Chattanooga News Chronicle - March 25, 2021 Page 8 Chattanooga News Chronicle - March 25, 2021 NATIONAL

oneration. Alford filed a lawsuit against Hertz and is Wrongly Convicted Man seeking compensation of at least $25,000. “Had the defendants not ignored and disobeyed Spent 5 Years in Prison numerous court orders requiring them to produce the documentation that eventually freed Mr. Alford, Because Hertz Didn’t he would not have spent over 1,700 days incarcer- ated,” Alford’s attorney Jamie White said, accord- Provide A Receipt That ing to CNN. Meanwhile, a Hertz representative said the com- Proved His Alibi pany is “deeply saddened” about what happened to Alford. Spokeswoman Lauren Luster said, “While Nationwide — Herbert Alford, an African we were unable to find the historic rental record American man who spent almost 5 years in prison from 2011 when requested in 2015, we continued after being wrongfully convicted for a murder he our good faith efforts to locate it. With advances in didn’t commit, is now suing Hertz for failing to Alford said he was renting a car from the airport data search in the years following, we were able to promptly provide the receipt that would have had in Lansing, Michigan just minutes before the mur- locate the rental record in 2018 and promptly pro- confirmed his innocence. der of 23-year old Michael Adams happened at a vided it.” In 2015, Alford was arrested after police sus- strip mall 20 minutes away from the airport, making The charges against Alford were finally dropped pected that he was responsible for a 2011 murder. it physically impossible for him to be the gunman. in December 2020 but it won’t change the fact that A year later, he was convicted of second-degree However, Hertz wasn’t able to turn over that he was imprisoned for 5 years for a crime he did not murder even though he maintained his innocence, evidence in a timely manner. They were only able commit. saying he was renting a vehicle several miles away to provide the receipt in 2018, which lead to his ex- from the scene.

RBG Could be Honored With a Monument at the U.S. Capitol

Of the 100 statues in the National Statutory Hall Collection — two selected by each state — only nine are women. When statues and portraits do change, it’s usually a result of public pres- sure, said Erika Doss, a professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame, who focuses on public art and monuments. Sometimes even that’s not enough: In Maryland, thousands of people have petitioned for decades to replace one of their statues of White men with Harriet Tubman. “New generations are saying, ‘Where are the women? Where are the people of color?’ ” Doss said. Those voices are often countered by those on the other side, she said, wary of “revisionist history,” eager to protect symbols of the Con- federacy or other aspects of White male dominance. [ The Supreme Court ruled against Lilly Ledbetter’s equal pay lawsuit. RBG inspired her to keep fighting.] Part of the problem lies in the public’s perception of heroism. “Sculpture is a medium of tradition based on heroic events,” Ellen Wiley Todd, a professor emeritus of art history at George Mason University, told The Washington Post in 2011. “Who are our heroes? Firefighters, police officers, soldiers — people on By Caroline Kitchener the front lines who are conceived of as male. They may not all be men, but it is a masculine conception.” WASHINGTON, DC — On the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, the majority of Every year, between 3 and 5 million people from all over the world visit the monuments depict White men. Capitol grounds. Children and teenagers flood the Capitol on class trips, gazing But soon, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could become up at the people selected as their “state and national symbols,” Doss said. The a permanent fixture. monuments selected to appear in the Capitol convey an important message, she A bill introduced Tuesday by the Democratic Women’s Caucus — including said. co-chairs Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fl.), Rep Brenda “These are the people we uphold and revere in our country. If it’s a majority Lawrence (D-Mich.) — and by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) in the Senate, White male crowd, what does that say?” would construct a monument of the feminist legal titan in a “place of promi- Ginsburg would be a perfect choice, Doss said. There are only two other nence” at the Capitol. A monument of Ginsburg, who died in September, would women’s rights advocates depicted as statues in the Capitol, activist Frances Wil- be a tribute to her lifelong fight for female equality. lard and Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress. (Others are fea- [ ‘How many people get to say they worked for their idol?’: Women in law tured in portraits.) remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s profound impact] Even if the bill passes, it will likely be years before Ginsburg’s monument “She was an icon and a trailblazer who dedicated her life to opening doors appears at the Capitol. The Rosa Parks statue, erected in 2013, was authorized by for women at a time when so many insisted on keeping them shut,” said Klobu- Congress eight years earlier, in 2005. char, who introduced a companion bill in the Senate. “It is only fitting that the Eight years in the future, little girls will visit the Capitol who never knew of members of the Senate and the House of Representatives honor her life and ser- Ginsburg while she was living. For decades to come, Doss said, they’ll be able to vice by establishing a monument in the Capitol.” look up at the justice and see all they could be. It’s not yet clear what form Ginsburg’s monument would take. The justice “That’s essentially what public art does: It models expectations of behavior.” could be depicted through a statue, a bust or a portrait. It’s hard to imagine anyone who could set a better example, she said. The monuments that appear in the U.S. Capitol have been slow to diversify.

George Floyd’s Family Settled a Suit Against Minneapolis for $27 Million

Minneapolis, MN —The City of Minneapolis agreed on Friday to pay $27 million to the family of George Floyd, the Black man whose death set off months of protests after a video showed a white po- lice officer kneeling on his neck. The payment to settle the family’s lawsuit was among the largest of its kind, and it came as the offi- cer, Derek Chauvin, was set to go on trial this month for charges including second-degree murder. As the settlement was announced by city officials and law- yers for Mr. Floyd’s family, Mr. Chauvin sat in a courtroom less than a mile away, where jurors were being selected for his trial. Mayor Jacob Frey called the agreement a mile- stone for Minneapolis’s future. Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer who is among those representing Mr. Floyd’s family, said it could set an example for other communities. “After the eyes of the world rested on Minne- apolis in its darkest hour, now the city can be a bea- con of hope and light and change for cities across for the trial so far. eral’s office, which is prosecuting the case, did not America and across the globe,” he said. Mary Moriarty, the former chief public defender respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman But legal experts said the agreement might make in Minneapolis, said that the timing could hardly be for Minneapolis said the settlement was “indepen- it even harder to seat an impartial jury in the case worse for the court case and that Mr. Chauvin’s law- dent and separate from the criminal trial underway.” against Mr. Chauvin, which was already a challenge yers might even ask for a mistrial. The large payment was a sign of the magnitude because of the attention given to Mr. Floyd’s death She added that the defense team might have of the response to Mr. Floyd’s death, which led to and the intense demonstrations that followed. In the reason to worry that jurors’ views could be affected protests in hundreds of cities, changes in local and first four days of jury selection this week, nearly all by the deal, if they saw it as an indication that Mr. state laws and a reckoning over racism and police of the potential jurors said they had seen the video of Chauvin’s actions were inappropriate. Mr. Chauvin’s abuse. In Minneapolis, a police station and many his arrest, including all but one of the seven selected lawyer and a spokesman for the state attorney gen- businesses were burned over several nights of unrest.