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

Political Scientist Rejects Organizing Based on “Purely Ethnic Affinity”
Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
16 Aug 2017
🖨️ Print Article

Cedric Johnson, a political scientist and associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago, has no confidence in the long term effectiveness of organizing based on “a purely ethnic affinity.” Dr. Johnson told the Dead Pundits Society podcast: “There are many different interests that are operating within the Black population at any given moment. Whenever we have these sorts of national agenda-setting exercises, what you get is a portrait of some of the different things that Black people want, but it’s not really a functioning agenda.”

black power

Related Podcasts

 Stokely Carmichael’s Black Power Meets African Liberation
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Stokely Carmichael’s Black Power Meets African Liberation
22 December 2020
In the political hotbed that was Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1967, US Black Power advocate Stokely Carmichael, who had not yet changed his name to
Super-Hero Comics and Black Empowerment
Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
Super-Hero Comics and Black Empowerment
28 May 2018
Prof Turtel Onlihas been producing and marketing Black super-hero comic books for more than four decades, through his Chicago

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    A Weak Left Stands By as Russia Stands Up for Cuban Sovereignty
    01 Apr 2026
    Russia finally makes good on promises to help Cuba, but its level of commitment is unclear. The left are clearly immobilized, even as Iran demonstrates how to fight back.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Against Nuclear Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah, 1960
    01 Apr 2026
    “We are not freeing ourselves from centuries of imperialism and colonialism only to be maimed and destroyed by nuclear weapons.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Rwanda’s 30-Year Assault on Congo: The Crimes, the Criminals, and the Cover-up
    01 Apr 2026
    Rwanda’s 30-year Assault on the Democratic Republic of Congo, a new 80-page title from Baraka Books, gets straight to the essentials.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    STOP Cruel Reich Cult (CRC) from reinventing the wheel
    01 Apr 2026
    "STOP Cruel Reich Cult (CRC) from reinventing the wheel" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Zophia Edwards’ Book, “Fueling Development”
    01 Apr 2026
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Zophia Edwards. Edwards is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us