Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 30, 2015 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 30, 2015

01 Dec 2015

🖨️ Print Article

Two Rights Groups Refuse to Sign Off on Sentencing “Reform” Bill

Legislation is moving through the U.S. House and Senate that would retroactively shorten sentences for crack cocaine possession and, its backers claim, substantially roll back mandatory minimum sentences for other crimes. However, the National Urban League and Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) are refusing to give their blessing to the Sentencing Act, which actually expands the list of crimes subject to mandatory prison terms. The bill “will have a disproportionate effect on minority communities,” according to FAMM president Julie Stewart. “They have created a new class of crime that can now trigger” a sentence of 25 years, she said. Gun possession and crimes of domestic violence would also carry mandatory penalties.

New Film in the Works on Black Panther Party

Former Black Panther Party chief of staff David Hilliard and Emmy Award-winning director Dante James hope to have a documentary on the party completed in time for the 50^th anniversary of the BPP’s founding, next September. “Our film is not going to be a response or reaction” to The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, directed by Stanley Nelson, Jr. and distributed by PBS. “For many, many years,” said James, “the corporate media has defined the Black Panther Party from the outside-in.” This time, the party will by defined, not by “fringe or part-time party members, but by people who were there from the very beginning, who knew and worked with Huey P. Newton.”

First Cop Goes on Trial in Freddie Gray Killing

The manslaughter trial of Baltimore police officer William Porter began on Monday, the first of six cops charged in the death of Freddie Gray, last April. Porter drove the police van in which Gray was fatally injured. Jill Carter, a Maryland state legislator and lawyer, told The Real News Network that some of the cops should have been charged with murder. “We all saw in the video that an assault happened prior to Freddie Gray ever being placed in the van,” said Carter. “If there was an illegal arrest that was contemporaneous with an assault, I would argue that would be first degree assault and attempted murder, with cumulative charges for everything that happened after that.” Baltimore erupted in street rebellion in the wake of Gray’s death.

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.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/BlackAgendaRadio_20151130.mp3

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
U.S. Threats Against Venezuela Target the Entire Region
31 Oct 2025
Gerald Perreira is the chairperson of the Organization for the Victory of the People in Guyana. He joins us from Guyana to discuss Donald Trump’s regime change threats against neighboring Venezuela,…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Zohran Mamdani and the New York City Mayor's Race
31 Oct 2025
Margaret Kimberley was recently a guest on James Fauntleroy’s YouTube program, Jaybefaunt. They discussed the upcoming mayoral election in New York City that pits the Democratic Party nominee, Zohran…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Shutdown and Neverending Hostility to the Welfare State
29 Oct 2025
The federal government shutdown is a fight between Trump and democrats, but it is also emblematic of the tenuous nature of the welfare state in the U.S. The duopoly parties are both committed to…
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
The United States and Israel: The Tale of Two Rogue Settler-Colonial States United by A Commitment to White Supremacy and Barbaric State Violence
29 Oct 2025
The genocide in Gaza, the threat to Venezuela, and the targeting of Iran are not isolated crises. They are coordinated fronts in a single war effort attempting to enforce imperial dominance.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
STATEMENT: The Challenge to the Colonial Powers, Delegates to the Fifth Pan-African Congress, 1945
29 Oct 2025
“Africans, as a last resort, may have to appeal to force in the effort to achieve Freedom, even if force destroys them and the world.”