers i havetalked to, or poets, and there's always the question of, how much of that is you? bruce springsteen: i would say, in your memoir,it's you. i think that, when you're writing your songs,there's always a debate about whether, is that you in the song? is it not you in the song? jeffrey brown: what's the answer? bruce springsteen: so, every song has a pieceof you in it, because just general regret,
love. you have to basically zero in on the truthof those particular emotions. and then you can fill it out in any characterand in any circumstance that you want. if you have written really well, people willswear that it happened to you. jeffrey brown: springsteen grew up in theworking-class town of freehold, new jersey, of italian and irish stock, adored and spoiledby his mother and grandparents, ignored and denigrated by a brooding, drinking, distantfather, a figure who would obsess him personally and musically. bruce springsteen: initially, i had my conversationswith him through my music.
and that was the most effective, not the greatestway to do it, but it was certainly -- it was the most effective for us. jeffrey brown: i mean, but you write earlyon, "when my dad looked at me, he didn't see what he needed to see." bruce springsteen: yes. now... jeffrey brown: well, you're going, yes, now,but i mean, that's hard when you're a young boy. bruce springsteen: it is hard.
it is hard. i think that it's a natural thing for parentsto look for reflections of themselves in their children and feel a certain pride there. so if your child is very, very different,or perhaps if he's very, very similar, it makes you uncomfortable. so, there was a lot of that when i was young,and it took a long time to get through. jeffrey brown: reconciliation would come later,along with an understanding of the role of depression in his father's and his own. from the beginning, though, the young springsteenshowed a ferocious drive and sense of his
own mission, first as a king of the bar bandsin central and south jersey. i started to make a list of the clubs youplayed early on. these are not high-rent places, right? the angle inn trailer park, cavatelli's pizza,the i.b. club, surf and the sea beach club, long branchitalian american club, the pandemonium club. you probably remember each and every one ofthem. bruce springsteen: yes, i remember those alot more than some of the madison square garden and other things. jeffrey brown: is that right?
bruce springsteen: of course. they were all so distinctive in their ownway, and they all drew their own little clique of kids. and it was such a formative moment in yourlife that, you know, you were just coming into being. jeffrey brown: you write about your voice. you say, about my voice, "first of all, idon't have much of one." jeffrey brown: right? but you worked at it.
bruce springsteen: initially just soundedawful, just so terribly awful, but there was nothing i could do about it. so, i just kept singing and kept singing andkept singing. and i studied other singers, so i would learnhow to phrase, and learn how to breathe. and the main thing was, i learned how to inhabitmy song. jeffrey brown: which means what? bruce springsteen: what you were singing aboutwas believable and convincing, that's the key to a great singer. a great singer has to learn how to inhabita song.
you may not be able to hit all the notes. that's ok. you may not have the clearest tone. you may not have the greatest range. but if you can inhabit your song, you cancommunicate. jeffrey brown: the early songs, though, arewhat i would call, like, word drunk. they're so many words in there that you'rebarely catching your breath as you're singing bruce springsteen: well, i was influencedby dylan very intensely. and i had a rhyming dictionary.
a man armed with a rhyming dictionary is adangerous man. (laughter) bruce springsteen: so, yes, the words camefast and furious. jeffrey brown: a dictionary and, more important,a great band, the e street band, which includes singer patti scialfa, his wife since 1991. springsteen never liked his nickname, theboss. bruce springsteen: i had no credit cards. i had no checks. i was cash only until i was probably 30 yearsold.
jeffrey brown: but the boss is what he became,deciding early on that, to endure, he would have to treat music like a business. bruce springsteen: well, that has to happen. if you're a band leader, you need that typeof discipline and dedication in the guys you're playing with. we came from where professionalism wasn'ta dirty word, as i say. and so we worked like the old soul bands worked,very intensely, and very methodically, in great detail. jeffrey brown: you even call it a benevolentdictatorship.
bruce springsteen: that's what it is. jeffrey brown: that's what it is. bruce springsteen: small unit democracy, ifound early on, didn't work for me. and the band contributes enormously. i wouldn't have gotten anywhere near wherei was without them. but it's basically the buck stops here sortof situation. jeffrey brown: but are you a control freak? that's sort of the what -- i think you saythat. bruce springsteen: yes, i am, probably lessnow than i used to be.
i think, when i was young, i was -- becauseyou're insecure, you really -- you're very controlling. now i'm moderately controlling, i would say. jeffrey brown: but you use that word insecure,because, frankly, i'm reading this thing, and it's such a mix of sort of insecuritiesand sense of self. bruce springsteen: that's the artist's way. jeffrey brown: that's the artist's way. explain that to me. bruce springsteen: most artists i know hadone person in their life who told them they
were the second coming of the baby jesus,and another person that told them they weren't worth anything, and they believed them both,you know? and so you go through the rest of your lifein pursuit of both of those things, proving that both of those things are true. and you feel like the burden of proof is onyou. it doesn't matter what happened last nightor the night -- or tomorrow night. it's all about what you're doing with thisaudience right now. and insecurity, natural part of being an artist. jeffrey brown: it is always there.
bruce springsteen: along with a driving, driving,driving ego, a vanity, and the self-confidence. so you have got to have both of those things. that's what makes it interesting. that's what makes someone -- that's what makesyou want to watch someone, or want to listen to someone, are those particular complexities. jeffrey brown: my conversation with brucespringsteen continues tomorrow night with a look at his lifelong bouts of depression,his love of reading, and the election of donald trump. for the "pbs newshour," i'm jeffrey brown.
judy woodruff: now to our "newshour" shares,something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too. every december, hundreds of tuba and euphoniumplayers gather in cities around the world to perform holiday tunes. we recently spoke with chris quade, one ofthe organizers of tubachristmas at washington, d.c.'s kennedy center, about what makes theevents so special. chris quade, tubachristmas: my name is chrisquade. i'm one of the coordinators of tubachristmas. i'm also the emcee.
the original tubachristmas was in new yorkcity, and that was 1973. in 1974, they started d.c. tubachristmas. people thought of the tuba as a back-row instrument,shouldn't play too soft, because it can't, shouldn't play too fast, because it can't. to me, tubachristmas represents breaking outof the tuba stereotype. it's been the same music for 43 years. the arrangements work. they are interesting enough to hold the attentionof the players. they are simple enough to put together inone rehearsal.
they lay in a good range, and they have theright amount of fast and slow. i think the magic of those arrangements isreally what makes this work. it's great because it is timeless. we can't play top 40. we'd have to change the book every year. and it's tubas. top 40 doesn't really work. it's a kind part concert, part educationalexperience, part reunion. i think every year, i imagine, come on, theyare going to traipse in from miles and miles
away into the city and come up just to dothis? it's a pain, right? and they come all the time. and there are so many young players. that's the thing that gets me every year. they're excited by it. this is fun. if you have children come here, and they havegot a book of music in front of them, and everyone is very somber, they are going tobe much more nervous about what they are doing.
if you have lights on this tuba, and garlandon this tuba, and this guy's got reindeer antlers, it creates an atmosphere where youare just trying to have fun. tubachristmas, 300 tuba players, and it'sa beautiful sound. judy woodruff: tubas at christmas, bruce springsteen. you have got to love tonight's show. so, on the "newshour" online right now: whatwas the best book you read in 2016? our staff at the "newshour" shares their favoriteswith you, whether you're looking for your next good read or shopping for holiday gifts. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour.
and that's the "newshour" for tonight. join us online and again right here tomorrowevening. for all of us at the "pbs newshour," thankyou, and good night.
