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

Dr. King’s Televised Challenge to Obama: Tavis Smiley's Anti-War MLK
Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
31 Mar 2010
🖨️ Print Article
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Since the onset of the Obama phenomenon, Dr. Martin Luther King’s birth and death days have been “polluted” by false and ahistorical comparisons between Obama and MLK. The two men represent opposite political poles: one, a radical opponent of imperial war and concentrated economic power, the other, an ally of Wall Street and commander-in-chief of “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” In focusing on King, the man of peace, Tavis Smiley’s PBS special corrects a history that has been distorted, sometimes beyond recognition – not the least by the revisionist and poseur in the White House.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Pan-African Community Action
    Occupation Forces Upheld by Federal Judiciary Demonstrates DC’s Need for Community Control
    14 Jan 2026
    While politicians debate legal procedure, residents of Washington DC live under a sustained military deployment, exposing how both federal and local power collaborate against them.
  • Hanna Eid
    Hyperscale Data Centers and the Production of Waste
    14 Jan 2026
    The A.I. revolution has a hidden cost. Its massive data centers create huge amounts of waste and decimate labor and humanity.
  • Willie Mack
    Trump 2.0: A dark mirror into our past
    14 Jan 2026
    The Trump 2.0 administration is demonstrating the logical endpoint of a state project built on racial oppression. Trump’s actions show continuity with past history.
  • Vijay Prashad , Carlos Ron
    The Current Situation in Venezuela: A Government in Charge, a People Resilient
    14 Jan 2026
    While the U.S. works to manufacture chaos and regime change, the Venezuelan government holds the line, revealing the gap between Washington's narratives and the realities on the ground.
  • Adam Mahoney
    After a White Town Rejected a Data Center, Developers Targeted a Black Area
    14 Jan 2026
    Four million Americans live within 1 mile of a data center. The communities closest to them are “overwhelmingly” non-white.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us