Black Agenda Radio - 04.22.19

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: It’s been a great month for Mumia Abu Jamal. For the first time in decades, there’s a chance for a real legal path to freedom for the nation’s best known political prisoner. We’ll hear from Mumia and leaders of the movement to release him from a Pennsylvania prison.

The Meuller Report has been a disappointment to Democrats and most of the  U.S. corporate media. For more than two years, they have been spinning a tale of “collusion” between Wikileaks, the Russian government and the Trump campaign. But Special Counsel Robert Meuller’s verdict was that there was no collusion. Coleen Rowley is a former FBI agent and whistleblower who exposed the Bureau’s failures leading up the 9/11 attacks. Rowley has closely followed the Russiagate saga. Both Meuller and most of the news media continue to accept as Biblical Truth that Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee emails and gave them to Wikileaks. But, Rowley agrees that there’s still no proof that that’s the way it happened.

The prospects for freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, changed radically this month, 37 years after he was found guilty in the death of a Philadelphia policeman. Larry Krasner, the district attorney of Philadelphia, announced that he would not try to reverse a local court decision allowing Abu Jamal to appeal his conviction. Noelle Hanrahan is a producer and founder of Prison Radio, where Abu Jamal has for decades been a journalist – which was his profession before his arrest in 1982. Hanrahan explains how the legal breakthrough happened.

Johanna Fernandez is a professor of history at Baruch College, in New York, but she spends much of her time as an organizer with the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home. We asked Fernandez if she’s talked with Mumia since the good news arrived.

Abu Jamal was in great spirits even before he got word that the district attorney would not stand in the way of his appeal. Mumia’s supporters held a gala fundraiser in Berkeley, California, featuring Angela Davis, Alice Walker and Judith Ritter. From imprisonment in Pennsylvania, Abu Jamal spoke to the crowd at the Evening for Justice and Freedom.

Pam Africa is with the MOVE organization, in Philadelphia, and a key member of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. She spoke at the gala, in Berkeley, and paid respect to Mumia’s prison-mates.