Black Agenda Radio - 07.01.19

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: Lots of mostly Black school districts are returning to local control, after years of state takeovers, but a recent article shows that these public schools are still starved for money; We’ll hear from Howie Hawkins, who wants to run for president on the Green Party ticket; a Move member is finally freed from a Pennsylvania prison; and, a former Black Panther who’s spent 48 years in prison is hoping to be paroled, in September.

Hundreds of left activists and scholars gathered in Brooklyn, New York, this past weekend, for the Left Forum, the biggest annual gathering of leftist activists and scholars in the nation. Black Agenda Report senior columnist Margaret Kimberley was on hand. We asked Kimberley to make sense of the never-ending warfare between the corporate media and president Trump. Trump threatened to attack Iran after that nation shot down a spy drone, but then called off the attack. The corporate media were not pleased, since they only praise Trump when he attacks other countries.

 Jeff Bryant is a journalist who has been following the plight of urban school systems for many years. Bryant is senior correspondent for Our Schools, a project of the Independent Media Institute. His latest article is titled, “Why Many Urban School Districts are Being Set Up for Fiscal Failure.” He says that, as schools became more Black and Brown, State governments seized control from local school boards and put appointed consultants in charge. Now many of these school districts are returning to local control. But Bryant says the damage has already been done.

 Howie Hawkins is running for the Green Party’s presidential nomination. Hawkins came up with a detailed plan for a massive Green New Deal, nearly a decade ago. The Green Party adopted the Green New Deal as its own. But now Democrats like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez have put forward their own Green New Deal, and put it before Congress. Hawkins says they’ve watered the Deal down, and made it ineffective.

Eddie Africa, of the MOVE organization, has been released from the Pennsylvania prison system. Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, filed this report for Prison Radio.

 Jalil Abdul Muntaqim is a former Black Panther who has been imprisoned for the past 48 years, in the killing of two police officers in 1971. Muntaqim’s co-defendant, Herman Bell, was released on parole last year, despite the loud opposition of the Governor, New York City’s mayor, and of course, the police unions. Jalil Muntaqim has had 10 parole hearing since he became eligible for release in 2002, but has been turned down each time. His next appearance before the parole board is in September. We spoke with a person that has stuck by Jalil Muntaqim every day of nearly half century of incarceration – his mother, 85-year old Billie Bottoms Brown, who lives outside Atlanta, Georgia.