Georgia Today: Some in GA DNC call for Williams resignation; Sav. man enters plea for Jan. 6 charges

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Tuesday, Dec. 17. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, the Georgia Democratic Party could be laying the groundwork for its party chair to step down. A former Georgia NFL player pleads not guilty to charges related to Jan. 6. An Atlanta journalist, Neesha Powell-Ingabire, writes her way back to her Geechee roots. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Peter Biello: Georgia Democrats could be laying the groundwork for party chair Nikema Williams to step down. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports. 

Sarah Kallis: The Democratic Party of Georgia's state committee held a vote on Saturday that requires the committee in charge of the party's bylaws to write new rules for the party's chair. Party officials say the process will likely take months and that members will have to vote on new wording for the chair's role as well. One possibility includes making the party chair position full time. A rift in the party emerged after some members were disappointed in Democratic performance in Georgia after November's election. Several members of the party have called for Chair Nikema Williams, who is also a U.S. Representative, to step down. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis, an Atlanta.

Story 2:

Peter Biello: Georgia's 16 presidential electors have signed, sealed and certified the state's Electoral College votes for president- and vice president-elect Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon presided over the short meeting at the state capitol this afternoon. The U.S. Congress will count the electoral votes and then certify them on Jan. 6. On that date in 2021, a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol seeking to stop the certification of Trump's 2020 electoral loss. Among those who were charged for events connected to that day is a former NFL player from Savannah. He's pleaded not guilty. GPB's Benjamin Payne reports.

Benjamin Payne: Leander Antwione Williams appeared before a D.C. judge via video conference during an arraignment on Monday. It was there that the former Detroit Lions and Georgia Southern University player was brought up on a nine-count indictment against him. In it, a federal grand jury charges Williams with assaulting Capitol and D.C. police during the attempted insurrection by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. Williams pleaded not guilty to the counts, which include both felonies and misdemeanors. His arraignment comes a month after the Georgia native was arrested by FBI agents at his home in Savannah. It also comes nearly a month before Trump is set to begin his second term in office. The president-elect has said his administration plans to review Jan. 6 prosecutions on a case-by-case basis. Williams remains free on bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for February. For GPB News, I'm Benjamin Payne in Savannah.

Story 3:

Peter Biello: Two men have been arrested and charged in connection with a drone attack in Jordan that killed three American service members from Georgia. Federal prosecutors in Boston yesterday accused the men of conspiring to export sensitive technology used in the attack to Iran. The U.S. Department of Justice said one defendant worked for a Massachusetts semiconductor company and the other has deep connections to the Iranian government. The January attack killed Sgts. William Rivers of Carrollton, Breonna Moffett of Savannah, and Kennedy Sanders of Waycross.

Caption

Joel Paez, father of Manuel Paez Terán speaks at a press conference February 6, 2023, press conference surrounded by family including Terán's mother and brother.

Credit: Amanda Andrews / GPB News

Story 4:

Peter Biello: Attorneys representing the family of an activist killed in a raid near the site of Atlanta's new public safety training center filed a new lawsuit today. GPB's Amanda Andrews reports the family is still looking for answers about what happened that day.

Amanda Andrews: The civil lawsuit names the three law enforcement officers responsible for planning the raid and giving orders to fire on the tent where Paez-Teran was found. Attorney Jeff Filipovitz says they're questioning if the raid violated Paez-Teran's constitutional rights to free speech and use of public lands.

Jeff Filipovitz: They went in with an order to arrest anyone inside that park. The presence in that park was legal. You can't go into a public space and arrest someone for being there. That's the basis of the Fourth Amendment false arrest claim that we've brought.

Amanda Andrews: Paez Teran was fatally shot January 2023. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation concluded their investigation in March of that year, and the family has yet to see the report. For GPB News, I'm Amanda Andrews.

Story 5:

Peter Biello: The U.S. Department of Justice is suing the city of Brunswick over its attempt to close a homeless shelter that city officials say is a public nuisance. The DOJ says the city is violating a federal law protecting religious freedom by interfering with The Well, a Christian resource center that city officials linked to violent crimes. A statement from the ministry says social media has spread misinformation about the shelter and welcomes the lawsuit announced today. The DOJ is asking a federal judge to halt Brunswick's legal actions against The Well, among other calls for relief. Brunswick Mayor Cosby Johnson declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Story 6:

Peter Biello: A judge has denied a former Georgia prosecutor's motion to halt her upcoming trial on charges that she interfered with police investigating the 2020 killing of a Ahmaud Arbery. The judge yesterday rejected former Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson's argument that the Georgia attorney general's office should be disqualified from prosecuting her. Arbery was killed nearly five years ago in a chase started by Greg McMichael, who once worked for Johnson. Arrests for Arbery's death came more than two months later, after cellphone video of the killing leaked online. Johnson was indicted in September 2021 and accused of using her elected position to show favoritism to Greg McMichael. Jury selection for her trial is expected to begin next month.

Story 7:

Peter Biello: It's that time of year when celebrities spread good cheer by giving away Christmas toys. Rapper Offset hosted his fifth annual Christmas Toy Drive yesterday in Atlanta, and on Friday, basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal hosted his annual event in McDonough in Henry County. Through his Shaquille O'Neal Foundation, Shaq brought his 23rd annual Shaq-a-Claus Event to Wesley Lakes Elementary School in McDonough, where 600 kids from pre-K to fifth grade received toys, coats, bikes and other essentials.

Shaquille O ' Neal: If I controlled the world, every kid in the world would wake up with five to 10 toys. But 5 to 10 million kids will wake up on Christmas and not receive not one toy. And I know how that feels. So I want to try to do my part.

Peter Biello: You can find the full interview at GPB.org/news.

Caption

Neesha Powell-Ingabire is the author of the memoir, 'Come By Here'. / Courtesy

Story 8:

Peter Biello: A new memoir by journalist Neesha Powell-Ingabire is a look back at her hometown of Brunswick, Ga. — a long look back. The memoir is a series of essays, and it's a reflection on slavery's impact on the Georgia coast., her Geechee heritage, the Geechee culture that exists today, and the friction that comes with being Black, queer and disabled in today's world. Neesha Powell-Ingabire is with me now. Welcome to the program.

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: Thank you, Peter.

Peter Biello: Let's start by talking a little bit about your family history on the coast. How long has your family been in that part of Georgia?

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: My maternal family has been on the coast of Georgia as long as they can remember.

Peter Biello: So way, way back.

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: Way, way back. I've never heard anything about us migrating from anywhere else. So I assume that that's where they've been since being brought over, stolen, captured from Africa and brought over here. So yeah.

Peter Biello: And did you enjoy growing up here?

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: Oooo. It is complicated. And that's kind of where the book comes from, right? Very complicated, growing up, feeling like an outsider in a lot of different ways and then coming to appreciate it in adulthood.

Peter Biello: What made you feel like an outsider, specifically?

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: I felt different. And being different is not cool. I felt different because I didn't know that I was neurodivergent until I was an adult. But I was neurodivergent and so I spoke differently and moved differently. I was just different from the other children. Also having an eye condition called strabismus where your eyes are not aligned. That made me really different. Being teased by kids. At home, being criticized for just everything. I just feel like I come from a very critical home. So I always just felt different.

Peter Biello: All of the things you mentioned are touched upon in various ways in the essays in this book, in ways that we couldn't possibly cover in a brief conversation like this. But I do encourage our listeners to check out your book, Come By Here. I wanted to ask you about your Geechee identity or the extent to which you identify then and now, because as you write in this book, you didn't really think of yourself as someone with Geechee heritage back then. The word you described [in the book] is that it wasn't the cool thing to be then. But what about now? To what extent do you feel connected to that part of yourself now?

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: Yeah. So while writing this book, I have been able to connect with, talk to, spend time with many people on the coast who are really reclaiming a Geechee identity. And I've learned so much from them and through meeting them and learning what being Gullah Geechee means to them — seeing myself in that, it's kind of like undeniable. As I told you earlier, my family, that is where they are from. They are from the Geechee coast; they have been there for hundreds of years. And I think now I think of myself as I would say, I descend from Gullah Geechee folks.

Peter Biello: It was fascinating to see in this book you go back to Sapelo Island — or go to Sapelo Island, I should say, as both a reporter and as a person with ties to the region; to come to this place, feel emotionally attached to it, and then get to know it on an intellectual basis. How was that process for you?

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: Long overdue. As I talk about in that particular essay, my whole life, right by my church, there was this sign that pointed to Sapelo, and I never really thought much about it. I didn't know that Sapelo was a place of historical and cultural significance. They didn't teach us that in school, and so I had no reason to want to go over there. I only learned of its significance when I moved away from coastal Georgia, and finally being able to go there was a special moment, and I felt really honored that Maurice Bailey, whose family has been on Sapelo since the times of slavery, took time to host me and my partner and to show us around and to really tell us the story and demystify it for me. Just to be somewhere that important to the culture of Georgia, to this country — to the world, honestly — felt very, very important.

Peter Biello: One of the things that hooks readers to this book, if you read the blurb about it, is that you were classmates with one of the white men who killed Ahmaud Arbery — who was killed almost five years ago now.

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: 2020.

Peter Biello: Yeah. It didn't take up too much space in your book, but what it did represent, at least to me, as I read it, was that you lived in an area where racism was pervasive. It was around you and it shows up again and again. I'm wondering what it was like for you to reflect on this at length in the writing of this book and how that reflection sort of changed the way you felt about where you grew up?

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: It was —

Peter Biello: Because you're going back and back and back and you're thinking, oh yeah, here's another example. My friend Matt had a Confederate flag at his house and no one said anything about it when I was there. And it was just — you keep encountering these things and now when you're writing a memoir, you're almost creating a list.

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: Exactly. And growing up, I felt like I didn't think about racism that much. Not that I didn't know that it existed, but it wasn't at the top of my mind like it is now, and I feel like it was more hidden. It was something that we knew existed. But we really didn't talk about it in the open. And so I think things have changed since then. I feel like we just talk about race and racism more than we did in the '90s and the 2000s. So things have changed in that way. I've been reflecting on all of that. Reflecting on what happened to Ahmaud is always painful, always surreal because you just never imagine that something like that will hit so close to home. From reading this book, you know, maybe folks will understand kind of like the environment, the climate that we both came up in and how something so horrendous could happen.

Peter Biello: So you live in the Atlanta area now.

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: I do.

Peter Biello: If you had the opportunity, would you move back to the coast? You have memories of pervasive racism. Clearly, it's not gone away. Would you go back?

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: I think I would. While writing this book, I went down to Coastal Georgia more than I had in years and made so many great connections, formed new relationships and friendships that made me feel like maybe I actually do belong here. There are people here who are on the same page as me, who believe in many of the same things I do, who are politically and socially aligned with me and my sense of belonging has definitely grew and I think I could make a meaningful life for myself there.

Peter Biello: Well, one last fact before we leave, which is that the book's title Come By Hereis taken from the translation of a word that might be familiar to people, but they might not know it's a Gullah Geechee word, which is kumbaya. So the book is Come By Here. Neesha Powell-Ingabire, thank you so much for speaking with me about it.

Neesha Powell-Ingabire: Thank you.

Peter Biello: And Neesha Powell-Ingabire's book is the subject of the latest episode of Narrative Edge, GPB's podcast about books with Georgia connections hosted by me and Orlando Montoya. You can find Narrative Edge by searching "Narrative Edge" wherever you get your podcasts, or check it out at GPB.org/NarrativeEdge.

Peter Biello: And that is it for this edition of Georgia Today. Thank you so much for tuning in. We've always got more stories coming your way through the website, so check out GPB.org/news for the latest. And if you haven't subscribed to this podcast yet, take a moment. Do it now. That'll keep us current in your podcast feed. And your feedback is always welcome. Send it to us by email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. 

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