Lessons from Jan. 6, a year later
This week marks one year since the insurrection at the United States Capitol.
We’ve spent time on air and online examining what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, as well as the misinformation, extremism and political divisions that contributed to the Capitol attack and continue today. Here are some of the highlights from our reporting:
- How the day unfolded, hour by hour. The NewsHour’s congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins was also inside the Capitol building as the attack happened.
- Vice President Kamala Harris, in an exclusive on the anniversary of the attack, said we need to remember the insurrection was part of a steady series of moments that have attempted to “unravel” American democracy” -- and why Americans have a responsibility “to be vigilant in speaking truth.”
- A local perspective. North Texas was an epicenter for people who went to the Capitol on Jan. 6. People who live there shared how they’re trying to understand the forces that propelled their neighbors to the siege and what it’s meant for their communities.
- Four experts reflected on why Jan. 6 was a “warning shot” for similar situations in the future.
- A key takeaway from our latest poll: 39 percent of Americans say they have noticed worsening political tension in their local communities, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll. By comparison, only 4 percent of Americans said partisanship has become less extreme. Roughly half of all Americans said tensions have stayed about the same.
- How far-right extremist groups at the riot – and their core beliefs and tactics – have moved from the fringe to the mainstream.
- New falsehoods. A year since the Capitol attack, misinformation continues to downplay and misrepresent the events of what happened that day.
HOW SOME LAWMAKERS EXPERIENCED ON JAN. 6
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Rep. Grace Meng reflects on being trapped in the Capitol during Jan. 6 insurrection
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Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., hid in a women’s lounge when supporters of former President Donald Trump breached the U.S. Capitol building a year ago. Afraid of being found, she believed the rioters would potentially target her "just based on how I looked."
Meng, who is the first and only Asian American member of Congress from the state of New York, described the nerve-wracking experience to the NewsHour. She said she "turned off the lights, turned off the sounds" on her phone and the TV in the room, and hid in silence, "desperately hoping and waiting for the Capitol Police, or someone, to help us get out of there."
Meng is one of the three women of color lawmakers who spoke with the NewsHour’s Nicole Ellis on what it was like being trapped in the Capitol during the attack – and what their jobs have been like since.
Amid the commemoration events to mark the day this week, here’s what some politicians had to say about Jan. 6:
DEFENDING THE CAPITOL (AND DEMOCRACY)
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Sandra Garza, partner of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick who died after the attack, said Trump should serve time for the Jan. 6 riot.
During the Jan. 6 attack, pro-Trump rioters sprayed Sicknick with a chemical. He collapsed that evening, hours after the attack. Medical examiners would later find he suffered two strokes. He died the following day at the age of 42. Garza and Sicknick had been together for 11 years.
“I hold Donald Trump 100 percent responsible for what happened on January 6 and all of the people that have enabled him, enabled him that day, and continue to enable him now,” she told the NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff.
Two Capitol Police officers also shared what it was like to defend the building on Jan. 6 -- and how difficult healing the physical and emotional trauma has been.
Officer Harry Dunn said it’s important for everyone to now realize “how close and fragile democracy is” and how everyone has a stake in protecting it.
A FINAL THOUGHT
Three of the NewsHour’s correspondents were at or near the Capitol on Jan. 6. Lisa Desjardins was inside the building. Amna Nawaz was outside on the Capitol grounds, as the mostly white crowd gathered. Yamiche Alchindor reported from the White House. All spoke with Judy Woodruff about the events of the day.
Yamiche said that one memory that stuck out for her that day was the “sense of entitlement that these white protesters had to break in.”
“I kept picturing what it might have been like had these people been the protesters that I covered so closely in Ferguson – the Black people that were demanding justice and police accountability,” she said. “It's very easy to see those people being shot, frankly, dead on the steps of the Capitol, if they were Black or brown or immigrants.”
Yamiche continued: “It’s a lesson of who could be outraged, who could break into the Capitol and keep their lives, and who are the people who, if they stand peacefully on a street and demand justice, they might die just for asking peacefully for respect.”
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What we saw and learned at the U.S. Capitol, White House last Jan. 6
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