Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 21, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 21, 2016

22 Mar 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Black Power Matters in 2016

“Fear of fascism being ‘right around the corner’ – this time in the form of Donald Trump – always means a vote for some kind of Democrat, as opposed to building our own independent political power,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. The Coalition will hold a national conference on the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and the Struggle for Black Self-Determination, in Harlem, New York City, on April 9. “What we’re seeing with this election is real evidence of the political weakness” of Black revolutionary forces, who have failed to keep Black self-determination at the forefront, said Yeshitela.

All Power to the Disrupters

Bernie Sanders apparently believes socialism can be achieved without much disruption of the prevailing order. The Democratic presidential candidate recently denounced all “disruptions” of political gatherings, including Donald Trump events. Veteran activist and historian Paul Street, author of They Rule: The 1% vs. Democracy, called “disruption” a “legitimate part of American life.” Said Street: “I guess Bernie needs to go back and re-read Howard Zinn’s best selling, classic People’s History of the United States.” Or anything by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Flint Isn’t EPA’s Only Victim

A Virginia Tech professor of Environment and Water Resources accused the federal Environmental Protection Agency of being “willfully blind to the pain and suffering of Flint residents, unremorseful of their role in causing this man-made disaster, and unable to learn from their mistakes.” Prof. Marc Edwards testified before a congressional hearing on the poisoning of Flint, Michigan’s water. “Malfeasance at the EPA from 2001 to the present has harmed cities all over the United States,” said Edwards.

Death of a Political Poet and Prisoner

Mondo Welanga, born David Rice 68 years ago, died in a Nebraska penitentiary cell after spending the past 46 years serving a life sentence, along with Ed Poindexter, in the death of an Omaha cop. Amnesty International recognized Welanga and Poindexter as Prisoners of Conscience. Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, called them “soldiers for the people, dedicated to their defense and security.”

Walanga was a poet, some of whose works appeared on Prison Radio. His 2015 poem When It Gets To This Point condemns those who “replace facts with spin” as

“the beatings and the chokings and shootings
of our boys and men
by these wrong arms of the law
proceed in orderly fashion
before the sometimes sad
sometimes angry faces of
our uncertain
our hesitant
disbelief.”

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/96y83k/BAR_032116.mp3

More Stories

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Austin Cole
The Black Alliance for Peace Calls for a Boycott of the World Cup
17 Jun 2026
The Black Alliance for Peace and other organizations have called for a boycott of the 2026 World Cup being held in the United States. Before any matches were played, the U.S. banned players, fans,…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Knicks and New York's Disappearing Black Communities
17 Jun 2026
It is true that the New York Knicks' journey to a championship brought disparate communities together, but gentrification remains the norm in the city that is the capital of capital. Black people are…
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Reconstruction, Seventy-Five Years After, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1943
17 Jun 2026
“Without the help of the American Negro, the abolition movement would have been impossible.”
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
“Don’t Worry Be Happy”: The World Cup as an International Psy-Op
17 Jun 2026
FIFA uses the World Cup to present the United States as a legitimate nation, but the U.S. is a rogue state committing crimes against humanity. The call for a boycott is a call to decolonize football…
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
When the Revolution Comes
17 Jun 2026
Chris Smalls and his best friend, Derrick Palmer, led the first successful drive to unionize an Amazon warehouse. He believes that labor must decouple from the Democratic Party, as he explains in his…