Black Is Back Coalition Holds National Conference
“We’ve got to uproot this system, so that our people can live,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, at a conference in Philadelphia that marked the groups second year of operation. Yeshitela recalled that, back in the autumn of 2009, when the new coalition decided to stage a march on the White House, lots of Blacks “were upset that we would challenge of Negro president.” The coalition has tried “to create a new trajectory for the African Liberation movement.” Membership in the Black is Back Coalition, Yeshitela told the crowd, “is something that will enhance what you do” in your usual political work, “not hurt what you do.”
Peoples Organization for Progress Supports OWS
“This system cannot deliver a decent quality of life for our people,” said Larry Hamm, president of People’s Organization for Progress (POP), at the Black Is Back Coalition conference. POP, a coalition affiliate, is statewide grassroots organization in New Jersey. POP supports the Occupy Wall Street movement. “Yes, there are contradictions,” said Hamm. “But, as long as I read that the captains of finance and industry hate what they are doing, we will support it.” Hamm reminded the conference that POP launched daily demonstrations for jobs, education, housing and peace back in June, before there was an OWS movement. The protests, in Newark, are set to last for at least 381 days, the duration of the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott.
Historic Church Joins POP Protest
Newark’s Bethany Baptist Church, which this weekend celebrated its 140th anniversary, marked the occasion by joining with POP’s daily demonstrations. “I like the idea of partnering with other organizations,” said Bethany’s Rev. William Howard. “There is no more critical question than meaningful employment for our community. So many of our young people are criminalized at an early age and unable to pursue conventional employment.” Rev. Howard is a former president of the National Council of Churches.
Occupation Movement Has Made Politics as Usual “Trivial”
The Occupation movement “has established for tens of millions of people that it is finance capital and Wall Street that are at the very core of the economic and social problems we face in this country,” said Tony Monteiro, professor of African American Studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. “The Occupation has such moral authority that it has, literally, taken the Tea Party out of the news, and has made politics as usual trivial to millions of people,” said Monteiro. “It has the potential of animating and bringing militancy to the labor movement, and to forcing Black people to come out of the stupor we are in as a result of confusion about Obama and bourgeois politics.”
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 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.
We’re joined by Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a Duboisian scholar and founder of the Saturday Free School for Philosophy and Black Liberation, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in September. We…
Mahnker Dahnweh of Freedom, Inc. is co-author of an article which focuses on the struggle for bodily autonomy and the impact of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision on marginalized communities. She…
This week’s featured author is Ren Ellis Neyra. Elis Neyra is Associate Professor of English at Wesleyan University. Their book is The Cry of the Senses: Listening to Latinx and Caribbean Poetics.
When liberals aren't rehabilitating war criminals like George W. Bush they fall in love with right wing republicans like Liz Cheney. They stand for nothing and fall for anything. They are traitors to…
For Black August, read William L. Patterson on racial genocide, the law, and the Martinsville Seven.
