Don Lemon
, CNN Newsroom Anchor
Don Lemon anchors CNN Newsroom during weekend prime-time and serves as a correspondent across CNN/U.S. programming. Based in the network’s New York bureau, Lemon joined CNN in September 2006.
A news veteran of Chicago, Lemon reported from Chicago in the days leading up to the 2008 presidential election, including an interview with then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel on the day he accepted the position of Chief of Staff for President-elect Barack Obama. He also interviewed Anne Cooper, the 106-year old voter President-elect Obama highlighted in his election night acceptance speech after he had seen Lemon’s interview with Cooper on CNN.
Lemon has reported and anchored on-the-scene for CNN from many breaking news stories, including the George Zimmerman trial (2013), the Boston marathon bombing (2013), the Philadelphia building collapse (2013), the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (2012), the Colorado Theater Shooting (2012), the death of Whitney Houston, the Inaugural of the 44th President in Washington, D.C., the death of Michael Jackson (2009), Hurricane Gustav in Louisiana (2008) and the Minneapolis bridge collapse (2007).
Lemon has also anchored the network's breaking news coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Arab Spring, the death of Osama Bin Laden and Joplin tornado. Lemon reported for CNN’s documentary Race and Rage: The Beating of Rodney King, which aired 20 years to the day of the beating. He is also known for holding politicians and public officials accountable in his "No Talking Points" segment.
Lemon joined CNN after serving as a co-anchor for the 5 p.m. newscast for NBC5 News in Chicago. He joined the station in August 2003 as an anchor and reporter after working in New York as a correspondent for NBC News, The Today Show and NBC Nightly News. In addition to his reporting in New York, Lemon worked as an anchor on Weekend Today and on MSNBC. While at NBC, Lemon covered the explosion of Space Shuttle Columbia, SARS in Canada and numerous other stories of national and global importance.
In addition to NBC5 and NBC News, Lemon has served as a weekend anchor and general assignment reporter for WCAU-TV, an NBC affiliate in Philadelphia, an anchor and investigative reporter for KTVI-TV in St. Louis and an anchor for WBRC-TV in Birmingham. He began his career at WNYW in New York City as a news assistant while still in college.
In 2009, Ebony named him as one of the Ebony Power 150: the most influential Blacks in America. He has won an Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage of the capture of the Washington, D.C. snipers. He won an Emmy for a special report on real estate in Chicagoland and various other awards for his reporting on the AIDS epidemic in Africa and Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, he won three more local Emmys for his reporting in Africa and a business feature about Craigslist, an online community.
Lemon serves as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, teaching and participating in curriculum designed around new media. He earned a degree in broadcast journalism from Brooklyn College and also attended Louisiana State University.
Black America Web Featured Video
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Mississippi just passed a so-called religious freedom bill.
Supporters claim the build is necessary so Christians won’t face discrimination for refusing to participate in services or serve people with whom they disagree on religion.
The question is, is Mississippi House Bill 1523 just code for discriminating against gay, lesbian and transgender people?
The bill, signed into law by Governor Phil Bryant, allows businesses and religious groups to deny service to the lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual community.
Under the new law, LGBT people can be fired or refused employment, denied medical care, and even barred from buying or renting property.
The bill shields those denying those services from punishment in the name of religion.
Allowing people to be fired or refused employment, denied medical care, and even barred from buying or renting property – where have we heard that before?
Black people heard it and were victims of this bible sanction discrimination for years; and in some places still are.
Mississippi state representative Steve Holland, who is a democrat, says it’s the most hateful bill he has seen in his entire career.
Rep. Steve Holland: “this was a pretty big slap in the face I don’t see it as religious freedom at all. I see it as the government saying that we can just discriminate against whole classes of people. And we went through that in the 60’s and we’re still suffering from that. And it just hurts my heart. As a Christian #1 that we’re not practicing love. And I think that’s the basis of Christianity the great commandments are love God and love your neighbors, yourself. And I don’t see much love in this bill.”
Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant stands by the bill.
Governor Phil Bryant: “There is no intent, there’s no one on the part of the Mississippi legislature or the governor’s office that wants to discriminate or harm anyone. This is simply, if they are worried about protecting people’s rights, also understand that people of faith have rights.”
But it’s not protecting people’s rights, it’s plain and simple discrimination concealed as religion.
And it allows people to impose their personal religious beliefs onto someone else.
The bill was signed into law on Tuesday and already major corporations such as Hyatt, Whole Foods, IBM, Toyota, GE, Hewlett Packard, PepsiCo, Tyson Foods, Nissan, MGM Resorts International, Levis, Dow Chemical Company and AT&T are denouncing it.
Some companies are threatening to completely pull out of the state.
Mississippi stands to lose millions and millions of dollars and jobs.
Just so you know, Mississippi isn’t alone.
According to the ACLU there are nearly 200 similar bills in at least 10 other state legislatures in the pipeline.
North Carolina is still reeling from the fall-out of passing its own “religious freedom” bill.
PayPal canceled plans to open a new global headquarters in Charlotte, costing the state 400 jobs.
We must remember, especially as people of color who are mostly listening to this broadcast that bigots used the bible, religion and the same reasoning, or lack thereof, to discriminate against black people.
Do we really want to go backwards?
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