Episodes
Monday Jan 27, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 01.27.20
Monday Jan 27, 2020
Monday Jan 27, 2020
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: Black women from across the French empire were instrumental in shaping the gobal liberation movement; and, Claudia Jones, a Black communist woman from Trinidad, put her mark on Black feminist politics.
The African People’s Socialist Party has been around since the Sixties. In a few days, the party will hold an important plenary session. Chairman Omali Yeshitela outlines his party’s overall world view.
The French colonial empire stretched across much of Africa, Asia, the South Seas and the Caribbean – and has not been fully deconstructed even in the 21st century. Annette Joseph-Gabriel is a professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. She’s written an important new book, titled ““Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire.”
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union and China were bitter rivals, competing for leadership of the communist movement. One activist that straddled the China-Russia divide was Claudia Jones, a Black woman from Trinidad who did much of her most important work in the U.S. Zee-Fang Lee-ou is a doctoral student at Cornell University. He’s written a paper, titled, “Decolonization Is Not a Dinner Party: Claudia Jones, China’s Nuclear Weapons, and Afro-Asian Solidarity.” Lee-ou says Claudia Jones was a political pioneer.
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 01.20.20
Monday Jan 20, 2020
Monday Jan 20, 2020
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 Black Lives Matter period of confrontations with the cops may have petered out in much of the country, but the movement against police oppression is alive and well in New York City. And, a new book explores the interaction between US suppression of minorities at home and American military policy, abroad.
The FBI claims that it has revised its policy on targeting so-called Black Identity Extremists. However, many observers doubt that, including Yah-FAY-OH Ba-la-GON, a leader of the Dallas Texas-based Huey P. Newton Gun Club. The club urges Black people to arm themselves for self-defense.
In New York City, a coalition of organizatons is planning a new series of actions against police oppression in the city’s mass transit system. Sharon Jones, of Bronxites for NYPD Accountability, says the protesters will rally under the banner, F-T-P.
Anti-police brutality protesters often point to the collaboration between US cops and the counterparts in apartheid Israel. But author Stuart Schrader says the problem is a lot deeper than that. He’s written a new book, titled “Badges Without Borders:How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing.” It details how the US has learned to suppress rebellions at home and abroad, from Native American extermination and suppression of slave revolts, to becoming the policeman of the world.
Monday Jan 13, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 01.13.20
Monday Jan 13, 2020
Monday Jan 13, 2020
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: Black people in Great Britain go to prison in approximately the same rate as in the United States. We’ll take a look at the state of the human rights movement in that country. And, Black women in the United States suffer far more problems in giving birth, and after their babies are born. We’ll look into racial disparities in treatment of post-partum depression.
President Donald Trump brought the world to the brink of another Mideast War, with his assassination of a top general in the Iranian armed forces. But, political assassination is nothing new to Washington. We spoke with a renowned expert on international law. Francis Boyle is a professor of law at the University of Illinois. He says Donald Trump is guilty of many impeachable acts, but the Democrats aren’t charging him with his worst crimes.
Black people make up only about six percent of the populaton of Great Britain, but comprise a huge proportion of that nation’s prison population. Great Britain never experienced a civil rights movement on its own soil. But, Adam Elliot-Cooper, and Black activist and doctoral student at the Oxford University, says Britain’s human rights movement took place in its African and Asian and Caribbean colonies, during their struggles for independence. Elliot-Cooper says the British Empire’s oppression and exploitation of colonized people, world-wide, has come home to roost.
America’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, is co-author of a book detailing the litany of crimes committed by the United States in the course of its bloody history. It’s titled, “Murder, Incorporated.” Abu Jamal says the U.S. is living up to its reputation as an international assassin.
The United States has the highest rate of infant mortality in the developed world, and Black mothers die while giving birth at rates comparable to Third World countries. But Black mothers also suffer very high rates of what’s called post-partum depression, a mental health condition that is dangerous to both mother and child. Aneri Pattani is an activist and journalist. She wrote an article for Truthout, titled “Black Mothers Are Treated Less for Postpartum Depression Than Other Moms.” Pattani explains what post-partum depression is.
Monday Jan 06, 2020
Black Agenda Radio - 01.06.20
Monday Jan 06, 2020
Monday Jan 06, 2020
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: New scholarship explores the lives of the first Africans to fall under European rule, half a millennium ago; and, the birth of hip hop, in New York City. A Black scholar claims that urban destruction under neoliberal capitalism laid the groundwork for the new musical genre.
The US assassination of a leading Iranian general threatens to bring the world once again to the brink of war. We spoke with Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Philadelphia-based Duboisian scholar.
The roots of Hip Hop music and culture have long been debated. Dr. Lisa Calvente teaches Intercultural Communications at DePaul University. She wrote a recent article for the political journal “Souls,” in which draws a straight line between neoliberal capitalism and the birth of hip hop in New York City.
Before Christopher Columbus ever set out for the New World, the Portuguese had been making raids on West Africa, and taking Black prisoners as slaves. Nick Jones is a professor of Spanish at Bucknell University. He’s written a book about the lives of those African captives of the Portuguese and Spanish empires. It’s titled, “Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain.”