Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of 2/17/14

White Shooter Beats Murder Charge in Death of Black Florida Youth

A Jacksonville, Florida, jury deadlocked on murder charges against 47 year-old Michael Dunn, in the killing of 17 year-old Jordan Davis. The jury of ten whites and 2 Black women found Dunn guilty of the lesser charge of conspiracy to murder Davis and his three companions. “It was ill will, it was hatred, it was spite, it was an evil intent, it was indifference to human life,” said Aleta Alston-Toure, of the New Jim Crow Movement, who closely followed the trial.

Remember Trayvon

February 26 marks two years since George Zimmerman snuffed out the life of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, Florida. Carl Dix, of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, says activists in cities across the country will hold a “Day of Outrage and Remembrance.” “It’s been two years, but what was at issue in the murder of Trayvon Martin is still very much with us: Do Black youth have to go through their lives with a target on their backs?”

American Criminal Injustice System

A recent survey by the Emerson College Polling Society, of Boston, found that 69 percent of African Americans believe the U.S. criminal justice system is biased against minorities. Only 28 percent of whites feel that way, said Felix Chen, the poll’s chief analyst. “Clearly, people from different racial groups view justice and equality very differently” in the United States, said Chen.

Supporters Rally to Dr. Antony Monteiro

“This is nothing less than a retaliatory and revenge firing,” said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, whose contract as a professor of African American Studies was not renewed under the orders of Temple University dean of liberal arts Teresa Soufas. “It is her getting back at me for standing up to her bullying and pointing fingers at Black men; her authoritarian attempt to take over the African American Studies department; and my taking the struggle for the life and integrity of our department to the Black community, to whom we are ultimately accountable,” said Monteiro, at a press conference at the Philadelphia headquarters of the Hospital Workers Union.

Dr. Monteiro’s supporters took their turns at the mic. “Because you took advantage of his history, his skills and his vision for the African American Studies department, doesn’t mean that he’s going to be your ‘yes man,’” said State Rep. W. Curtis Thomas, who represents North Philadelphia.

In a telephone interview, Dr. Cornel West, of Union Theological Seminary, described Dr. Monteiro as “one of our grand intellectual freedom fighters, who works in the tradition of W.E.B. Dubois and C.L.R. James. I’m in his corner 120 percent,” said Dr. West. “I’m so glad to see both his students, as well as the community, rise up and support Dr. Monteiro.”

Mumia: The South Won the Civil War

The nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, sent an audio lecture to Dr. Johanna Fernandez’s history class at Baruch College, in New York City. The subject was post-Civil War Reconstruction. “Because the U.S. government ceded the issue of state’s rights, or local power and control, for all intents and purposes the South won the war to treat Black people as slaves in everything but name,” said Mumia, in a Prison Radio-produced recording. “It would take a century to rebuild movements of the 1960s for voting rights, for so-called freedom. The South had won the war, politically, which they lost on the fields of Gettysburg.”

Cuba Shed Its Blood, Took Nothing from Africa

More than two thousand Cuban soldiers died defending Angola against the army of apartheid South Africa, said Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations at a tribute to Nelson Mandela at New York City’s historic Riverside Church. Ambassador Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez, who was himself wounded in the fighting, said: “We never took any natural resources. We never took any salary, because in no way were we to be perceived to be mercenaries or on any kind of military adventure.” The Cuban volunteers made their sacrifices in solidarity with Africa, “taking into account the important role that Cubans of African descent took in the establishment of the Cuban nation and the fight for our independence.”

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.

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