Black Agenda Radio 03.15.21

Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Margaret Kimberley, along with my co-host Glen Ford. Coming up: The Black Is Back Coalition is made up of 15 organizations that work together on issues of mutual concern. We’ll hear from two activists who spoke at a recent Black Is Back Coalition webinar. And, if colonialism is dead, then why are European nations effectively doing border patrol thousands of miles deep inside the African continent? We’ll explore why so many African migrants are drowning at sea, while Europeans and Americans establish military bases all over the continent. But first – at least 25 organizations around the country are fighting to establish community control over the police. One of them is Pan-African Community Action, or PACA, in the Washington DC area. But PACA organizer Netfa Freeman says some activists mistakenly think that community control over the cops means keeping the blue “army of occupation” in place. In reality, says Freeman, community control is the best – and most democratic -- way to achieve both defunding and total abolition of the police.

That was Netfa Freeman, of Pan-African Community Action, speaking from Washington DC.

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations has been around since 2009 and is now made up of 15 organizations, all of which are united around a 19 point National Black Political Agenda for Self-Determination. The Coalition held a webinar, last week, on the subject: “Fascism, Neoliberalism, and the Way Forward.” We’ll hear from two of the speakers. Jihad Abdulmumit is chairman of the Jericho Movement, which fights to free political prisoners. And, Ajamu Baraka is national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace. We begin with Abdulmumit, followed by Baraka.

That was Ajamu Baraka, of the Black Alliance for Peace.

Ever since Barack Obama’s administration, the African continent has once again been crawling with European and American soldiers and foreign military bases. We spoke with Ampson Hagan, a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He’s been doing research on how Europeans, in partnership with the United States, have essentially extended their borders deep into Africa in order to keep Black migrants from getting anywhere near Europe. Hagan says the focus of this containment policy is the former French colony of Niger.