GEOFF BENNETT: Good evening.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: An appeals court weighs arguments over access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone.

GEOFF BENNETT: A deal allowing war-torn Ukraine to export grain is extended, alleviating fears of worsening food shortages, at least for now.

AMNA NAWAZ: And Judy Woodruff visits her birthplace of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a reckoning over historical racism echoes similar discussions nationwide.

G.T.

BYNUM (R), Mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma: We have tried to over the last, I'd say, 20 years, as a community, start having those conversations around race in our city that should have been happening for a century.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening, and welcome to the "NewsHour."

President Biden and congressional Republicans are giving fresh signals tonight that the deadlock over the debt ceiling may be easing.

GEOFF BENNETT: Both sides voiced optimism today on striking a deal to avoid a national default, perhaps by this weekend.

President Biden said he's confident that negotiators can agree to raise the current limit of $31 trillion before a June 1 deadline.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: We're going to come together, because there's no alternative.

We have to do the right thing for the country.

We have to move on.

And, to be clear, this negotiation is about the outlines of what the budget will look like, not about whether or not were going to, in fact, pay our debts.

The leaders have all agreed, we will not default.

GEOFF BENNETT: The president said he will have more to say at a news conference Sunday, after attending the G7 summit in Japan.

In turn, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, backed by fellow Republicans, said a deal is doable by Sunday, but he also suggested the president should stay home.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): He's the president of the United States.

He's a grown man.

He can make a decision where he wants to go.

And he can travel any place he wants.

The only thing I know, if you thought, for the last 97 days, you were never going to negotiate, what are your priorities?

I think America wants us to solve American problems first.

GEOFF BENNETT: Republicans are pressing for spending caps and work requirements for federal benefits in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling.

AMNA NAWAZ: The president has now left for that overseas trip to Japan.

He departed from Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington, late this morning.

He will join leaders of other major economies for the three-day summit in Hiroshima.

The president canceled stops in Australia and Papua New Guinea so he can return to D.C. early for the debt limit negotiations.

The U.S. Supreme Court is letting Illinois ban the sale of some semiautomatic guns and large-capacity magazines for now.

The justices refused today to block the law, pending a legal challenge.

It bars sales of assault-style weapons like the AR-15.

Those who already own such guns have to register them with police.

In Pakistan, police have surrounded the home of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, raising new fears of unrest.

He'd been arrested last week on corruption charges, then released amid violent protests.

In Lahore tonight, police set up barricades outside Khan's home.

They said he's sheltering supporters blamed for the violence, a charge he said is ridiculous.

IMRAN KHAN, Former Pakistani Prime Minister (through translator): If 40 terrorists are hiding at my residence, then it's a threat to my life, too.

Please come, but not like this, to attack my house.

Come like a civilized society with a search warrant.

We will show you the whole house, and you will see where these terrorists are.

AMNA NAWAZ: Pakistani officials said police will raid Khan's home unless he hands over the suspects within 24 hours.

Back in this country, Democrats in Pennsylvania still control the state House after winning a special election on Tuesday.

The outcome has major implications for abortion and gun rights legislation.

And, in Kentucky, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron will challenge Democratic Governor Andy Beshear in the fall.

Cameron was endorsed by former President Trump.

On Wall Street, stocks rallied on hopes of a debt ceiling deal in Washington.

Major indices were up more than 1 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 408 points to close at 33420.

The Nasdaq rose 157 points.

The S&P 500 added nearly 49.

And plebes at the U.S.

Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, celebrated an annual rite of passage today ending their first year.

They worked together to scale the 21-foot Herndon Monument slathered with grease for the occasion.

When they finally reached the top, they replaced a freshman's cap with an upperclassman's.

The slippery feat took just over 2.5 hours.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": new data shows a massive disparity in excess deaths among Black Americans compared to their white counterparts; Tulsa, Oklahoma struggles to reconcile its troubling past with urban renewal; comedian Leanne Morgan discusses her unusual road to success ahead of her new special; plus much more.

GEOFF BENNETT: Access to medication abortion faced a critical test today in the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

A three-judge panel of Republican appointees heard arguments about whether the abortion pill mifepristone, first approved by the FDA more than 20 years ago, should stay on the market.

It's the latest legal battle since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

Joining us with reporting and analysis, Sarah Varney, a correspondent for KFF Health News who has been reporting for the "NewsHour" about abortion access since the overturning of Roe, and Steve Vladeck, professor at the University of Texas School of Law and an expert on federal courts.

His new book on the Supreme Court is "The Shadow Docket."

Thank you both for being with us.

And, Sarah, we will start with you.

Remind us why this case is so significant, said to be the most consequential since the overturning of Roe.

SARAH VARNEY, KFF Health News: In the last number of years, the number of women who rely on medication abortion pills has grown to more than 50 percent.

So access to this medication abortion regimen is incredibly important for women around the country.

So, when Judge Kacsmaryk issued his decision in Texas, before it was stayed, it essentially said that mifepristone would have to come off the market.

So that would affect, of course, women who want to access abortion medication to terminate a pregnancy.

It's also used a lot in early miscarriage management treatment.

So that's something that physicians, OB-GYN around the country regularly turn to.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Steve, the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit is considered one of the most conservative appellate courts in the country.

They have routinely ruled against the Biden DOJ.

What lines of inquiry did the judges explore today?

And what can you glean from it?

STEPHEN VLADECK, University of Texas School of Law: Yes, I mean, there's a lot of talk drawn to this argument about standing, this technical legal doctrine, which is basically asking, are these the right plaintiffs to be challenging the FDA's 2000 and subsequent approvals of mifepristone?

I think what we heard from all three of the judges on the panel, all three of whom were Republican appointees, was real efforts to bolster, to support Judge Kacsmaryk's analysis of why these doctors could challenge the FDA's actions, Geoff, even though in most of the - - almost all of these contexts, the doctors are claiming an injury based upon something that may or may not happen in the future, which is that patients who have taken mifepristone will need some kind of for emergency or urgent care.

That's not usually enough for standing under the Supreme Court's precedents.

Indeed, that kind of hostility to standing has been a staple of conservative jurisprudence for most of the last 50 years.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

And so this is likely going to head back to the Supreme Court.

The fact that the court preserved access to mifepristone while this appeal was making its way through the system, what does that suggest?

STEPHEN VLADECK: Yes, it's a little tricky, because the Supreme Court's ruling from April had no analysis with it.

So we don't know why a majority of the justices voted to keep Kacsmaryk's ruling on hold.

Geoff, we don't even know how many voted.

We just know it was five or more.

But I do think it's a pretty good sign that at least five of the justices are likely to reverse, to be unsympathetic to Judge Kacsmaryk, whether because they don't think the plaintiffs have standing, or because they're willing to side with the Biden administration on the merits.

What's so important for now is that nothing the Fifth Circuit decides is going to affect the status quo.

The stay the Supreme Court issued preserving nationwide access will remain in place until the Supreme Court acts, regardless of what the court of appeals does.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Sarah, you have talked to abortion providers, women health experts and advocates.

How do they see this moment?

SARAH VARNEY: Well, I think they're very relieved that mifepristone will remain on the market while this case plays out, which could take months, if not years, to reach the Supreme Court.

This is -- as we were discussing, it's just really about the stay of Judge Kacsmaryk's order.

So there's a whole other trial that can happen to sort of discuss the merits of this case.

One of the things we actually heard from one of the judges today was, can we basically get the file from the FDA, the sort of full file going back to 2000?

And the Justice Department has not been able to produce that yet, in part, she said, because this is a quarter-century old, and we have to go back into, she said, deep storage to literally pull out the entire file about mifepristone.

So this case could take many, many months, if not years, to resolve itself.

GEOFF BENNETT: Steve, on the specific question of safety, we know that mifepristone sends fewer people to the E.R.

than Tylenol and Viagra.

So, if this case is successful, if the court effectively bans access to mifepristone, what does that mean for the FDA's regulatory authority over other drugs?

STEPHEN VLADECK: I think it means it's open season, and that we're going to see challenges, whether it's from the left, from the right, from the sort of anti-science part of the community to a wide range of FDA approvals, both old ones and new ones, from over-the-counter medicines, to vaccines, to every kind of experimental treatment you can think of.

It will essentially be the Wild West.

And I think that's part of why we saw the U.S. Supreme Court step in, not because the conservative justices are especially sympathetic to the nationwide availability of mifepristone, but because I think they can see, at least some of them can see the writing on the wall in a world in which 23 years after the FDA approves a medication, anyone can walk into a handpicked federal courthouse and get a federal judge to second-guess that decision.

GEOFF BENNETT: And when you say handpicked federal courthouse, you mean the fact that they -- this case was filed specifically in Texas because they knew that it would end up before the specific appellate court.

STEPHEN VLADECK: That's right, so not just in Texas, but by filing in Amarillo, the Amarillo Division of the Northern District of Texas, the plaintiffs, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, Geoff, they had a 100 percent chance of having the case be assigned to this specific judge, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who is pretty well-known as an anti-abortion advocate before he went on the federal bench.

Folks are going to have their own views about whether that's a healthy practice or not.

When anyone can take advantage of that kind of manipulation of the trial court system, that's part of why this has such potentially cataclysmic implications for the entire universe of medication, of drug safety approval, because now you're going to see copycat lawsuits that have nothing to do with abortion where you don't even have the same political valence and where it's just everything that the FDA has done becomes open to challenge.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Sarah, you have been following this since the very beginning.

What are you watching for as this case unfolds?

SARAH VARNEY: Well, I think this question of standing is very interesting.

I mean, I agree that it sounds like the justices at the court today were really trying to allow the anti-abortion groups to gain some credibility in their standing question.

The other thing I thought was really interesting today was Judge James Ho, who is a Trump appointee, he kept saying several times, seems that your argument is that the FDA can do no wrong.

And he recited several other drugs that had been removed from the marketplace.

The Justice Department attorney came back and said, well, that was because the FDA went through a review process and removed the drug.

But there does -- did seem to be some hostility from Judge Ho about this idea that we should leave these decisions up to scientific and medical experts at the FDA.

The other thing I thought was interesting was just this big question about doctors practicing medicine.

And you saw several the judges ask about, well, shouldn't doctors have to use an ultrasound?

Shouldn't they have to see a patient in person?

And the Justice Department would come back and say, we ask doctors to practice medicine.

In fact, you can ask a woman a lot of questions to determine whether or not she has an ectopic pregnancy, if there's referred pain in her shoulder, for instance, and that these things are very predictive of an ectopic pregnancy, or when was your last period?

That can give us a real sense, of course, of how far along into a pregnancy is somebody.

And you heard, I thought, from the judges, at least, this real interest in not believing doctors, not really trusting doctors to suss that out for themselves.

So that's what I will be looking for as well.

GEOFF BENNETT: You were shaking your head in agreement about the question of not trusting doctors.

STEPHEN VLADECK: Yes, I mean, I think, Geoff, at the end of the day, the question is, who do we think is in a better position to measure, to weigh the medical the scientific evidence, the folks at the FDA, who are appointed by the president, who are given those positions because they have those qualifications, or federal judges, right?

No one's really arguing that the government's actions are totally unreviewable.

But when you have a system where a single federal judge anywhere in the country is in a position to just brush to the side 23 years of scientific medical evidence that the agency Congress has created to answer those questions has compiled, I think you see why this has potentially such enormous ramifications, far beyond even the enormous mifepristone-specific ramifications of this one case.

GEOFF BENNETT: Steve Vladeck and Sarah Varney, thank you both for your analysis and your reporting.

Appreciate it.

STEPHEN VLADECK: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: A pair of new studies from "The Journal of the American Medical Association" find that the toll of racial disparities in health for Black Americans is even starker than we knew.

That's true both in lives lost and in enormous economic cost as well.

From 1999 to 2020, Black Americans experienced 1.63 million excess deaths compared to white Americans.

This resulted in 80 million years of life lost.

COVID widened that gap in deaths even further, and the loss was felt especially among infants and older adults.

In terms of economic cost, the "JAMA" study found that, in 2018, racial health inequities cost the U.S. an estimated $421 billion.

Around two-thirds of that cost came from premature deaths.

To explain the significance of this data, I'm joined by Dr. Lisa Cooper, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity and the Bloomberg distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Dr. Cooper, welcome, and thank you for joining us.

DR. LISA COOPER, Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity: Thank you for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: These numbers are absolutely staggering when laid out this way.

You have long studied these issues.

Were you surprised by these figures when you saw them?

DR. LISA COOPER: Unfortunately, I wasn't surprised, although I have to say, though, I was disappointed, because I was hoping that we would have seen some improvement over what we saw in the last century.

And it seems like the trends are looking pretty much the same.

AMNA NAWAZ: It is now well-documented the systemic racism that exists specifically in our health care system in America.

How much of these numbers is attributable to that?

DR. LISA COOPER: So, I think it's important for us to note that structural racism is something that impacts all of our institutions.

And so I think racism in health care contributes substantially to these statistics.

But I think that racism throughout all of our institutions, and through our all of our policies is contributing to these disparities, because, really, those are the policies and practices that determine where people live, whether or not they have gainful employment, whether they can get a good education, whether they have access to healthy food, and access to health care.

So all of these things shape up people's opportunities to live healthy lives and determine whether or not they die prematurely.

AMNA NAWAZ: Dr. Cooper, these numbers are staggering when you look at them.

But you still see a number of patients in your clinic.

How do these numbers show up day to day in those patients?

DR. LISA COOPER: Well, they show up in the young people I see.

I see young adults, people as young as 30, 35 or 40, who already have hypertension, who already are obese, who already have had a stroke.

I see people who are in middle age who have diabetes and have suffered amputations and can no longer work.

And a lot of these people are from communities that have low income or they are African Americans, people who are Hispanics.

I see people at very young ages with diseases that normally you would see in older people.

So, it's very -- it's painful and it's hard to see.

And there are a few people that actually beat the odds, but the odds are definitely not stacked in their favor.

AMNA NAWAZ: There is an economic component to this study as well, as we mentioned, the hundreds of billions of dollars in cost of those racial health inequities.

Why, to you, is that an important part of this argument?

DR. LISA COOPER: Well, I think it's an important part because I think, in lots of ways, our economy and our businesses, they respond to things like this.

I think people don't realize the interconnection between health and productivity.

Oftentimes, they see them as separate things.

And if we can see that it's -- that our health is connected to everything we do -- we cannot work, we cannot innovate, we cannot compete successfully with other countries if we have poor health.

And if we have poor health in certain groups of people in our country, that actually puts our entire country at a disadvantage.

So I think it's important for people to understand the scope of the problem, that it's human suffering, and it impacts society in so many, many different ways.

But economically is something that a lot of people really understand.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Dr. Cooper, what does it take to turn these numbers around?

DR. LISA COOPER: Well, it's going to take a lot of work.

But I think that one thing we need to do is to understand that we actually have science to inform a lot of the solutions.

And what we need to do is to use what we know.

As we generate more information and more science, we need to use what we know already.

We know that early childhood education improves our health later in life.

So we should support policies and practices that do that.

We know a higher living wage, a higher income, or a minimum wage will improve economic opportunities and the health of people in their adulthood.

We know that changing the life circumstances, the living conditions in neighborhoods and housing quality and access to food, we know all those things work to shape health.

And we know that providing universal access to health care improves health care outcomes, and especially for those who can't afford it based on who they work for.

So we -- we just know a lot that we aren't implementing, because we need to generate stronger political will.

And doing that means engaging with people in communities that are impacted by health disparities and making sure that they are civically engaged and that they have the know-how and the involvement and the input at the decision-making tables.

And I think, in so doing, we will -- we will achieve the goal, but it's something that everyone needs to understand that it impacts us all.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Dr. Lisa Cooper, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, joining us tonight.

Dr. Cooper, thank you.

DR. LISA COOPER: Thank you for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: Today, Russia agreed to extend a deal that allows Ukraine to export grain to the rest of the world.

The agreement between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the U.S. is a lifeline in a moment of global food insecurity.

Nick Schifrin is following these developments and joins us now.

So, Nick, how did this green deal extension come about?

And I should say, I said it involved the U.S.

I should have said the U.N. NICK SCHIFRIN: No, absolutely.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Russia had decided unilaterally to extend this deal by 60 days.

And, as you said, U.N., as well as Turkish negotiators, had really been trying to negotiate furiously ahead of tomorrow's deadline to get Russia to do a longer extension.

Moscow has been asking for concessions, claiming that this deal doesn't allow it to sell its own grain and its fertilizer to the rest of the world, something the U.S., by the way, denies.

But even only at 60 days.

Geoff, as you know, this deal is so vital.

Ukraine has historically been a breadbasket for the world, especially when it comes to corn and grain.

Some 345 million people around the world are food-insecure.

And access to this Ukrainian grain really can help prevent hunger, even famine, especially in the Horn of Africa.

GEOFF BENNETT: So this grain deal, as you said, it's a rare agreement as the war continues.

We know that Russia, in recent days, they have stepped up their missile attacks.

How is Ukraine dealing with that, confronting it?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Yes, it's an incredible stepping up by Russia because of how they're trying to attack Kyiv and Ukraine's critical infrastructure.

They have been using the Kinzhal.

That is one of its most advanced weapons.

That is a hypersonic weapon.

It was unveiled about five years ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin in great fanfare.

He said that it could fly Mach 10, which means 10 times the speed of sound.

It would be launched from Russian jets, as you're seeing.

This is Russian Defense Ministry video right there.

Putin called that weapon that you're seeing right there -- quote -- "invincible."

And the assumption was that it could avoid air defense.

But it turns out that it's very vulnerable to an air defense system called the U.S. Patriot, which the U.S. has only recently delivered to Ukraine.

A defense official confirms to me Kinzhals did do some light damage to a Patriot missile, but the Patriots were able to shoot down about half-a-dozen hypersonics.

And I asked David Wright of MIT, who explained that the reason the Patriot was able to shoot the Kinzhal is actually less about the Patriot and more about the Kinzhal itself.

DAVID WRIGHT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: What people tend to forget is that the high-speed Mach 10 is really the maximum, the top speed that they reach, and that they slow down as they reenter the atmosphere.

So as they dive toward their target, they hit very thick atmosphere, and that tends - - the drag tends to slow them down.

And by the time they get to low altitudes, they're going slow enough that I had actually predicted that a Patriot might be able to shoot them down.

And it appears that Ukraine has shown that now.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And if that's the science, the reason this is important for Ukraine, it's proven that Russia with even its most advanced missiles cannot be guaranteed to hit Kyiv's critical infrastructure.

And that's incredibly important, both for the country, but also ahead of this counteroffensive that we're expecting the U.S. officials telling me has begun in earnest with what are called shaping operations, mostly attacks inside occupied territory, including with a long-range British missile called the Storm Shadow that's just been delivered.

In the coming weeks, Geoff, we expect a barrages of artillery from Ukraine to begin ahead of a ground offensive with newly arrived Western weapons and training.

GEOFF BENNETT: Meantime, Nick, President Biden left today for the G7 gathering in Japan.

But because of the debt ceiling negotiation, he canceled visits to Australia and would have been the first ever visit by a sitting president to Papua New Guinea.

What's been the reaction to that?

NICK SCHIFRIN: Officially, understanding.

The Australian prime minister today said he understood why President Biden had to cancel.

And, last night, the White House hosted ambassadors from Pacific countries.

And it was described to me that the room responded with understanding as well.

But remember why the visit, especially to Papua New Guinea, was going to be so important.

The U.S. has been trying to expand its footprint in the Pacific beyond its two huge bases to a handful of locations -- and you see the location of Papua New Guinea there off the coast of Australia -- in order to complicate Chinese war planning really across the region.

And during the visit, President Biden was expected to sign, with Papua New Guinea's prime minister, a defense cooperation agreement that would have eventually gotten U.S. troops stationed in Papua New Guinea and around Papua New Guinea.

Now, White House and regional officials say that that agreement is not in peril.

But, Geoff, as you know, remember what the White House argues, that democracies can deliver, the U.S. can deliver, despite domestic political dysfunction.

And what China will argue is that, no, U.S. domestic politics can interfere with U.S. commitment to the region, according to Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute.

ZACK COOPER, American Enterprise Institute: What leaders in Asia are looking for as the United States to be a reliable partner.

And that means showing up sometimes, even when we have domestic challenges.

And I think there will be a lot of questions about, look, the debt ceiling, we knew roughly when it was going to be a problem.

And so why did we schedule a whole series of meetings when we knew that these negotiations were going to go up to the last minute?

And, alternatively, if, as the president said today, they have agreed that they're not going to default, then why can't the president stay in Asia?

NICK SCHIFRIN: U.S. officials are trying to get Secretary of State Antony Blinken there.

But, bottom line, Geoff, the U.S. and China will continue their competition for the region.

GEOFF BENNETT: Got it.

And, Nick, we should acknowledge that, starting this week, you are taking some time off for paternity leave.

NICK SCHIFRIN: I am.

(CROSSTALK) GEOFF BENNETT: You will be dearly missed.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: But we wish you and Camilla and your growing family all the best.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

GEOFF BENNETT: Fantastic.

AMNA NAWAZ: Over the past few years, as the country has been reckoning with questions of race, justice and equality, many state legislatures have passed laws restricting how American history, particularly institutional racism and its legacy today, can be taught in public schools.

Tonight, Judy Woodruff visits her native Tulsa, Oklahoma, to try to understand how that city, amid its own reckoning, is navigating this moment.

It's her latest installment of America at a Crossroads.

KRISTI WILLIAMS, Community Activist: This is where the Dreamland Theatre was located.

And my great aunt Janie, when she was 17 years old, she went on a date.

Who would have known that, during this date, the massacre happened?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Community activist Kristi Williams is a descendant of Janie Edwards, who was just a teenager in Tulsa more than 100 years ago, when she snuck out one Saturday night for a date, and found herself fleeing for her life.

KRISTI WILLIAMS: She remembered that there were gunshots flying everywhere, there was fire everywhere.

And she said they dropped bombs, and you could smell the fire and the smoke from miles and miles away.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The day before, a young Black man working as a shoeshiner was arrested for allegedly assaulting a white woman on an elevator.

A confrontation at the courthouse followed, and on the morning of June 1, 1921, a mob of white men chased a group of Black men into Greenwood, a 35-block district of Black-owned businesses and homes known as Black Wall Street, killing an untold number of residents and burning their community to the ground.

Yet the stories of what happened in Tulsa that weekend were for a long time buried in fear, intimidation, and shame.

KRISTI WILLIAMS: They didn't want to repeat it because they always feared that, if they talked about it around the people who did it, who were looting the homes and burning the homes and killing people, so you didn't want that to happen again, so you kept quiet about it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For decades, other stories about Tulsa have been told, a place once known as the oil capital of the world, but, more recently, home to new residents drawn by an affordable cost of living and a transforming downtown, rich in music, history and culture, including Greenwood.

In fact, my own story began here.

I was born and spent the early years of my life in this, the second largest city in Oklahoma.

I only lived in Tulsa for five years, but I came back often to visit family, especially my grandmother, who lived in this house in North Tulsa.

I never remember hearing anything about Greenwood until news reports began to circulate a few years ago.

G.T.

BYNUM (R), Mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma: We're sitting right sort of at the epicenter of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, arguably the worst incident of urban racial violence in American history, and it was not discussed openly for nearly 75, 80 years.

So, this represents the evolution of Tulsa's, really, racial history.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Tulsa's Mayor G.T.

Bynum comes from a long line of Tulsans, as well as former city mayors on both sides of his family.

G.T.

BYNUM: And the goal, of course, at the very top is reconciliation for us as a community.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In 2021, he apologized for the city's failure to protect Black Tulsans 100 years earlier and from decades of discrimination after.

G.T.

BYNUM: I think the greatest change I have seen in my lifetime, and especially just in the last five to seven years, is the openness with which racial disparities are discussed in our city.

And we have tried to, over the last, I'd say, 20 years, as a community, start having those conversations around race in our city that should have been happening for a century.

But we have tried to contact all of that into the last 20 years, and really in earnest in the last decade.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Historians estimate that 300 people may have been killed in the massacre.

In 2018, Mayor Bynum announced an effort to find out more using ground-penetrating radar, coring, and excavation to explore four sites where victims of the massacre may have been buried.

Just recently, a team announced that they had sequenced DNA from six sets of human remains exhumed from Oaklawn Cemetery, and are now seeking the public's help in identifying them.

G.T.

BYNUM: It's an opportunity for us to make Tulsa the kind of city that I think this generation of Tulsans wants it to be.

We want to be a city where, when horrible things happen to people, we as a city rally around them and do our best to find out what happened and be there for their families and their descendants.

At the same time, there's a human challenge.

There's a great lack of trust towards the city because the city didn't do enough for so long.

VANESSA HALL-HARPER, Tulsa City Council: The question that I have and the question that so many North Tulsans have is, what are you going to actually do about it?

These are abandoned homes.

And you see this throughout my district.

JUDY WOODRUFF: City Councillor Vanessa Hall-Harper, who represents Tulsa's First District, in the north, recently gave me a tour of her district, where many Black Tulsans live today.

VANESSA HALL-HARPER: And so you have a lot of vacant houses and vacant lots.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Following the carnage of the massacre, many Greenwood buildings and businesses were rebuilt.

But in the decades that followed, developers built a highway through the heart of Greenwood, which, combined with housing discrimination in the form of race-restrictive covenants and redlining, drove many residents north.

VANESSA HALL-HARPER: This was the only part of town that Black people could live.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Today, Hall-Harper says her district suffers from poor housing, health care, nutrition, and employment.

And a 2015 Tulsa Health Department report found a greater-than-10-year difference in the lifespan of those living in a zip code in the north versus just a few miles away in south Tulsa.

VANESSA HALL-HARPER: The community living in North Tulsa is largely African American, Black, brown and poor people, and South Tulsa is largely white affluent.

That's a problem.

And that's not only a problem for North Tulsans.

That's a problem for our city.

JUDY WOODRUFF: She campaigned on a promise to address the food deserts in her community.

VANESSA HALL-HARPER: There's nothing in her discount dollar stores that's healthy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, in 2021, with support from Mayor Bynum, she helped deliver fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy in the Oasis Fresh Market.

But she says a lot more needs to be done to make this community whole.

VANESSA HALL-HARPER: I grew up, when I had to apologize, I had to do more than just say, I'm sorry.

I had to do all that I can -- could do to make right what I had done.

JUDY WOODRUFF: She's currently helping to lead a series of community conversations called Beyond Apology to try to engage residents over what more the city should do, including on the question of reparations.

So, when you speak of reparations, what do you mean exactly by that?

VANESSA HALL-HARPER: I think we are in the process right now of having those conversations in Beyond Apology, but if you're asking me, Vanessa Hall-Harper, reparations to me is land and cash.

JUDY WOODRUFF: To whom?

VANESSA HALL-HARPER: To everyone that was involved, to the -- not only the victims, but to their descendants.

But not only were individuals destroyed.

Community was destroyed.

This entire space, this entire area was impacted.

And so what does that form of reparations look like?

I think those are conversations that we must have.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mayor G.T.

Bynum: G.T.

BYNUM: We need to do right by Tulsans who were murdered in 1921.

That's why were doing the search for the graves.

We have allocated over $1 million in city funds that has been unanimously supported by the city council and overwhelmingly supported by the public.

The public has overwhelmingly supported our work around economic development.

One could view all of that work as reparations.

There are others who say, we have got to levy a property tax on everyone who lives in Tulsa and issue cash payments.

That, to me, is a much more challenging question, because you're financially penalizing everyone who lives in Tulsa today for something that criminals did 100 years ago.

But we're going through a dialogue.

And the way I think you address it is to keep the dialogue going.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And yet Republican state lawmakers have arguably made that harder.

EVAN ONSTOT, KOCO: More fallout from the House Bill 1775 in Oklahoma.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In 2021, despite opposition from school boards and public universities across the state, Governor Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 1775, legislation restricting how history can be taught in public schools.

GOV.

KEVIN STITT (R-OK): And, as governor, I firmly believe that not one cent of taxpayer money should be used to define and divide young Oklahomans about their race or sex.

JUDY WOODRUFF: On its face, 1775 is about preventing discrimination on the basis of race or sex.

But it includes a provision that says no individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex, which some worry is so broad and subjective that it's having a chilling effect on the teaching of difficult subjects, like the 1921 massacre.

VANESSA HALL-HARPER: I think it is ridiculous.

I think it's totally ridiculous that you don't teach history of what actually happened, just for fear of making someone feel guilty.

Teach them also, in order for this not to happen, these are the things that we must do.

MAN: Well, Tulsa Public Schools is the first district in Oklahoma accused of violating a new state law that regulates how districts teach about race and gender.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The law is already having real-world consequences.

Last summer, the accreditation ratings of two Oklahoma school districts, Tulsa and Mustang, were downgraded, in Tulsa because teachers took part in an implicit bias training.

JANICE DANFORTH, Founder, Tulsa Moms for Liberty: House Bill 1775 was created for this purpose, to create accountability and transparency.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Tulsa-area resident Janice Danforth spoke in favor of the downgrading at the July state board meeting in Oklahoma City.

JANICE DANFORTH: I ask you today to follow through and let TPS be the example throughout Oklahoma that breaking the law is not only unacceptable, it's illegal, and, as a district, you will pay the price for that decision.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A mother of two boys, one in public school, one in private, in 2021, Danforth founded the Tulsa chapter of Moms for Liberty, a nonprofit parents' rights group started in Florida during the pandemic that has now spread across the country.

The group is officially nonpartisan, but aligns itself with conservative causes.

Danforth says Tulsa Public Schools, which for years have struggled with low funding and test scores, need to focus on academics.

JANICE DANFORTH: And that should really be the only thing they're focusing on, and not diversity, equity, and inclusion.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are you saying that its wrong for teachers to be conscious of diversity?

JANICE DANFORTH: Not at all.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Then what is the argument, then?

JANICE DANFORTH: Well, Critical Race Theory, or if you want to look at diversity, equity, inclusion, we don't -- equity is making everyone equal.

That's not the case, right?

We can't be -- all have the same thing.

That is Marxism, literally.

We want equitable, not equity, where everyone has the same opportunity.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I asked Danforth how teachers are supposed to manage how a student feels about a historical event, like the 1921 massacre, without worrying about hurting their district's accreditation or jeopardizing their teaching licenses.

How do you carefully make that separation, though?

JANICE DANFORTH: I think you can show that there were some people in that time frame that were not good people.

The Ku Klux Klan was a terrible organization that did terrible things to Black people.

And I think kids can learn about it without having to have that concept put on them like it's their fault.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you think teachers are able to make that distinction, should be able to make that distinction?

JANICE DANFORTH: Absolutely.

I think if you're worried about how you're teaching it, then you're probably teaching it wrong.

G.T.

BYNUM: I would not want any student in Tulsa taught that they are lesser than someone else because of their race.

At the same time, there are legitimate concerns around making sure that we do have difficult conversations and that we learn about difficult history.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For his part, Mayor Bynum, a Republican, says if, in fact, the new state law is preventing the teaching of history, like the events of 1921, legislators should amend it.

G.T.

BYNUM: We're home to the consequences of not talking about difficult history for three-quarters-of-a-century right here in Tulsa, where the city fathers, after 1921, decided, we're not going to talk about this race massacre because it's such an embarrassment.

And so now its left to this generation of Tulsans to try and catch up on all that and investigate it 100 years after the fact, which is really challenging.

KRISTI WILLIAMS: I also want to keep educating ourselves on our own.

That is really important.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Community activist Kristi Williams isn't waiting for the legislature to act.

She recently started her own program, Black History Saturdays, for young people, their parents, and local teachers to meet once a month to learn in an environment free from the fear of saying the wrong thing.

KRISTI WILLIAMS: You know, history and learning, it is uncomfortable.

But if you understand someone's history, then you won't treat them like they are an outcast.

If you were taught that all I was, was a slave, my people were just slaves, you don't see that much in me.

So, I mean, it's a benefit for all people to learn Black history.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A community that remains divided over its past and how to move forward, but still trying to engage.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Judy Woodruff in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

AMNA NAWAZ: And take a look online, where Judy shares her personal reflections on reporting on Tulsa.

That's at PBS.org/NewsHour.

GEOFF BENNETT: Leanne Morgan finds comedy in the chaos of marriage and motherhood.

She's a storyteller who draws from her experiences growing up in rural Tennessee, being married for over 30 years, raising three kids, and becoming a grandmother for the first time.

LEANNE MORGAN, Comedian: When my boy and his wife found out about this precious baby, they would say "their baby."

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: And we would say "our baby."

And then they started using words like boundaries.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Now at 57 years old, Leanne Morgan's stand-up career is taking off, and she's just released her first Netflix stand-up special.

LEANNE MORGAN: They are going to have this precious baby, and they're going to be up all night, and that's going to go into weeks and months.

And then my little daughter-in-law is going to start hallucinating.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: And then she's going to wake up in the night and she will be breast-feeding a lamp.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: And we will see who's got boundaries.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: I sat down with her in New York City to talk about her unconventional comedy career.

Most comedians get their starts in comedy clubs or in writers rooms.

You found your way to professional stand-up by selling jewelry; is that right?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, my darling.

OK, so, my husband and I met at the University of Tennessee, and when we graduated, he bought a used mobile home business, where he refurbished mobile homes and sold them.

And he moved me to Bean Station, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

And I started selling jewelry.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you're going house to house doing this?

LEANNE MORGAN: I'm going house to house at night.

My husband took care of the baby.

And then I was supposed to be talking about jewelry, and I would schlep this big jewelry case around.

And I didn't talk about jewelry.

I talked about breast-feeding and hemorrhoids, and I developed a shtick, really, an act.

And women thought I was funny and started booking me about a year in advance.

GEOFF BENNETT: Wow.

LEANNE MORGAN: And that gave me the confidence.

People would say, you need to be a stand-up.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is that what you wanted for yourself?

Did you want to be a stand-up comedian?

LEANNE MORGAN: I wanted to be in show business and I thought I was funny.

And I always loved comedy, but I didn't know what that -- what it would end up.

But, stand-up, I knew I could tell a story.

MAN: Ladies and gentlemen, Leanne Morgan!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) GEOFF BENNETT: After two decades on stage, Leanne's first special on YouTube has more than 50 million views.

Her new Netflix special reached the top 10.

LEANNE MORGAN: My husband and I met, and I was so cute.

And I was little.

I had on little britches.

Any my thyroid was functioning.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: Now I truly believe he would not pull me out of a burning vehicle.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Your family provides fodder for so much of your act.

How do they feel about that?

LEANNE MORGAN: They feel fine about it now.

When they were in middle school, my children said: "Do not speak my name."

And they also said: "Don't come up to the school with yoga pants on."

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: So that was a dry time for me.

And my husband only one time has said to me: "Don't say that again."

I said something about, I wanted something, but it was a bad a mobile home year.

And he said: "I have always provided for you.

Do not say that again."

And it hurt me for him.

And I have never said anything like that again.

But he doesn't care about anything else.

And, in my twisted mind, I think, oh, I can lose 40 pounds in four weeks.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Leanne's act is relatable, and a reflection of her life, comedy with a common touch.

LEANNE MORGAN: I have done every diet in the world.

My momma and my sister and I took Dexatrim.

Do you all remember Dexatrim?

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

It was speed.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: We took speed as a family.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: They sold it on the shelves everywhere, and we were all taking dope.

That -- and that's funny how things resonate with people, because I have had more comments of people saying, oh, my gosh, my mom and I took Dexatrim together.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

LEANNE MORGAN: My momma gave it to us, and I was this big around.

And I was raised by farming people and out in the middle -- we knew where our beef was coming from.

I was tiny, and then taking diet pills on top of that.

I would now, but I think my heart would flutter.

GEOFF BENNETT: Right.

Right.

LEANNE MORGAN: I'm out here on the porch, and I'm looking rough.

GEOFF BENNETT: When COVID hit, Leanne was about to start a 100-city tour, and, like many others, leaned into social media and cooking.

LEANNE MORGAN: You just mix that all together and you chill it, and its really good.

I started talking about my recipes and taking care of my little mom and daddy.

They needed me.

And what I was feeding them and my family.

And it grew more than I ever thought it would.

So -- and that was a helpful thing.

As horrible as all that was, I think it helped grow my audience, because people were at home and... GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

And it gave them a point of connection.

LEANNE MORGAN: And people start making all this Jell-O all over the United States.

And I know Jell-O is very divisive.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: It's controversial.

That's right.

LEANNE MORGAN: It's very controversial.

(LAUGHTER) LEANNE MORGAN: But where I'm from, in the - - you know, in the Middle Tennessee, we love a good gelatin salad with a little pineapple, pecan, little cottage cheese or cream cheese, a little Cool Whip.

GEOFF BENNETT: Wow.

OK. LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

I know, Geoff.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes, that's way beyond -- that's beyond... (CROSSTALK) LEANNE MORGAN: I know.

You look -- I know.

I don't want to worry you, but, yes, to us, that's a big -- it's nice to take to a church supper.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

The thing I really loved about your act is that there's no underlying political or social message.

It really is just about the laughs.

It's about finding the funny moments in family and growing older.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I understand how people want to do that and do comedy that way.

But I have just never written that way or ever thought that way.

Plus, I thought, nobody cares what I think.

And I don't -- I want it to be fun.

I don't want anybody to feel uncomfortable.

And -- but, yes, that's how -- I don't write that way.

You know, I probably don't read enough, Geoff, to know what's going on.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Leanne says this run of success couldn't have happened at a better time.

She just signed on to star in a Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon comedy.

And she is back on the road on a national stand-up tour this summer.

The tour is called Just Getting Started.

Is that how it feels?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, Geoff.

OK, when you're from the country, like I am, were meemaws.

We like to start cooking pinto beans and wearing house dresses.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Right.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I thought, I'm just going to bow out of this thing.

And then this happened.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

LEANNE MORGAN: When I look back on it, because I have had television deals for sitcoms.

I have had four deals.

And they would not make it.

My children were little, and I would be devastated.

And I look back on it now and I think, oh, my gosh, that was not the right time.

I got to raise these children in Knoxville, Tennessee, and then now they don't need me like they used to.

They still need me.

And then this happened to me at this time in my life.

And I'm having a ball.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

Yes.

LEANNE MORGAN: I'm having a ball.

And it's bigger and more wonderful and more special than anything I ever dreamed of.

AMNA NAWAZ: I love that she says your name with two syllables, Geoff.

(LAUGHTER) AMNA NAWAZ: Was that a trip?

Were you just laughing the whole time?

GEOFF BENNETT: Isn't she the best?

And I got to say, as part of our tour, she sold out the Grand Ole Opry, which is a big deal for anybody, but certainly somebody from Tennessee.

AMNA NAWAZ: Good for her.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

She's something else.

And that interview was part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Meantime, may is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

And our Student Reporting Labs is exploring how food is tied to culture and identity.

AMNA NAWAZ: In Hillsboro, Oregon, student reporter Sandeep Brijesh Pillai of the Beaverton Academy of Science and Engineering has this story of a Cambodian refugee whose restaurant helps him heal from a tragic family history and provides a space to share his culture.

SARON KHUT, Owner, Mekong Bistro: I dreamt about it.

And now I'm living it.

It's easy for me because this is what I wanted.

My name is Saron Khut.

I was born in Cambodia in 1970 and I came to the United States when I was 10 years old in 1981.

When the communist rebels took over Cambodia in 1975, anything with knowledge and intellectual stuff, they don't want it anymore.

They wanted to reset the country back to the year zero.

My father was a well-known person in our community, in our town.

He was a teacher when the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975.

He couldn't hide his identity.

And so they took him away one night in the middle of the night, and they took him outside of town and they beat him to death.

When we were there, we were moved from town to town.

My mother was put to work in work camps.

And my sister and I were orphaned for several months.

I was the one that had to look for ways to feed my sisters and myself and my grandmother.

We were suffering a lot, but, fortunately, we made it.

My wife and I, we wanted a venue where we can host a lot of people for events and stuff like that.

And so we built this together with our own hands, pretty much.

(LAUGHTER) SARON KHUT: I feel really good about what we do here, and my goal was to get closer to my community, to be more connected, to have a better networking system.

You know, we serve foods, but it is also more than just food here at Mekong.

We build relationships.

We create good memories.

I want to do more to help bring lights to what happened there in Cambodia.

And, also, I want people to not forget about the genocide.

Cambodia has been underrepresented.

Cambodia is more than just the killing field.

Cambodia is a country full of rich culture, arts, foods, and entertainment, and everything else.

And so I wanted to at least shed some light on Cambodia and the Cambodian culture.

GEOFF BENNETT: And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Geoff Bennett.

AMNA NAWAZ: And I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "NewsHour" team, thank you for joining us.