Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 18, 2016
19 Apr 2016
🖨️ Print Article

Elections are a “Distraction” – Take it to the Streets

A spokesperson for the group that confronted Bill Clinton on his mass Black incarceration and anti-welfare policies, provoking a 13-minute tirade by the former president, said Bernie Sanders’ campaign is “another distraction, another cop-out from getting in the streets to demand justice.” Megan Malachi, of the Philly Coalition for Racial, Economic and Legal (REAL) Justice, told BAR: “As a coalition, we will not and have not endorsed any candidates, because we believe that electoral politics will not liberate the Black and poor communities. But, we definitely want to take the politicians to task for constantly and consistently betraying the aspirations of poor people.”

“Renounce and Reject” the Black Misleadership Class

Pennsylvania holds its primary election on April 26. Veteran activist and scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a co-founder of the Philadelphia-based Black Radical Organizing Committee (BROC), calls it a contest between “Hillary Clinton versus the people.” Monteiro is “convinced that Black people in Philadelphia will express their opposition, not only to Hillary and her corporate 1% backers and her war plans, but they will renounce and reject the Black Misleadership Class.”

Coalition Will Craft a National Black Agenda

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations “intends to move our general struggle forward by initiating an independent Black agenda for self-determination,” said chairman Omali Yeshitela, speaking at a Coalition conference in New York’s Harlem. The process will “culminate with our traditional November rally, march on the White House and national conference, where we will unveil our own agenda, created independent of the participation and wishes of either of the bourgeois political parties.”

One of the Coalition’s principal demands is Black community control of the police. “There has clearly been an intensification of oppression of African people since the Ferguson rebellion, and since Baltimore,” said Diop Olugbala, of the African People’s Socialist Party, a coalition member organization. “Marching, demonstrating, protesting is extremely important,” but not “if it is separated from strategic goals and demands.”

Nellie Bailey, longtime tenants activist and co-host of Black Agenda Radio, told the conference that “housing activists are engaged in class warfare with finance capital for living space. We have to build a national movement that is a broad tent, that will bring in progressive forces” that can unite around principles of unity.

CLICK BELOW TO HEAR BLACK AGENDA RADIO

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
https://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/play/3847bz/BAR_041816.mp3

More Stories


  • Maps of tectonic plates in around Africa
    Laith Marouf
    Palestine is in Africa, and Arabic Peoples are Africans
    13 Mar 2024
    Palestinian people and African/Black people share more than a common struggle. They share a history dating back thousands of years.
  • Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    BAP Backgrounder: Haiti Behind the Headlines
    13 Mar 2024
    The Black Alliance for Peace lays out the reality of the ongoing crisis in Haiti, rejecting the mainstream narrative of a crisis of "gangs".
  • MOLEGHAF
    MOLEGHAF Statement: A call for revolutionary forces to assemble
    13 Mar 2024
    MOLEGHAF calls for organization and unity among all revolutionary forces in Haiti to combat the capitalist glass and imperialist forces causing the ongoing crisis on the island.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe
    African Americans and the Cold War from Civil Rights to Black Power
    13 Mar 2024
    The end of the Second Imperialist War (World War II) did not usher in the end of colonialism and oppression for Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. The resistance of Pan-African movements…
  • Jeb Sprague , Kit Klarenburg
    Secret cable: CIA orchestrated Haiti’s 2004 coup
    13 Mar 2024
    A classified diplomatic cable obtained by The Grayzone reveals the role of a veteran CIA officer in violently overthrowing Haiti’s popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us