Juanita Nelson, a longtime civil rights activist, war tax resister and farmer, has died at the age of 91 in Greenfield, Massachusetts. She was first arrested in the early 1940s protesting lunch counter segregation in Washington, D.C. During World War II, she met her future husband, Wally Nelson, while he was in jail for refusing to fight in the war. In the late 1940s, they worked with CORE, Congress of Racial Equality, and helped organized the first freedom rides in the South. At the same time, they stopped paying taxes for war.
In the wake of the University of Oklahoma expelling two student fraternity members for leading a hateful song, we host a discussion on how academic institutions should address racism on campus. We speak to University of Oklahoma student Rashid Campbell, Tracie Washington of The Louisiana Justice Institute, and Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
As the nation prepares to mark the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, we talk to historian Eric Foner about Reconstruction and the birth of a homegrown racist, terrorist movement led by the Ku Klux Klan. Foner wrote one of the definitive books on the era, titled "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877." He won a Pulitzer Prize for "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery." His latest book is "Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad."
