5. Jan 6th: An American Story - The Lawmakers
PART 5: In this episode, we turn our mics to the elected officials who ran the House committee. We speak with Chairman Bennie Thompson, who endured racial terrorism as he grew up in a small town in Mississippi; Rep. Jamie Raskin, who has logged 25 years as a law professor at American University to give him a deep Constitutional framing of the investigation, and finally, former GOP Representative Adam Kinzinger, who has endured death threats as a result of joining the January 6th committee. We learn from all these legislators what it took to meet this moment in history.
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Show Notes
By now, the story of what happened on January 6 2021 is seared into the public psyche. But there is still an untold story.
Many of the investigators and team leads on the January 6th Committee were people of color. In this podcast, we bring you the story of their leadership, and why their mix of lived experience as descendents of enslaved people; children of immigrants; or immigrants themselves deeply shaped the committee’s quest to protect and uphold a multiracial pluralistic democracy.
The story they tell about the inner workings of the committee also reveal deep rifts over the role of race and Christian Nationalism in the insurrection, and how much of that inquiry should be told while proving former President Trump’s role in the insurrection.
As America winds up with endless court cases over the former President and his alleged co-conspirators, it is also, arguably winding up for an increase in domestic violent extremism. In “January 6th: An American Story,” we show – through the investigators of color and lawmakers helping lead the committee – that January 6th is not over, and the ways we continue to make sense of its reverberations could save – or imperil – us all.
The story of January 6 is an American Story.
It just might be different from the one you thought you knew.