Appeals court rejects DOJ’s emergency bid to arrest Don Lemon, church demonstrators

Explore Our Galleries

An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

January 24, 2026

By Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney, Politico

The ruling by a panel that included two Trump appointees followed a sharp rebuke of prosecutors by the chief federal judge in Minnesota.

A federal appeals court brushed back a secretive, emergency effort by the Justice Department to revive rejected arrest warrants for Don Lemon and four other people prosecutors say committed crimes by barging into a St. Paul church last weekend.

A federal magistrate judge earlier this week turned down arrest warrants for five people connected to the protesters — who disrupted a Sunday service to oppose the Trump administration’s deportation operations in Minnesota.

Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko said prosecutors had failed to present evidence to justify the arrests. Among the rejected arrest warrants were those for former CNN anchor Don Lemon and one of his producers, who had advance notice of the protest and were at the church as the events unfolded. Senior DOJ officials have specifically called out Lemon, a longtime antagonist of President Donald Trump, and argued that his role as a journalist would not shield him from criminal charges.

Continue reading.

Learn about the crucial role of the black press.

Find more news from Black journalists.

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.