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
  • omnibus

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of December 23, 2012
27 Dec 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

Bill to Head Off U.S. War Against Syria

“It has actually reached the point that presidents don’t give a darn about the Congress,” said Harlem Democrat Charles Rangel, one of six congressional signatories to a letter urging President Obama to ask Congress’s authorization before waging war on Syria. Rangel appeared at a Capitol Hill press conference held by North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones, author of legislation calling for impeachment for unauthorized presidential war-making. Patrick Lang, a former head of Defense Intelligence Agency operations in the Middle East and North Africa, said “the government of the United States has embarked on a course which, if followed, will lead to military intervention in Syria.”

American Revolution was a Racist Revolt

Dr. Gerald Horne, professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, said, the American revolt of 1776 against British rule “was basically a successful revolt of racist settlers. It was akin to Rhodesia, in 1965, assuming that Ian Smith and his cabal had triumphed. It was akin to the revolt of the French settlers in Algeria, in the 1950s and 1960s, assuming those French settlers had triumphed.” Dr. Horne explores the racist roots on the American Revolution in his new book, Negroes of the Crown. “It was very difficult to construct a progressive republic in North America after what was basically a racist revolt,” said Horne. “The revolt was motivated in no small part by the fact that abolitionism was growing in London…. This is one of the many reasons more Africans by an order of magnitude fought against the rebels in 1776, than fought alongside them.”

Black Soldiers Crucial to American War of Independence

Black soldiers “were the most experienced fighters” at Yorktown, comprising a quarter of the soldiers under General George Washington’s command in the decisive battle, said Alan Gilbert, author of Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence. Gilbert disputes estimates that only 5,000 Blacks fought for American separation from Britain. However, far more Blacks served with the British, who promised freedom, while Washington’s Continental Army did not.

 

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.


More Stories


  • Pindiga Ambedkar , Arnold August
    Were Canadian Elections Existential in the Context of US-Canada Tensions?
    23 Jul 2025
    Interview with Arnold August, writer, political commentator, and analyst of the North American continent, on the political situation in Canada and its relationship to the US.
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Black Agenda Report At the Belt and Road Journalism Forum in China
    23 Jul 2025
    The 2025 Belt and Road Journalists Forum in China was an opportunity for Black Agenda Report to join an international group of journalists working to promote meaningful dialogue on world issues.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Why We Use Violence, Frantz Fanon, 1960
    23 Jul 2025
    “This violence of the colonial regime…irreparably provokes the birth of an internal violence in the colonized people.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Rwanda: Victoire Ingabire Denied Bail, Remanded to Prison
    23 Jul 2025
    Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire’s arrest belies Rwanda’s pretense to liberal democracy and its pretense to self-defense in DRC.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    If We Respond to the Genocide in Palestine the Same Way We’re responding to the Climate Crisis, We Should Expect Many More Loss of Lives
    23 Jul 2025
    The climate crisis and genocide in Gaza share the same root: capitalism’s willingness to sacrifice the masses. Yet, the institutions built to resist have instead become accomplices.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us