Name: 'No coloreds allowed': Deputy's family denied burial plot at 'whites-only cemetery'
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'No coloreds allowed': Deputy's family denied burial plot at 'whites-only cemetery'

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--KPLC-TVA Louisiana family says they were turned away from a "whites-only" cemetery.Before he died this month, Allen Parish Sheriff's Deputy Darrell Semien told his family he wanted to be buried at Oaklin Springs Cemetery in Oberlin because it was close to home, but his family said the cemetery refused to carry out his final wishes, ."It was in their by-laws that the cemetery was 'white's only,'" said the deputy's widow, Karla Semien. "I just kind of looked at her and she said, 'There's no coloreds allowed.'"The family was shocked."Just blatantly, with no remorse," said his daughter Kimberly Curly. "'I can't sell you a plot for your husband.'"Creig Vizena, president of the Oaklin Springs Cemetery Association, said the bylaws dating back to the 1950s restrict "the right of burial of the remains of white human beings," although he claims he'd never known about the restrictions until they came up after Semien's cancer diagnosis last month."It never came up," Vizena said. "I take full responsibility for that. I've been the president of this board for several years now. I take full responsibility for not reading the bylaws."Vizena said he tried to fix the situation by changing the bylaws, but the family remains hurt and insulted."To be told this is like we were nothing," said his widow. "He was nothing? He put his life on the line for them."The cemetery board will decide by Thursday night how to resolve the issue, and Vizena said he has offered to give the family one of his own plots."I even offered them, I can't sell you one, but I can give you one of mine," Vizena said. "That's how strongly I feel about fixing it."Report typos and corrections to: .On Tuesday, Ken Starr, the former prosecutor best known for heading up the Whitewater investigation into the Clintons, was reported dead at age 76, to CNBC.Per the report, Starr passed away due to complications during surgery."Starr was nominated by former President Ronald Reagan for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., circuit, and he served as U.S. solicitor general under then-President George H.W. Bush. He also held roles as president of Baylor University and dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law," noted the report. His tenure at Baylor was after it emerged that he and other school leaders had worked to help a student they were aware had been accused of sexual harassment."He is best known for leading Whitewater, the expansive investigation that began as a probe of real estate investments by then-President Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton, but branched out to encompass numerous other areas — including the notorious Monica Lewinsky sex scandal," said the report. "That scandal involved the president’s extramarital affair with Lewinsky, which started when she was a 24-year-old White House intern."IN OTHER NEWS: Starr also former President Donald Trump's impeachment defense team for his second trial, stemming from charges of incitement to insurrection that fueled the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol."We are deeply saddened with the loss of our dear and loving Father and Grandfather, whom we admired for his prodigious work ethic, but who always put his family first," said his son Randall in a .Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday unsealed more of the pages from the affidavit for the FBI search warrant issued for the classified documents Donald Trump took with him to his country club in Palm Beach, Florida. There were two grand jury subpoenas issued prior to the search at Mar-a-Lago, the pages detail. They were part of the ongoing litigation around the special master. Federal prosecutors told Judge Cannon Tuesday that they've already talked about the special master in another case with the judge overseeing the grand jury and that that judge approved the disclosure of the information redacted previouslyOne piece that is new is the search warrant affidavit is that five of the documents were marked "confidential," 16 marked "secret," and 17 marked "top secret." Other markings on the documents at Mar-a-Lago continued information derived from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is the kind of surveillance that happens electronically involving foreign adversaries to the U.S. as well as human intelligence. IN OTHER NEWS: There was a certified letter to the FBI and DOJ at Mar-a-Lago on June 3 saying that "based upon the information that has been provided to me, I am authorized to certify on behalf of the office of Donald Trump the following," it then makes the case that they'd searched all of the boxes in Florida from the White House and that they'd handed over all of the documents. The name isn't included in the new release, but reports indicated it was lawyer Christina Bobb. Her letter also details that they did a search of the storage room and that there were no additional documents anywhere else in Mar-a-Lago, but the FBI alleges that it found many documents in Trump's personal office, his desk drawers and in the office closet. According to "Individual 2," who is a National Archives representative for Trump said, “When producing the documents, neither FPOTUS COUNSEL 1 nor INDIVIDUAL 2 asserted that FPOTUS had declassified the documents. 2 The documents being in a Redweld envelope wrapped in tape appears to be consistent with an effort to handle the documents as if they were still classified.”The newly unredacted portion of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit, the former president's "Counsel 1" pointed to Trump in what could be considered an obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. § 1519," . The story is still developing....In the early stage of the then-novel COVID-pandemic, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration made an urgent decision at a fearful time: He ordered public schools across the state to shut down — first for an extended spring break in March 2020 and then for the rest of the school year.But viewers watching DeSantis’ new statewide TV-and-digital campaign ad may not know that schools were initially locked down. The political ad simply showed a young school-aged kid looking into the camera to thank DeSantis.“You let me go to school,” the child said, with no other context. The ad also shows other student-aged characters and someone who appears to be a teacher, along with some other DeSantis supporters.The current political dialogue for the governor is to highlight how much he has pushed to open schools, but that didn’t happen until at least the summer of 2020, and some districts were still allowing remote learning even after schools were required to open.So while the ad is not necessarily a lie, it does not tell the whole story of DeSantis’ education policy over the course of the pandemic — leading to questions as to when campaign ads cross over from highlighting attributes of a political candidate into potentially misleading constituents.“Ads are designed by political candidates to serve their political agenda; they are not always based on facts or complete pictures,” Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, told the Phoenix.For Robin Taub Williams, a former educator and president of the Democratic Public Education Caucus of Manasota, the ad is “misleading,” and that DeSantis did initially close schools.“But then I guess he decided, politically, it was best for him to open everything up and throw science out the window — throw caution out the window,” she told the Phoenix.On March 1, 2020, had been identified in Florida, and moved to call a state of emergency for Florida.On March 23, 2020, then-Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran issued an emergency order under the Department of Education that recommended school districts should “keep their facilities closed except to staff and teachers” through April 14, 2020, and instructed schools to continue educating students while at home “through non-classroom-based methods.” Many Florida public schools shifted to virtual instruction during this time.On April 18, 2020, DeSantis announced in a press conference that schools would “continue with distance learning for the duration of the school year,” with public school students out for the tail end of the 2019-20 school year.But the recent ad does not reflect that reality.Suzanne Robbins, an assistant instructional professor at University of Florida’s Department of Political Science, told the Phoenix that leaving out certain details in a campaign ad will occur.“While the ads will be fact checked by various organizations… leaving information out is not uncommon; it’s an old tactic,” she said in an email to the Phoenix.“It doesn’t matter if it is a half-truth, because the audience for the ad will likely empathize with the message,” she added.On July 6, 2020, then-Commissioner Corcoran issued a new executive order that called for the reopening of brick-and-mortar schools. The order required all school districts to reopen, but permitted flexibility so that school districts could continue to offer remote learning options as the early days of the COVID pandemic raged on, the Phoenix previously reported.The new order, supported by DeSantis, led to the , alleging that the move overstepped the authority of local school boards granted by the Florida Constitution to operate schools.And at the time, some districts like Miami-Dade County were interested in keeping schools closed for longer to protect their students, the Phoenix reported at the time.Ultimately, all school districts did open, and the lawsuit fizzled out. A ensured that schools would stay open through the remainder of the 2020-21 school year, though parents could still choose remote learning at the time.Since then, DeSantis has done little to remind the public that he had shut down schools during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.However, the governor has expressed regret at some press conferences and media appearances over the shutdown of schools early on. And he’s vowed to keep schools open now and in the future.The ad also raises questions about who gets featured in political campaigns and how are they chosen.For example, the young boy says that DeSantis let him go to school, and the boy stands with a women who says “You (DeSantis) gave me a voice.”The assumption is that the woman represents the mother of that child, but it is not clear if they are actually related or have connection to Florida schools at all.Later in the ad, someone representing a Florida teacher saying, “you raised our pay.”“Is the person a teacher? I don’t know,” Spar said, noting that there are teachers in Florida who do support DeSantis.“I would imagine he’s not going to put someone out there who’s not a teacher — I’d be surprised. But the question I would also put out is ‘are they a public school teacher?’” he asked.That’s not clear in the ad either. The Florida Phoenix reached out to the DeSantis campaign and the Republican Party of Florida for clarity on who is featured in the ad and has not yet received a response.“They’re definitely made to depict certain kinds of people, but we have no way of knowing,” said Kobie Christian, spokesman with the Florida Democratic Party.“I don’t think that DeSantis or the Republican Party of Florida have very high standards when it comes to honesty in their ads,” he said.is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: . Follow Florida Phoenix on and .&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Copyright © 2022 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | | | For corrections or concerns, please email corrections@rawstory.com. | {{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}

--KPLC-TVA Louisiana family says they were turned away from a "whites-only" cemetery.Before he died this month, Allen Parish Sheriff's Deputy Darrell Semien told his family he wanted to be buried at Oaklin Springs Cemetery in Oberlin because it was close to home, but his family said the cemetery refused to carry out his final wishes, ."It was in their by-laws that the cemetery was 'white's only,'" said the deputy's widow, Karla Semien. "I just kind of looked at her and she said, 'There's no coloreds allowed.'"The family was shocked."Just blatantly, with no remorse," said his daughter...

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'No coloreds allowed': Deputy's family denied burial plot at 'whites-only cemetery'

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