http://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/web/e6rcva/BAR030215.mp3
Eight hundred people attended the funeral for Jessica Hernandez, an unarmed transgender 17 year-old shot down by Denver police. The problem isn’t just a few “bad apple” cops. “The whole damn rotten system is the problem, and must be thrown out,” said Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall, a correspondent for Prison Radio and editor of The Movement magazine, who has served 25 years of a life sentence imposed when he was still a juvenile, in Pennsylvania.
“The Dark Side of American Exceptionalism”
That’s the title of a commentary by Kenneth E. Hartman, executive director of The Other Death Penalty Project, who is serving life without possibility of parole in a California prison. Hartman believes that most Americans are willing to make prisons more humane. “It really is past time for all of us trying to fix this mess to stop kowtowing and start standing up to power,” said Hartman.
Chicago Torture Cop Freed from Custody
Jon Burge, the former Chicago police commander who oversaw the torture of hundreds of mainly Black “suspects” in the Seventies and Eighties, was released from a halfway house after serving 4 ½ years for lying under oath. Some of Burge’s victims were later proven innocent, including Shadeed Mu’min, who was convicted of murder based on a false confession. After being nearly choked to death three times, Mu’min said to Burge, “I’ll tell you anything you wanna know, just don’t do this no more.” The audio was provided by Democracy Now!
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. Click here to download the show.
BAR Book Forum editor Roberto Sirvent and Julian Akil Rose discuss community organizing, Black Queer Feminism, the struggle for police and prison abolition, and an end to militarism.
"From May 26 to May 31, I was in Cali, Colombia serving as an election observer with an international delegation of mostly Black women. This is a preliminary report."
The Historic Pact candidates Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez won the first round of the Colombian presidential election but now face conservative candidates in a June 19 runoff.
Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) began after an LAPD raid on the Black Panthers in 1969 and spread throughout the country. Then as now they neither protect nor serve, as was the case in Uvalde…
NATO is not the defensive alliance of north Atlantic nations that it claims to be. It is a tool of imperialism which has spread its handiwork all over the world, including on the African…
