Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 18, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 18, 2016

19 Apr 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Elections are a “Distraction” – Take it to the Streets

A spokesperson for the group that confronted Bill Clinton on his mass Black incarceration and anti-welfare policies, provoking a 13-minute tirade by the former president, said Bernie Sanders’ campaign is “another distraction, another cop-out from getting in the streets to demand justice.” Megan Malachi, of the Philly Coalition for Racial, Economic and Legal (REAL) Justice, told BAR: “As a coalition, we will not and have not endorsed any candidates, because we believe that electoral politics will not liberate the Black and poor communities. But, we definitely want to take the politicians to task for constantly and consistently betraying the aspirations of poor people.”

“Renounce and Reject” the Black Misleadership Class

Pennsylvania holds its primary election on April 26. Veteran activist and scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a co-founder of the Philadelphia-based Black Radical Organizing Committee (BROC), calls it a contest between “Hillary Clinton versus the people.” Monteiro is “convinced that Black people in Philadelphia will express their opposition, not only to Hillary and her corporate 1% backers and her war plans, but they will renounce and reject the Black Misleadership Class.”

Coalition Will Craft a National Black Agenda

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations “intends to move our general struggle forward by initiating an independent Black agenda for self-determination,” said chairman Omali Yeshitela, speaking at a Coalition conference in New York’s Harlem. The process will “culminate with our traditional November rally, march on the White House and national conference, where we will unveil our own agenda, created independent of the participation and wishes of either of the bourgeois political parties.”

One of the Coalition’s principal demands is Black community control of the police. “There has clearly been an intensification of oppression of African people since the Ferguson rebellion, and since Baltimore,” said Diop Olugbala, of the African People’s Socialist Party, a coalition member organization. “Marching, demonstrating, protesting is extremely important,” but not “if it is separated from strategic goals and demands.”

Nellie Bailey, longtime tenants activist and co-host of Black Agenda Radio, told the conference that “housing activists are engaged in class warfare with finance capital for living space. We have to build a national movement that is a broad tent, that will bring in progressive forces” that can unite around principles of unity.

CLICK BELOW TO HEAR BLACK AGENDA RADIO

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.

listen

https://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/play/3847bz/BAR_041816.mp3

More Stories

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum “Sports and Black Struggle”: Interview with Dewitt King
21 Sep 2022
In this feature, we interview organizers, journalists, scholars, and athletes working at the intersection of sports and Black struggle. We ask three general questions to all contributors and two…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
My two new lil nieces: Session 1 Lesson 1
21 Sep 2022
My two new lil nieces: Session 1 Lesson 1 “And you very small persons will not have to die if you make yourselves heard! So come on, now, and TRY!” — Dr. Seuss
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Survivors Uncensored: Voices from Rwanda and the Rwandan Diaspora
21 Sep 2022
Most reporting on the Rwandan 1994 atrocities was false and driven by the Clinton administration's need to hide its culpability. The book Survivors Uncensored allows Rwandans to tell their own…
Black Alliance For Peace
Amidst the Biden Administration’s Forever-Wars Policy in Africa, BAP Launches a Month of Action Against AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command)
21 Sep 2022
The Black Alliance for Peace hosts a Month of Action Against the US Africa Command, AFRICOM, every October. AFRICOM continues to play a dangerous role in enforcing US foreign policy that is…
Abayomi Azikiwe
COP27 to be Held in Egypt amid Global Challenges
21 Sep 2022
African nations and other developing regions are facing greater economic turmoil as extreme weather events, imperialist war and capitalist exploitation continue to damage the planet. The next United…