Black Agenda Report for Week of August 8, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Report for Week of August 8, 2016

08 Aug 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Voters Have Choices Outside the Duopoly

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both “evil” people, but U.S. voters do have choices this election season, said South Carolina activist and author Kevin Alexander Gray. “It’s good that people are running on various third parties, to give Americans a little bit of education,” as opposed to watching them make one or the other bad choice,” said Gray, author of Waiting on Lighting to Strike. “One of the good things about Barack Obama leaving office, particularly for Black people, is that perhaps they’ll pick up their signs, pick up their feet, and follow behind the youth that are out here in the streets challenging the system.”

Low Wage Workers to Converge on Richmond

The U.S. labor movement made an historic error in the post-World War Two era in failing to commit sufficient resources to organizing in the heavily Black South. But activists in the current movement to unionize low-paid workers and raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour vow not to repeat that mistake. “We will highlight that low wages and racial inequality is not only hurting Black and brown people, it’s hurting the working poor white people, as well,” said Terrance Wise, a leader of Fight for 15, which will hold a national conference of low-wage workers in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, August 12 and 13. “Until we can build our movement and bring all workers together to demand economic justice and racial equality, we won’t gain any ground,” said Wise, a Burger King employee from Kansas City.

Russell “Maroon” Shoatz Wins Solitary Confinement Settlement

Pennsylvania prison officials have agreed to pay a monetary settlement to political prisoner Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, and to never again place the former Black Panther in solitary confinement, where he spent 22 of the past 44 years. His daughter, Theresa Shoatz, is “elated because it opens the door to other prisoners who are still in solitary confinement in Pennsylvania.” The legal action was spearheaded by the Pittsburg-based Abolitionist Law Center, with virtually no assistance from Black elected officials. “Our state representatives are useless,” said Ms. Shoatz.

Afro-Colombian Rights Recognized in Peace Talks

FARC guerillas and the government of Colombia have agreed in principle to “make sure the rights and interests of Afro-descended and indigenous peoples will be respected” in the resolution of the South American country’s two generations-long civil war, said Charo Mina-Rojas, of the National Afro-Colombian Peace Council. Representatives of the Colombian government and demobilizing guerillas agreed to include such assurances in the peace document being hammered out at negotiations in Havana, Cuba. However, Mina-Rojas said some elements of FARC have not agreed to lay down their arms and “do not fully recognize” Afro-Colombians’ collective land rights.

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

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/BlackAgendaRadio_20160808.mp3

More Stories

Dr. Kweli Nzito
Is Systemic Racism a True Indicator of Cowardice?
24 Mar 2021
The craven fear of truth in imperial zones, bordering on psychopathic dread, has sustained systemic racism and hegemonic power domestically and globally.
Sara Abbas
Sudan: the Second Wave of Revolt
24 Mar 2021
The not-yet-triumphant Sudan popular uprising was both sophisticated and thorough; it tried to learn from past mistakes and internalize lessons from revolutions of the first wave and elsewhere.
Franklin Frederick
Cuba’s Contributions in the Fight Against the COVID-19 Pandemic
24 Mar 2021
The Cuban Revolution has shown that when limited resources are distributed equitably and with an emphasis on people and prevention, public health outcomes previously unimaginable can be achieved.
Dr. David Pleasant
That New Old Spook Show
24 Mar 2021
Savannah is is trying to create a renaissance of profit with live bodies portraying Gullah Geechee, enslaved Africans or immigrant indentures plodding through a mod-gothic spook show.
Reviewed by Michael Steven Smith
Bruce Levine’s “Thaddeus Stevens: Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice“
24 Mar 2021
Rep Thaddeus Stevens was an unyielding proponent of the nationalization of the large southern plantations and the redistribution of that land to Black people.