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Storm Devastates Vanuatu Island Chain; Russia's Recent Military Expansion Profiled; Secret Service Agents Under Investigation for Driving Incident; Protests Continue in Ferguson, Missouri; Prince Charles and Camilla to Visit U.S.; Current State of Race Relations in U.S. Examined; CNN Hero Fixes Cars for Those in Need

Aired March 14, 2015 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: One of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall makes a direct hit on a tiny island nation in the South Pacific.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, more questions in Ferguson as police hunt down those responsible for shooting two officers. And the mayor says he's not going anywhere.

Good morning. I'm Victor Blackwell.

PAUL: And I'm Christi Paul. So glad to have you with us. It's 10:00 in the east, 7:00 in the west. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

BLACKWELL: The South Pacific Island chain of Vanuatu is declaring a state of emergency now in the wake of this powerful and deadly cyclone.

PAUL: Relief workers say the destruction from tropical cyclone Pam is so massive it looks like a bomb went off in Vanuatu's capital Port Vila. At least six people are dead after the storm roared assure yesterday, and it's seriously feared this toll is going to go much higher. The U.N. says the airport is damaged, which, of course, makes it hard for international aid teams to get in.

BLACKWELL: Trees are down there in many areas, cutting off access to some roads there in hard-hit regions, and when it roared ashore the cyclone's winds reached 200 miles per hour. That's equal to a category five hurricane.

PAUL: Cannot imagine. It's been about 24 hours now since it hit, in fact, and right now the priority is to get food, water, emergency supplies to the people who really need it. So we talked to Chloe Morrison from World Vision just a short time ago and she really gave us a good sense of what it's like there right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHLOE MORRISON, EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, WORLD VISION: Being almost 24 hours, it's a real terrifying moments which happened at about midnight Port Vila time on Friday night here. During the day when it was safe for me to go outside and assess the damage, there were trees down. And not just a couple of trees across the roads, some of them were piled higher than you could see over the top of those piles of trees. And as you said, whole villages have literally been blown away in the night.

This is often a tropical paradise island. And these houses, they are thatched and just not able to withstand a category five. And yes, the village literally blown away. You have got power lines down, roads are flooded. It really is devastating.

People of Vanuatu have been waiting for help to arrive over a week now for things like strong warnings and people were able to evacuate to shelters where they were available. So in Port Vila where I'm based, the capital city in Vanuatu, those shelters were like churches and schools that were more concrete structures and more sturdy.

But out on the island in the most remote communities, you know, there aren't a lot of strong structures. Vanuatu is an archipelago of about 83 islands and 65 of those have people living on them. And on Friday night, cyclone Pam tore from the north to the south. She left no island untouched. And the devastation that will be on the smaller remote islands, I can't imagine it, particularly with what I've seen around Port Vila today. And when I consider the structures we have in the capital city here are so much stronger than what would have been out on those islands.

This morning, most areas of Port Vila didn't have running water. Some have it now. And out on the outlying communities, many communities before cyclone pam struggled to access clean water, share access to shelter is an immediate priority as well. But this is a mammoth catastrophe here in Vanuatu and it's a national disaster. So we'll fill our need priorities that need to be met and this will be part of a longer term response to this disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right, let's get some more perspective on Vanuatu. It was featured on the first episode of CNN's new show "The Wonder List." CNN's own Bill Weir traveled there. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, HOST, "CNN'S THE WONDER LIST": There is an alarming number of Americans who are skeptical it's even happening and that island nations see this as an easy way to get some extra money. What is the reality when it comes to climate change for an island nation like this one?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For some of the smaller islands within Vanuatu is has been disastrous. We have seen because we've been living here years and years, we can see the sea level rising.

WEIR: You can see the changes?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can see the changes. WEIR: A warmer planet will likely affect their crops, bring stronger

storms. But folks in these highland villages are relatively safe from the rising tides. But our next stop includes communities that live just inches above sea level, places where they're thrilled to see one flight a month land on the grass patch that is the Mota Lava International Airport.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to Mota Lava.

WEIR: You're the man, Nick.

On this island there are around 1,500 people and twos cars. This is the one that runs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes, yes. Go, go, go.

WEIR: Sort of. It started. I will never complain about New York City taxi cabs ever again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Wow. We've got Bill with us now. Bill, when you hear, as we hear in these reports, that the wind gusted to 200 miles per hour, and you go back and you think of what you saw when you were there, what's your immediate concern?

WEIR: My heart just goes out for all of these just incredibly gracious, hospitable, decent, warm people that we met there, Victor. I mean, I went there because it's so undeveloped, because they don't have concrete walls. That was part of the romantic appeal of this island paradise, deciding whether tourism is the right way to go. But now I watch back on our hour in a whole new way when the cyclone comes.

I mean, look at that, that is literally -- those kids' bedrooms in the village. Thatched grass protecting you from category five storms? I mean, you know, we cover natural disasters here in the states. We've all seen Red Cross aftermaths, you know, in Oklahoma or Louisiana, but these people literally live in the trees. At one island we went to farmer decided to go into tourism, spent all his money on the first concrete floor on his island. And then a tourism consultant from Australia said, you know what, westerners hate concrete. Put sand on that. That's the level of naivety these folks live with. And after this I just can't imagine how they're getting by.

BLACKWELL: And because it's so remote it's going to take some time to get in the major resources to help them rebuild, and really from island to island, because it's a chain, assess the damage. Is there communication really between these islands, easy for people to go from one to the next?

WEIR: Well, that actually was one of the most astonishing things for me. One of the motivations for me to go to the Vanuatu is seeing this amazing photograph of a guy perched on top of the volcanic mountain with his bow and arrow and his loin cloth. And when I got there the cell phone signal there was stronger than it is here in Manhattan. They have had cell service for five, seven years or so, and it was always strong wherever we went. Who knows if those towers survived? But yes, talking to each other and understanding what's going on is one thing, getting to the places, as you saw there, grass airstrips where only tiny planes can land, one car that runs on a good day. So in terms of disaster management as we define it, is -- doesn't exist there.

BLACKWELL: I would like for you, you talked a bit at the top of this about the people of Vanuatu, and if you can just give us your impression of the people there?

WEIR: It is -- it has a reputation. There was one of these sort of surveys, global surveys a few years ago, and Vanuatu was -- came in as the happiest nation in the world. And these are some of the beautiful kids there. They have all the fish they can catch, all the vegetables they can grow. But they live on, you know, a couple dollars a day relative to what we're used to there. So infrastructure wise, just getting two-by-fours, this is one of the bungalows where they're just getting Wi-Fi. They're completely aware of the outside world.

But they have such generous spirits. I say on the hour that if I found a place like this where the fishing is this good, you want to keep it to yourselves. These folks cannot wait to share. They cannot wait for you to come see their paradise. And so to think that such decent folks are suffering in ways that we can't imagine this morning, it's just tragic.

BLACKWELL: Yes. We had one of the aid workers on that said while she was hiding under the sink in the hotel where she was. And she could only imagine there were some people just holding on to coconut trees literally in that storm.

WEIR: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Bill Weir, thank you so much for sharing that perspective.

WEIR: Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: And for you at home, be sure to watch "The Wonder List" with Bill Weir. It airs Sunday nights at 10:00 right here on CNN.

PAUL: And I know you're watching and wondering if there's anything you can do to help. So if that is true, just we've got some ways on our website. Go to CNN.com/impact and find out how you might be able to help these people.

BLACKWELL: Question here, is Russia gearing up for a new cold war? Hear what a top U.S. military official says about why the U.S. homeland could be in jeopardy.

PAUL: And new doubts about that alleged Secret Service drunk driving scandal. Hear what sources are now telling CNN about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: It's 15 minutes past the hour right now. And a frightening warning from a top U.S. military official. Increased military activity by Russia could jeopardize the ability to protect the U.S. homeland. Navy Admiral William Gortney tells lawmakers that Russia is working on a program to deploy long-range conventionally armed cruise missiles. CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has more for us. Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Christi, Victor, Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. Now they're upping their game on the conventional side, leading to a lot of questions whether Russia is arming up for a new cold war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: Defending against Vladimir Putin's Russian military aggression, is about to get harder. The head of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, warning a new generation of Russian cruise missiles could strike critical military radars and missiles inside the United States.

ADM. WILLIAM GORTNEY, COMMANDER, NORAD: The development of the cruise missiles that they have that have a very long range, that from the Russian -- from eastern Russia they can range critical infrastructure in Alaska and in Canada that we rely on for homeland defense mission.

STARR: This is the missile, the KH-101. It's a nonnuclear, long- range cruise missile now in the final stages of Russian development. It's 2,000 mile plus range gives the Russians the ability to fire from near their own coastline. It's highly precise, flies low, and is difficult to detect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we don't have the ability to detect it we can't defend against it.

STARR: That means not just Alaska is at risk but even the eastern United States from potential missile launches in the Atlantic. Gortney telling congress, over time, NORAD will face increased risk in our ability to defend North America against Russian air, maritime, and cruise missile threats.

Russia already doubled its long-range air bomber patrols around U.S. coastlines in the last year. Now 10 a year, more than 100 around Europe, the most flights since the cold war. In the last month several U.S. officials publicly sounding warnings.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: Russia's provocations are only more worrisome in light of Vladimir Putin's intense focus on building up and modernizing Russia's military forces.

STARR: The top U.S. commander in Europe even raising nuclear weapons concerns.

GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE, COMMANDER, U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND: There are those dual use weapon systems that could very easily be nuclear or non-nuclear, and our ability to tell the difference between one and the other is very tough. And this is very worrisome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: Those air patrols, well, one of the thoughts is that Moscow may be thumbing its nose at the United States, but NORAD also strongly believes that the Russians are pinging U.S. air space to see how the United States military responds. Christi, Victor?

BLACKWELL: All right, let's dig deeper now. We've got with us CNN military analyst Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. General, when you hear from Breedlove, when you hear from McCain and you hear from Gortley, they paint a really stark picture. Is Russia preparing for another cold war?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: They're certainly probing, Victor. And you've seen over the last year increases of over-flights throughout Europe of aircraft intercepted by the French, by the British, by the Spanish. You see these kinds of warnings from the intelligence community, and, in fact, a few years ago when I was commander of U.S. forces in Europe I would come back and tell Congress before some of the things that happened with Ukraine, we have some problems with Russia. They are expanding. They are attempting to do things we haven't seen in the last decade or so. At the time members of Congress would say, you're a cold warrior, you don't understand. And what we're seeing in the last few months is certainly some troubling advances by Mr. Putin. Don't know why. We don't know his intent. But there are certainly some probes.

BLACKWELL: You know, it's interesting, because the question has to be asked, is he waiting to be -- to provoke a reaction, because he's not entering any air space of another country, just getting close. And you can ping without doing it, and as Gortley says, more times now than in any year since the cold war. I mean, is he waiting for another country to respond, to react?

HERTLING: He is looking to see what will happen with the European countries. And I think he has, in fact, gone into some of the countries with some of the over-flights. They have been intercepted. He has also -- it's very concerning for some of the Baltic countries, for Poland, for some of the other nations throughout Europe that they are becoming a little bit more aggressive in terms of their cross- border intelligence collection, their cyber warfare, and their over- flights.

BLACKWELL: And there's discussion of potential nuclear weapons.

HERTLING: That's the troublesome part.

BLACKWELL: Is that still a remote possibility or is it less remote considering all that's happened in the last couple years with Russia?

HERTLING: We would like to believe that it's less possible, but he has stated his intent on several occasions during the Ukraine crisis, to potentially use -- he has reminded people that he has nuclear weapons. Some of these over-flights where he is using -- it's the equivalent of our tomahawk cruise missiles that are underneath the bomber wings of those airplanes. You don't know. As General Breedlove said, you don't know, are those conventional or nuclear tipped weapons? You just can't tell by looking at them. So all of these things are just troubling.

And again, as much intelligence as we gather, the one piece of intelligence we can't come to conclusion on is what is Mr. Putin's true intent.

BLACKWELL: Yes, what does he want here. General Hertling, thank you so much.

HERTLING: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Christi?

PAUL: You know, you rarely hear the candidness that we heard from Prince Charles in the sit-down interview that he did recently with CNN. Our royal correspondent got unprecedented access to the Prince of Wales ahead of his upcoming visit to the U.S. We'll give you a sneak peek here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Can you believe that it's been nearly 10 years since Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, the duchess of Cornwall, 10 years?

BLACKWELL: Yes. It's been almost a decade in April. Now the royal couple is preparing to visit the U.S. ahead of their 10th wedding anniversary. CNN royal correspondent Max Foster sat down with the prince for this rare exclusive interview.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: Christi, Victor, the Prince of Wales just doesn't do interviews very often, and when he does he doesn't want to talk about anything personal. But he's decided to do so now, so he invited us into his home in Scotland to do just that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: He's the next king of Great Britain. She's the love of his life -- Charles and Camilla, unguarded moments, never before seen video, and an exclusive interview.

Congratulations on the imminent arrival of another grandchild.

Uncommonly up front about his feelings for her.

CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES: So I'm very proud of her.

FOSTER: They first toured the United States as newlyweds.

CHARLES: My darling wife enjoyed that visit very much.

FOSTER: Now on the eve of their return.

CHARLES: I picked up an awful lot of good ideas in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FOSTER: It will be interesting next week to see how Americans accept the royal couple on their tour which starts in Washington, D.C., next week, because 10 years ago when Camilla first did a tour of the United States, there was quite a lot of negativity. They were comparing her to Diana. Diana fans were holding up very vicious plaque cards in places. But I think Brits have warned Camilla over the last decade, and it will be interesting to see whether Americans have done the same. Victor and Christi?

BLACKWELL: All right, Max, thank you so much. And be sure to watch the CNN special "Spotlight, Charles and Camilla," airs tonight at 7:30 p.m. eastern right here on CNN.

PAUL: CNN is learning new details about the latest scandal to rock the Secret Service, and CNN's Erin McPike is live at the White House. Erin?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christi, we're now hearing that the initial reports about this incident may have been overblown. I'll have that those details coming up.

BLACKWELL: This week's "Ones to Watch" series examines the art of sculpture, two artists bringing this age-old art form up to date.

PAUL: And we travel to London to meet two world famous sculptors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A sculptor is someone who with a spark of an idea and a set of materials draws in space.

ANTHONY GORMLEY, SCULPTOR: The challenge for me is how do you use all of that power in the best way to make something in reality?

ESTELLE LOVATT, ART CRITIC: A good artist in order to change the course of our history will embrace their contemporary times, will embrace technology, will embrace anything that's relevant to them to date.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With a range of materials and a forum of ideas more diverse than ever before, where should we look for the next sensational sculptor? One of the best known sculptors working today Anthony Gormley, shares his thoughts on the state of the art. And we've enlisted two prominent voices, an eminent art critic and the director of London's Tate Modern Museum, to select their ones to watch.

CHRIS DERCON, DIRECTOR, TATE MODERN: That's the magic of all these artists, that they are capable with sculptor, whether tiny or large sculptors, to turn a space into something else.

JONTY HURWITZ, SCULPTOR: My first reaction for the need for scale as an artist was to go absolutely nano.

ABRAHAM CRUZVILLEGAS, SCULPTOR: When I work, I really feel like a tire, and I try to be playful and not to have prejudices about what is ugly or what is nice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: You can check out the full show at CNN.com/OnesToWatch.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: It's 31 minutes past the hour right now. And we're learning some new details about the latest Secret Service scandal.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Sources are telling CNN that some major details previously reported about an alleged drunk driving crash involving two agents may not be completely true. CNN's Erin McPike is live at the White House with more. Erin, what are you hearing this morning?

MCPIKE: Well, Victor, first we should point out that the Secret Service has only put out a statement saying that there is an investigation under way. That's the only public thing. The rest of this has been background information.

What we do know is that on the evening of March 4th there were two very senior Secret Service agents who were at a bar for a retirement party for one of their colleagues that was about seven blocks due east of the White House. At the end of this party they left in a government car one of those agents was driving, and they came back to the White House and approached a barricade.

What we know about this, there was a suspicious -- there was some suspicious activity because a bomb threat was going on. It may not have been a serious thing, but they have to take these events very seriously. And they drove up to the barricade, they nudged this orange barrel that was around the barricade where this suspicious activity was going on. The car went through two checkpoints and then the agents went home. There was no collision. There doesn't seem to be any sort of damage. There may never have been any sort of ask for a sobriety test. That is called into question right now.

Now we do know that Joe Clancy, who is the director of Secret Service, didn't find out about this incident until five days later. He will be questioned on Capitol Hill on Monday and Tuesday for some private and some public briefings. But he is coming under some fire because he was supposed to turn this agency around, and there's still a lot of questions about the culture at Secret Service. CNN spoke to Jason Chaffetz. He is a Republican congressman who runs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Here's what he had to say about this yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ, (R) UTAH: This is a big moment for Director Clancy. He has the opportunity to help cleans this up. How he does it, the manner in which he does it, I think he needs to send a signal that there's going to be a new age of accountability, and that means communicating at the very top right away.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MCPIKE: And on top of that, the department of homeland security is investigating, Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right, Erin McPike, we'll see if we learn anything substantial on Monday and Tuesday when the director is on Capitol Hill. Thank you so much, Erin.

PAUL: Joining us now is Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent. Jonathan, thank you for being with us. We appreciate it. Out of the gate I'm wondering what you make of all of this. Which if any side do you believe here?

JONATHAN WACKROW, FORMER SPECIAL AGENT, PRESIDENTIAL PROTECTION DIVISION: Well, one thing that's good is I don't want to let rumor outweigh the actual facts. So the Secret Service hasn't put out any information other than they're looking into this situation. The facts of this incident are going to take a little while for Joe Clancy to resolve, and, you know, we do need to give him a little bit of time to, you know, actually allow the facts to develop and then disseminate them to Congress and the American people.

PAUL: Absolutely. But one of the things that we know is a factor that he didn't find out for five days about what happened. Is that common do you think?

WACKROW: No.

PAUL: To not be in the know?

WACKROW: No. And I think that's one thing, that's a challenge that Joe Clancy is going to have. He had left the Secret Service and has now come back. He was the acting director and now has been installed as the director. He has only been there for a month, you know, actually less than a month as the director, and he needs time to develop his management structure.

Right now the Secret Service is currently operating without a deputy director. They have newly installed assistant directors. So Joe Clancy has a very big challenge ahead of him to develop his management team and his management operational tempo. This is the first challenge that he's facing and it will be interesting to see how he deals with this.

PAUL: So I mean when we look at just the last few years, you have a Colombian prostitution scandal. You've got late night partying, White House fence jumpers, this incident now. When you speak about the managerial issues do you think that's part of the reason we're seeing this spike, or what else might it be?

WACKROW: Absolutely. The Secret Service for a long time has had managerial challenges. Joe Clancy is driving the bus right now. He is the head of this agency. He needs to get ahead of all of these issues. Everything that's happened in the past we need to, you know, learn from them. We need to move beyond them, and we need to start developing managers within the Secret Service that can move our agency forward. PAUL: OK, but a lot of people are looking at this and saying, but

what are some of these front line guys doing here. Scandals like this have always gone on and the higher-ups have been better at concealing them?

WACKROW: No. I mean, I think what has come out time and time again, is this the culture of the Secret Service? Is this what a Secret Service agent is? The answer to that is emphatically no. This is not the culture of the Secret Service. The culture of the Secret Service for the men and women that get up every day and do the job is dedication, is dedication to the mission, is putting their life on the line every single day, for the protection of, you know, our infrastructure.

PAUL: Right.

WACKROW: So that's the real culture of the Secret Service. These are isolated incidents that have been, you know, widely broadcast in the media because they're salacious, I understand that. But that is absolutely not the culture of the Secret Service.

PAUL: All right, good to know. Jonathan Wackrow, we appreciate you taking the time to be with us. Thank you, sir.

WACKROW: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right, still ahead, increasing the reward to find the shooter of those two injured officers in Ferguson. We've got an update this morning on the search for suspects. And are police backing away from that early assertion that officers were ambushed?

And in the wake of Ferguson and the racially tense events at several college cams puss, what is the state of race relations across the country? We'll delve deeper into that and try to answer that question next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: A public funeral is being held for this man, Tony Robinson, in Madison, Wisconsin, 19 years old. He was shot and killed by a police officer last week. He was unarmed at the time. The officer was reportedly assaulted and that's what prompted him to shoot, but that is just one story that is causing a lot of debate right now when we talk about race relations here in the U.S.

BLACKWELL: Yes. There was a call outside the Ferguson police department as people showed their support to the police force, but that's a stark contrast to what happened on Wednesday.

PAUL: This morning we know police are intensifying their manhunt for the gunman who shot two police officers.

BLACKWELL: Right now they're considering increasing the current $10,000 reward as donations continue to pour in from the public. Investigators say they have several leads but no major break in this investigation. Meanwhile, Ferguson's Mayor James Knowles spoke with CNN's Sara Sidner responding to new protests for pleas that he step down in the wake of the shootings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES KNOWLES, FERGUSON MAYOR: I mean it's my commitment to the city. I have lived here for 35 years. I moved back here after college. My wife grew up here. We're going to have our first child here in the next month and a half. I've been committed to this community and want to make sure this community is the same community that everybody else wants to live in, work in, play in, as we always say here in Ferguson.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So you're not going anywhere is what you're telling us?

KNOWLES: Unless the residents decide to remove me. But right now that's not the indication that I get from the average resident.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Ferguson and the University of Oklahoma fraternity fallout are shining a spotlight on race relations just one week after the nation marked the 50th anniversary of the Selma voting rights march. Now, I want you to listen first to what President Obama told Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What was beautiful about Selma was reminding ourselves that real social change in this country so often has happened because ordinary people are willing in a nonviolent fashion to make their voices heard. And, you know, I think what had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protest. But there was no excuse for criminal acts. And whoever fired those shots shouldn't detract from the issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: I'm joined now by Kevin Powell. He's the president and co-founder of BK nation, a new national organization that works in human and civil rights including issues of race and diversity. He's also the author of "Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and the Ghost of Dr. King" as well as other books as well. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us.

KEVIN POWELL, PRESIDENT AND COFOUNDER, BK NATION: Thank you. Good morning to you.

BLACKWELL: So just last weekend the nation celebrated 50 years since the Selma voting rights movement across the Edmund Pettus bridge. Now, this weekend we're talking about Ferguson again, a racist fraternity chant, and a search of other university chapters to determine if they're using the same thing. What does that say about relations in America today?

POWELL: Well, I think we need to be, first, honest if we're going to have a conversation about race in American, racism in America. Racism is as American as March Madness, as Apple computers, as Nike shoes. It's embedded in our society. This country is rooted in it, and we would be lying to ourselves if we said it was any other way. And so I'm not surprised by the things that have been happening.

Unfortunately, you know, there are a lot of people woefully mis- educated, who are rooted in hatred and fear of people who are different from them and has led to really incredible acts of violence and injustice towards our fellow human beings. That's where we are in this society.

I have hope because I travel this country extensively as an activist, as a speaker. I see people of different backgrounds working together. But it's not going to change if we don't get to the systemic causes of racism in our country.

BLACKWELL: There are some people after you make that statement about racism being as American as Nike shoes and all the rest, there are some people who believe that racism is gone, that race has no place in America. Then you people on the other spectrum who see race as the driving force for everything. You've got the middle. Is that middle growing if which she see some of these infractions across the country and can have that conversation, or are the extremes growing?

POWELL: Well, here's the thing. There's no left or right or middle. The reality is I want to live in a post-racism world, a post-racism America, and it's going to take black people, white people, Latino people, Asian people, Native American people, Middle Eastern people, Jewish people, people of all different backgrounds and faiths coming together and saying that this should not be a construct where there is a superiority for one group of people and inferiority for other people. There shouldn't be this construct where people are not learning about each other through the school system, be it public or private schools. There should not be a construct where we're constantly demanding equality in the mass media culture, in film and TV.

That's part of the problem which is we keep putting Band-Aids on the situation, we keep talking around the situation, and we need to be willing to get to the root of the situation. And President Obama was right, you know. I don't condone any form of violence. I don't. I believe in peace and love and all of us as sisters and brothers, and I think that's the beloved community that Dr. King was talking about. But we're not going to get there if we're not willing to have the very difficult conversations about the history of our nation as well as current events, not just the fraternity as an isolated incident, not just Ferguson as an isolated incident, but something that permeates every aspect of our society.

BLACKWELL: You brought up the term post-racism America and it reminded me of the post-racial America people expected in 2009 with the inauguration of Oresident Obama.

POWELL: That was a -- you know, how do I say it --

BLACKWELL: Let me read this back to you because I want to put this in context for you for people to understand.

POWELL: Yes. Post-racial --

BLACKWELL: You wrote --

POWELL: Suggests we have gotten past all these racial hurdles in our society. That's not the case at all.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

POWELL: In fact the sitting president of the United States has been threatened as much if not more than any other president. The level of disrespect he's faced as the president of the United States, much of it a lot of us feel is attributed to his racial background. The fact that there has been an explosion seemingly of black males being racially profiled and murdered around the country during the Obama years suggest that we are not even close to being in a post-racial America. You know, and it is disingenuous for us to even use that term.

We should be striving toward the beloved or post-racist community that Dr. King was talking about, and that takes a tremendous amount of work, the kind of work that we saw demonstrated with this anniversary of Selma in the film Selma. And people have got to be willing to come together to do that. That's the only way this is going to change. I believe it can happen but it can't just be us talking about it. We have to really get out there do the work on all levels.

BLACKWELL: You wrote something in the weeks after Mike Brown's death in Ferguson. You wrote, and it's put up on the screen, "I do not know what's going to happen in Ferguson, Missouri, in America. I do know that the crisp night Barack Obama won the presidency and announced in Chicago "Change has come to America" now seems like a century ago. Dare I say it but the United States seems more divided than ever, more violent than ever, filled with more hate and ignorance and fear than ever."

I also want to put up this poll done by CNN and ORC in which it asks about race relations under Obama. And 45 percent of whites believe they're worse, 26 percent of blacks believe they're worse. You see most people here believe they're the same. Is there -- no one is blaming the president for race relations, but was that expectation set and now there's some correlation between the election of the president and the way people feel about race relations?

POWELL: Well, I think it was a beautiful multicultural, multigenerational movement that made Barack Obama's presidency happen in the first place in 2008, the same kind of beautiful multigenerational, multicultural movement that was the civil rights movement with Selma and voting rights and civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

The problem is that we get into these spaces, we do this work for a short period of time, and then we stop, and then it's almost like we take four or five steps backwards. If as a black male or any person of color we should not have to worry about if we go to certain communities in this country. In 2015, in 2015, you know, we may be the victims of some form of racial profiling. That should be unacceptable in our society. It should be unacceptable in our society as a civilized nation that we incarcerate more people than any other people on the planet, and the vast majority are black and Latino young people, males and a growing number of females in our society.

It should be unacceptable the massive levels of poverty in society and a disproportionate number of folks who are people of color who are experiencing poverty in this country. These are the kinds of things that President Lyndon Johnson and Dr. King were talking about, you know, 50 years ago. And so yes, I can say I sit here as the child of a mother with an eighth grade education, a grandmother who was illiterate, I can say there has been tremendous progress including racial progress in the country. I went to college. But I can't just look at myself and say I did all right. What about the vast majority of people in my community, communities around the country, who are still dealing with systemic racism. That's what we've got to address.

And, you know, a lot of folks will say, you know, we're harping on the past and things, you know, have improved. No, things will improve when we really are all treated as equal human beings in our society no matter what our background. That's the world that I want to get to.

BLACKWELL: All right, Kevin Powell, president and co-founder of BK Nation, thank you so much.

POWELL: Thank you so much.

BLACKWELL: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Car problems, let's talk a about them. They're stressful, inconvenient, they can put a hole in your budget. And if you're struggling to make ends meet in the first place a broken down vehicle can really put your life at risk.

PAUL: This one woman who was driven to help, let's say, and that's why she is the first CNN hero of 2015.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had been a delivery driver coming up on a year now. Having a car problem just brings a lot of stress. There's a smell of gas. I'm definitely worried about my safety. Having two daughters, it just really heightened the situation.

CATHY HEYING, CNN HERO: I was a social worker for 15 years. I kept seeing people struggling with making ends meet. One car repair can upset the entire apple cart. Why isn't somebody doing something about this? One day it occurred to me, I think that somebody might be me.

I did not grow up working on cars, so I ended up getting a degree in auto technology.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every time I get in the car I smell it.

HEYING: Does it get worse when you turn on the heat? How we're different than a regular garage is that people have to meet

certain income requirements.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was quoted close to 1400.

HEYING: We charge the customer $15 an hour for labor. Market rate is about $100 an hour. We don't do any markup on the parts. So we are a lot less.

You're looking at about $300.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. I would give you guys more, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

HEYING: A car that works allows them to meet the basic needs of their lives with dignity. Thanks for your patience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You get a hug.

HEYING: Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They fixed everything. It's just a lot of weight off my shoulders.

HEYING: Thanks, take care.

It's about moving people forward and moving their lives forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: That is a woman that walks through the problem. I see it. I'm going to fix it. If you know someone who should be a CNN hero let us know. We'd love to hear about it at CNNHeroes.com.

And we are always so grateful to spend part of our morning with you. We hope you make great memories today.

BLACKWELL: And there's much more ahead in the next hour of the CNN Newsroom right after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)