U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, delivered remarks at the National Action Network’s 2018 Convention. She reflected on the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and outlined the fights our country faces today.
Hattie Carroll (1911-1963) was a 51-year-old restaurant server who was murdered by a White aristocrat, 24-year-old William Devereux Zantzinger (1939-2009) who struck her with a cane, because she took too long to serve him a drink, during The Spinsters’ Ball, an event at the old Emerson Hotel in Baltimore. Zantzinger’s crime was minimized, and he got a scant six months in jail (not prison) for killing a woman, the mother of at least nine children, who was more than twice his age, and with just a fraction of his power.