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

Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey
18 Jan 2011
🖨️ Print Article

Corruption Marks U.S. Earthquake Aid to Haiti

U.S. corporations are making a killing from Haiti earthquake relief, just as they did after the Katrina disaster, says New Orleans-based writer and activist Jordan Flaherty. “Politically-connected U.S. contractors are using their contacts, especially with the Republican Party,” says Flaherty, “to profit off of these disasters, and the same patterns we saw with Katrina are being repeated with the Haiti earthquake.” Flaherty authored an article, “One Year After Earthquake, Corporations Profit While People Suffer.”

Long-term Unemployed Locked in Despair

A study of long-term unemployed workers shows that most are gripped by a deep sense of loss, and that about 60 percent of them “now do not believe that hard work guarantees success” in American society. “There’s a resignation to an economic lower class, or downward mobility,” says Cliff Zukin, of Rutgers University, one of the authors of the report, “The Shattered American Dream: Unemployed Workers Lose Ground, Hope, and Faith in Their Futures.”

Protest Against FBI Raids Set for January 25

Demonstrations are scheduled in cities across the country to protest FBI raids against peace and international solidarity activists, says Jill Dowling, of the New York Working Group to Stop FBI Oppression. To date, 23 activists have been summoned to testify before grand juries, or face jail for contempt of court. Dowling says activists in countries like Colombia are at risk of being killed if their American counterparts are forced to “name names.”

Without Civil War, Slavery Might Not Have Ended

It should not be assumed that slavery would have somehow been abolished had the U.S. Civil War not occurred, says James Loewen, author of The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader and other books on race in America. “The investment in slaves was greater than the investment in all railroads and all manufacturing companies in the U.S.,” says Loewen. “Who would have ended that right away? It’s not clear.”

Lumumba Assassination Commemorated

Monday, January 17, marked the 50th anniversary of the murder of Congolese president Patrice Lumumba, targeted for death by both Belgium and the United States. The martyred leader’s “words still resonate with the youth of Africa, today,” says Kambole Musavuli, spokesperson for Friends of Congo.

 

 

 

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.


More Stories


  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Venezuela, Even More Than Palestine, Is the Linchpin of a Consistent Radical Left in The Era of Global Neofascism Led by the U.S.
    07 Jan 2026
    Solidarity with Palestine tests morality, but solidarity with Venezuela tests politics. The recent U.S. intervention demands a radical left moving from moral outrage to a material confrontation with…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: National Liberation: Categorical Imperative for the Peoples of Our Americas, Manuel Maldonado-Denis, 1982
    07 Jan 2026
    “The national independence struggles of the peoples of Our America have simultaneously been anti-imperialist struggles from Tupac Amaru up through our times.”
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    STOP the killers!
    07 Jan 2026
    "STOP the killers!" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • The Editors
    Black Agenda Report Venezuela Reading List
    07 Jan 2026
    Black Agenda Report contributors have focused analysis, reporting and interviews on Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution for many years. We hope that this list, which is not exhaustive of BAR’s coverage…
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Intervention in Venezuela and Stands with the Venezuelan People in Their Resistance to U.S. Imperialist War
    07 Jan 2026
    The Black Alliance for Peace takes a clear anti-imperialist stance on U.S. intervention in Venezuela.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us