Black Agenda Radio

Black Agenda Radio - 03.02.20

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: We’ll take a look at some of the earliest fighters against Black Mass Incarceration; the last of the Move 9 political prisoners has been released from confinement; and, a Black scholar discusses peace activism three generations ago.

The United National Anti-War Coalition recently held its annual national conference at the People’s Forum, in New York City. Black Agenda Report senior columnist Margaret Kimberley was one of the speakers.

Mass Black Incarceration has been the norm in the United States, ever since the abolition of slavery, and Black women have always been in the forefront of prison reform. Nikki Brown is a professor of history at the University of New Orleans. She authored an article in the Journal of African American History, titled “Keeping Black Motherhood Out of Prison: Prison Reform and Woman-Saving in the Progressive Era.” We asked Professor Brown why so many prison reformers belonged to socially conservative Black womens’ clubs.

The last of the surviving Move 9 members has been released from prison. Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, filed this report for Prison Radio.

 Before there was a movement against the Vietnam War, there was a movement against US militarism and support for white colonial regimes. Charisse Burden Stelly is a Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Carleton College. She wrote an article for the Dubois Review, titled “In Battle for Peace During Scoundrel Time: W. E. B. Du Bois and United States Repression of Radical Black Peace Activism.”

We asked Professor Stelly, Who were the scoundrels during “Scoundrel Time?”

Black Agenda Radio - 02.24.20

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: Bail has been abolished for some offenses in New York State, but people held on one dollar bail find it hard to get out of jail; A Black professor says Emmet Till and Trayvon Martin both died on the alter of white womanhood; and, Mumia Abu Jamal makes some comparisons between 21st century poverty and the Great Depression.

Most people think of environmental damage as having to do with pollution of the air and water. But Willie Wright, a professor of geography and African American Studies at Florida State University, in Tallahassee, says the landscape can also be damaged by using it to commit or conceal acts of violence against Black people. Professor Wright wrote an article for a radical journal on geography.

New York is one of several states that have abolished cash bail, which has been used to keep poor people locked up before they’ve even been convicted of a crime. But it’s often difficult to get out of jail, even if the bail is set at only one dollar. Amanda Lawson is a student at New York University and a co-founder of the Dollar Bail Brigade, whose volunteers have helped hundreds to navigate the jail bureaucracy.

Fifty seven years transpired between the murder of Emmet Till by white racists in Mississippi, and the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, in Florida. But Angela 

Own-WATCH-ee, a professor at Boston University School of Law, says both Black teenagers were killed for much the same reasons. Professor Own-WATCH-ee wrote a paper for the Dubois Review, titled “From Emmet Till to Trayvon Martin: The Persistence of White Womanhood and the Preservation of White Manhood.”

Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, sees parallels between low paid workers today, and during the Great Depression. He files this report for Prison Radio. 

Black Agenda Radio - 02.17.20

 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 America has invested much of its energies in the promise of public education, but a Black educator wants schools, as we know them, abolished. And, Julian Assange is in the courts, fighting against extradition to the United States. Why are BOTH corporate political parties so intent in imprisoning the founder of Wikileaks?

Kansas City, Kansas, like most American cities, is the site of massive gentrification, forcing Black and poor people out of the urban core. But, in the past year, tenants in Kansas City have fought back, winning passage of a Tenants Bill of Rights. We spoke to one of the main organizers of the city’s tenant organization, Tara Rah-who-Veer. She said Kansas City tenants have made great strides in a short space of time.

Growing numbers of activists are calling for the abolition of prisons in the US, as vestiges of slavery that cannot be reformed. David Stovall is a professor of African American Studies and Criminology at the University of Illinois, in Chicago. Stovall says, not only should prisons be done away with, but schooling, as we know it, should also be abolished.

Hearings begin on February 24, in Great Britain, on U.S. requests to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States, to stand trail on 18 charges that could put him prison for 175 years. Assange is currently being held in Britain’s Belmarsh prison, where he is reported in poor health. Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford says Julian Assange is a political prisoner of Empire, who deserves support, along with all the other U.S. political prisoners. Ford was interviewed on Randy Credico’s radio show. 

Chuck Africa, the last of the MOVE 9 Black political prisoners convicted in the death of a Philadelphia cop back in 1978.  That was cause for celebration for the nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, who has been locked up since 1981 in the death of another Philadelphia cop. Abu Jamal is jubilant that Move member is out of prison.

Black Agenda Radio - 02.10.20

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 have taken the lead in calling for a basic makeover in health care in the United States, a profession that was largely built on experimentation on enslaved Black people, and which has failed to serve Black men, women and children, ever since. And, reading may be fundamental, but much of what young people read in school is a racist lie. We’ll talk with a professor whose reading list tries to correct the misinformation of US and world history.

Democrats and Republicans alike stood up and cheered at President Trump’s State of the Union Address, when he introduced Juan Guaido, the right-wing politician who last year proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Nobody voted for Guaido, and Venezuela already had an elected government, but the U.S. recognized Guaido, anyway. American activists then occupied the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, to keep it from being taken over by Guaido supporters. They called themselves the Embassy Defenders. After almost a month-long siege, four of the Defenders were arrested. They face trial on February 11th, and could be imprisoned for up to a year and fined $100,000 each. One of the defenders is Kevin Zeese, of Popular Resistance. He says they’re being prevented from mounting an effective defense.

Black women in the United States are three times as likely to die in childbirth than white women, and Black American infant mortality is worse than in many poor countries of the world. Deirdre Cooper Owens is with the Department of History and the Humanities-in-Medicine Program of the University of Nebraska. She co-wrote a paper entitled, “Black Maternal and Infant Health: the Historical Legacies of Slavery.” Cooper Owens says much of modern U.S. medicine is based on medical practices devised during slavery.

It’s often said that reading is fundamental. But, what if most of what people read is historically wrong? Nana Osei-Opare teaches history at Fordham University. He submitted an article to Black Agenda Report’s “Books I Teach” feature. Osei-Opare has his students read a comprehensive list of authors and subjects, from the Kenyan Mau Mau, to South African liberationist Steve, former Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah, and radical writer and psychiatrist Franz Fanon. Near the top of the list is a book by Ruth First, who was assassinated by the white regime in South Africa.

Black Agenda Radio - 02.03.20

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 amazingly prolific and ground-breaking Black scholar Dr. Gerald Horne talks about untangling the racist distortions of history; a French writer and activist maintains that racism is baked into the culture of the colonial powers of Europe; and, we’ll learn about the deep connections between Black people’s religions on both sides of the Atlantic Oc

Erica Caines is an activist and writer in Ann Arundel County, Maryland. Caines has created a program that brings Black-themed books to children. She hopes to raise a generation of revolutionaries.

Dr. Gerald Horne is professor History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and a phenomenally prolific author. Horne’s scholarship has challenged long-held beliefs about the actual nature of the white American settlers war for independence from Britain. Dr. Horne recently appeared on a Washington Babylon podcast. He defended the New York Times’ 1619 project, which examined the origins of the Black presence in the English-speaking North American colonies.

The Black rebellion against the legitimacy of white domination rages on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Ro-KIGH-ah Dialo is a French journalist, writer and film-maker, and a host of Black Entertainment Television—France. Diallo says white supremacy is baked into the culture of France and all the colonial powers of Europe. Ufortunately, however, the French never experienced a civil rights movement on their own soil.

Eziaku Nwokocha perceived intimate connections between Black people’s religious practices in Africa and the Western Hemisphere. Nwokocha has earned a Phd in in Africana Studies from the University of Pennsylavnia, and she’s studying for her Masters degree in Theology at the Harvard Divinity School. She’s focused her studies on African and African American religions.

Black Agenda Radio - 01.27.20

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.

Black Agenda Radio - 01.20.20

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.

Black Agenda Radio - 01.13.20

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.

Black Agenda Radio - 01.06.20

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.”

Black Agenda Radio - 12.30.19

 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: Community control of the police was a goal of the Black Panther Party that has now been taken up by activists, nationwide. Political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal says the Democrats have impeached Donald Trump, but they will not be able to bring him to justice. And, a professor of women’s and gender studies has some insights into Black Girl Magic.

The United National Anti-War Coalition – UNAC – is planning a series of peace offensives for the New Year. One problem with organizing against war, Is that most Americans don’t even know that economic sanctions are as deadly as bombs and bullets, and are a form of warfare. We spoke with UNAC organizer Sara Flounders.

Last month, more than 800 activists from around the country gathered in Chicago to reestablish the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, with a focus on fighting for community control of police. Making the cops accountable to the Black community was a goal of the Black Panther Party. We spoke with Shepard McDaniel, known as “Brother Shep,” a veteran of the New York City chapter of the Panther Party. He would have liked to have attended the Chicago conference.

 That was Shepard McDaniel, or “Brother Shep,” formerly of the Black Panther Party in New York City. McDaniel is currently Community Affairs director for the Universal Zulu Nation

Justin 'Mujahid' Kaliebe is an activist doing hard time in the US prison Gulag. Kaliebe is not as well known as Mumia Abu Jamal, but he packs a powerful political analysis.

Aria Halliday is a professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of New Hampshire. Halliday co-wrote an article in the Black political journal “Soul,” titled, “The Power of Black Girl Magic Anthems: Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé, and “Feeling Myself” as Political Empowerment.” We asked Prof. Halliday, just what is “Black Girl Magic”?