Uneven Results in Fast Food Drive
The largely Black, brown and female fast food workforce is well-suited to the SEIU-backed campaign for a $15 an hour minimum wage, said independent journalist Arun Gupta, since “all three of these groups favor unions.” Gupta’s article, “Fight for 15 Confidential” appears in the current issue of In These Times. The campaign, including brief strike actions, has yielded uneven results. In overwhelmingly Black Detroit, the drive has attracted about 500 “active” workers. However, despite the efforts of 10 paid organizers in both Washington DC and Seattle, only about 10 or 12 workers are actively involved in each city, said Gupta.
Obama Tries to Ram Corporate “Rights” Treaty Through Congress
WikiLeaks’ publication of secret provisions of President Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty may derail efforts to “fast track” the legislation through Congress, said Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, which rewarded Wikileaks with $70,000 in crowd-sourced cash. TPP would establish corporate “rights” that would supersede regulation by sovereign governments, said Naiman. “This is a terrible dynamic from the point of view of democracy – which is why corporations love it so much.”
New Book on William Patterson, of “We Charge Genocide”
Throughout their history in North America, Blacks have sought international allies in the fight against racist oppression, said Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of African American Studies at the University of Houston. In his new book, Black Revolutionary: William Patterson and the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle, Horne details how the Black communist lawyer’s international organizing efforts “eventually led to the erosion of Jim Crow” in the U.S. Patterson played a central role in the famous Scottsboro Boys case and, along with Paul Robeson, presented a petition to the United Nations, in 1951, charging the U.S. with genocide against Blacks.
Crusading Black Radio Station Needs $4,600 to Survive
Radio station WMXP, a low-power FM outlet operated by the Malcolm X Center, in Greenville, South Carolina, can only broadcast an hour or two a day because of a faulty transmitter, said activist and attorney Efia Nwangaza. Even more desperate is the need to raise $4,600 to save the community center’s building from the county tax collector. “We did the radio station as an enhancement of the center,” said Nwangaza. “It has to be a vehicle that extends the voice of the people of the community. Otherwise, it has no meaning.” To help, go to www.wmxp955.com, or call 864.901.8627.
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.
Oppressed communities and political movements need money, but “I don’t believe that corporations can become partners” in people’s liberation, said Imani Wadud, a doctoral student a
The issues of race and class are intertwined, and “we must fight against them simultaneously rather than trying to decide if racial or class exploitation came first,” said Justin Leroy
A solid majority of the Chicago Board of Aldermen, including all the major caucuses, now supports a version of community control of police, said Frank Chapman, executive director o
President Joe Biden continues to proclaim endless support of apartheid Israel, but millions have decided that defense of Palestinian rights and lives is the only civilized response to barbaric aggr
Seventy-three years after the Nakba began, the Zionists continue their land and rights thievery, to which June Jordan, the Black American poet, bore powerful witness.
