Black Agenda Radio – 04.18.16

Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford with my co-host, Nellie Bailey.

– Half of this summer’s political drama will play out in Philadelphia, where the Democrats are holding their national convention. Bill Clinton launched into a political tirade, earlier this month, when activists from the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice denounced the former president’s mass Black incarceration and anti-poor peoples policies. Bill Clinton ranted and raved for 13 minutes, and then issued a back-handed, non-apology the next morning. We asked Megan Malachi, spokesperson for the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice, if they were surprised at the venomousness of Clinton’s response.

– Dr. Anthony Monteiro is a Duboisian scholar and veteran activist who was one of the founders of the Black Radical Organizing Committee, which held a national conference on the Black Radical Tradition, earlier this year. We asked Dr. Monteiro what kind of reception Black Philadelphia will give the Democrats when they hold their national convention, in July.

– St. Mary’s Church, in New York’s Harlem, was packed, this month, for a national conference on the 2016 Elections and Black Self-Determination. The event was organized by the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela said the electoral process is not the only means of struggle. In fact, it’s not even the most important means of political struggle.

– Diop Olugbala is an African Socialist Party activist, based in Philadelphia. He spoke on one of the Black Is Back Coalition’s principal demands: Black community control of the police.

– Our own Nellie Bailey, co-host of Black Agenda Radio, addressed the Black Is Back Coalition national conference. Bailey is a veteran Harlem tenants organizer. She spoke on the demand for Black self-determination and the centrality of the housing issue.

Black Agenda Radio – 03.21.16

Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective with Glen Ford and co-host Nellie Bailey.

– the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations will hold a national conference on the presidential elections and Black self-determination, on April 9th, in New York’s Harlem. Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela says the electoral arena is only one aspect of politics, and has historically been the LEAST useful for Black people.

– Veteran activist and historian Paul Street last week published an article titled, “Bernie, Black and Blue: Reflections on Race in the Democratic Primaries.” This month, large numbers of Black, brown and white demonstrators – some of them Bernie Sanders supporters – went to a Donald Trump rally in Chicago and shut it down. Sanders was not pleased. Although the Vermont senator claims to want to start a political revolution, he doesn’t like the idea of disruption.

– One of those who testified, last week, at congressional hearings on the poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s water supply was Prof. Marc Edwards, of Virginia Tech University. Edwards slammed the federal Environmental Protection Agency for “creating the climate” in which the Flint poisoning occurred. He has these other choice words for the leadership of the EPA.

– Political prisoner Mondo Welanga, from Omaha, Nebraska, died in his cell at the Nebraska State penitentiary, this month, at the age of 68. Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, mourns the passing of a fighter and a poet.

– Last year, Mondo Welanga recorded one of his poems for Prison Radio. It’s titled, “When It Gets to This Point.”