Episodes
Monday Mar 25, 2019
Black Agenda Radio - 03.25.19
Monday Mar 25, 2019
Monday Mar 25, 2019
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to look at the constitutionality of a Jim Crow era law, in Louisiana; the Black Alliance for Peace joins demonstrations in Washington against U.S. war policies; and, Muslim and Jewish activists say white supremacy is behind the campaign to silence Rep. Ilhan Omar.
The Ujima People’s Progress Party is gearing up for a statewide conference, in Baltimore, Maryland. Nnamdi Lumumba is one of the organizers of Ujima, which has chapters throughout the state of Maryland. The theme of the conference is, “Elections and Beyond: Building Independent Solutions for the Black Community.”
Activists from around the nation traveled to New Orleans to join protests against Louisiana’s Jim Crow-era law that allows defendants to be convicted when only 10 of 12 jurors turn in a guilty verdict. The U.S. Supreme Court last week agreed to decide on the constitutionality of the law. We spoke with Belinda Parker Brown, of Louisiana United International, one of the groups demanding that the thousands of people now imprisoned under the 10-2 law be set free.
Anti-war activists from around the country are getting reading to converge on Washington, DC, for a week of protests against U.S. wars. Actions will begin on March 30 and continue to April 4. That’s the anniversary of the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, but instead, official Washington is throwing a big party to celebrate the formation of NATO, the U.S. military alliance with Europe, Netfa Freeman is with the Black Alliance for Peace.
The arrival of two Muslim women in the U.S. Congress has focused unprecedented attention on Israel’s policies towards Palestinians. A recent congressional resolution claimed to denounce all forms of religious and racial bias, but was widely seen as being directed against Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Suad Abdul Khabeer is an anthropologist, artist and activist who teaches at the University of Michigan. She teamed up with other Muslim and Jewish women to write an article titled, “How Targeting Ilhan Omar Instead of White Supremacy Furthered Both Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.”
One of Khabeer’s co-writers is Asha Noor, a racial justice and human rights activist of Somali descent. Noor emphasizes that white supremacy is the grandfather of all the other religious and racial evils.
The nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, has some thoughts on the massacre of Muslims at prayer in New Zealand.
Monday Mar 18, 2019
Black Agenda Radio - 03.18.19
Monday Mar 18, 2019
Monday Mar 18, 2019
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has gone heads up with the Israel lobby, but what kind of dirty tricks do supporters of the apartheid state have in store for her; We’ll tell the story of the rise and demise of a reform school for Black girls in the Jim Crow-era South; and, a Black social worker and activist explains her plans to Ramp Up the struggle for Black disabled people’s rights.
The arrest of seven heavily armed mercenaries outside the Central Bank in the capital of Haiti, during civil unrest in that country last month, has raised questions about the stability of the U.S.-backed regime. The soldiers-for-hire were quickly plucked from confinement by the U.S embassy and flown out of the country, and then released when they landed back in the United States. Haitians of all political stripes have a whole range of theories about what the mercenaries were up to. Jake Johnston, of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, traveled to Haiti to investigate the case, and filed an extensive report.
A recent congressional resolution aimed at freshman Representative Ilhan Omar, one of only two Muslims in the U.S. House, has focused national attention on Israel’s unrivaled influence on American government policies. Omar declared that members of Congress should not be compelled to pledge loyalty to a foreign government. She had earlier said that the Israel lobby’s power was “all about the Benjamins” – meaning, the vast amounts of money at its disposal. We spoke with Chris Hedges, the political analyst and former New York Times foreign correspondent.
There was a time, no so long ago, when young Black girls Down South were locked away if they didn’t conform to white people’s wishes, or the codes of behavior favored by upper class Blacks. Lauren Henley is a doctoral student in history at the University of Texas, at Austin. She’s doing a study of Black female criminality in the U.S. south from the Reconstruction Era to World War Two. Henley found an illuminating case study in the poignant history of the founding and demise of a reformatory for Black girls in Jim Crow-era North Carolina. It was called the North Carolina Industrial School for Negro Girls, also referred to as the Efland Home.
When folks say Black Lives Matter, Villisa Thompson wants to make sure they mean Black disabled people’s lives matter, too. Thompson is an activist social worker and writer, and a recognized leader in the struggle for rights of the Black disabled community. She’s the creator of Ramp Your Voice and the hashtag “DisabilityTooWhite.” We asked Thompson how her politics impacts her profession.
Monday Mar 11, 2019
Black Agenda Radio - 03.11.19
Monday Mar 11, 2019
Monday Mar 11, 2019
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: A supporter of Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar says Democratic leadership is on a collision course with the party’s voter base; a supporter of sex workers in South Africa talks about the priorities of African feminists; and, we’ll hear from a political activist organizing in the bowels of the U.S. prison gulag.
Advocates for community control of the police in Chicago took the battle to the electoral arena, last month, fielding candidates in each of the city’s 50 city council districts. Before the February 26th election, only one city councilman could be counted on to support C-PAC, the proposed Civilian Police Accoutability Commission. But Frank Chapman, of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, says community control advocates are now a force to be reckoned with.
Ilhan Omar has only represented Minneapolis in the U.S. Congress since January, but Democratic Party leadership has already targeted her with two congressional Resolutions, indirectly charging Omar with anti-Semitism because of her criticism of the Israel lobby. Shahid Buttar is a lawyer and human rights activist, and a former director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Buttar plans to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the upcoming Democratic primary, in San Francisco. He says Democratic leadership is trying to show leftish members of the party who’s boss.
Women in Africa are reshaping what it means to be a feminist. Nkozo Yingwana is a doctoral student and researcher for the African SexWorker Alliance. Yingwana identifies as an African feminist scholar-activist. She wrote a recent essay on sex work and feminism in Africa, titled, “We Fit in the Society by Force.”
Last month, hundreds of inmates froze for days in their cells when power went out at the infamous Metropolitan Detention Center, or MDC, in Brooklyn, New York. Black Agenda Radio producer Kyle Fraser spoke with a federal prisoner who is organizing behind the bars with IWOC, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, and who spent time at MDC and wrote an essay on the power failure. He calls himself John Brown 912.
Monday Mar 04, 2019
Black Agenda Radio - 03.04.19
Monday Mar 04, 2019
Monday Mar 04, 2019
Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Both Republicans and Democrats in the US claim it’s alright to threaten Venezuela with invasion, because its not a democracy. But we’ll talk with a veteran Black activist who was an official observer of democracy in action in Venezuela. And, a call for the abolition of poverty, by getting rid of the class that is hoarding all the wealth.
Angela Davis, the human rights activist, was initially disinvited from an event of the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, Davis’s home town, apparently because of her support for Palestinian rights. The month before, CNN fired Mark Lamont Hill for supporting Palestinians in a speech at the United Nations. We spoke with Michael Fischbach, a professor of history at Randolph-Macon College and author of a new book titled “Black Power and Palestine.” Fischbach says Black American empathy with Palestinians and Arabs is nothing new.
The South American nation of Venezuela has held more elections in the past 20 years than any other nation in the western hemisphere, and maybe the entire world. But the corporate media and both political parties in the United States insist that Venezuela’s socialist government is a dictatorship. President Trump has seized billions in Venezuelan assets, and is threatening military action. In Greenville, South Carolina, Efia Nwangaza is a people’s lawyer and director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination. Nwangaza was among the international observers that have verified all of Venezuela’s elections as free and fair.
The popular backlash against deepening economic inequality gets more intense by the day. William Anderson is co-author of a book titled, “As Black as Resistance: Finding Conditions for Liberation.” In an article in Truthout, Anderson said it’s time to heed Dr. Martin Luther King’s call for the abolition of poverty.