U.S. Department of Transporation forms equity advisory committee

On this week’s “The Hill with April Ryan,” White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief April Ryan breaks down the latest headlines in politics.

On the latest episode of “The Hill with April Ryan,” host and theGrio’s White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief, April Ryan, interviews former Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, who is leading the new 24-member equity advisory committee at the U.S. Department of Transportation. 

The committee, which was formed by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, will focus on civil rights and transportation equity as the agency seeks to rebuild a nation’s infrastructure that was historically and intentionally separated along racial lines.

Foxx told theGrio, “50 to 60 years after the highway system has been built..we need legislation to start correcting this.” 

Part of the committee’s work will be to get Congress to buy into this effort to deconstruct racism in America’s roadways, especially as that legislative branch holds the purse strings to fund such transportation projects. 

“The Hill” also sits down with civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who is working on a series of “freedom rides” later this year to highlight the lack of accountability in police-involved deadly incidents involving innocent and unarmed Black Americans. 

Merritt told theGrio, “We are going to families and communities where police have taken the lives of community members without accountability.”

Ryan also breaks down the latest struggle for Black female judges and prosecutors in a currently divisive and racialized political climate. Several Black women, most of whom have sought to hold former President Donald Trump accountable, have received threats for simply doing their jobs. 

These women include Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, the presiding judge over Trump’s federal criminal case for trying to overturn the 2020 election; Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought a 13-count indictment against Trump for his actions in Georgia related to his 2020 election plot; and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump for civil fraud. 

Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney for Cook County in Illinois, told theGrio she is not seeking re-election because it “felt like for the last seven years or so that Black women have been out here leading the fight for the criminal justice system that is fair…[but] have also been the most vulnerable to these attacks on our personal safety.”

Lastly, “The Hill” takes a look at Tennessee State University President Dr. Glenda Glover’s plans to step down from her post. However, Glover will continue her work as vice chair of the White House Board of Advisors on HBCUs. 

In the next few weeks, the board will present a just-completed report to President Joe Biden and the Department of Education about HBCU campus capacity and how to sustain in an anti-Black and anti-“woke” climate. 

Catch an all-new episodes of “The Hill with April Ryan” every Thursday on theGrio.com and theGrio’s social media platforms.

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