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

Black Agenda Radio for Week of November 30, 2015
01 Dec 2015
🖨️ Print Article

Two Rights Groups Refuse to Sign Off on Sentencing “Reform” Bill

Legislation is moving through the U.S. House and Senate that would retroactively shorten sentences for crack cocaine possession and, its backers claim, substantially roll back mandatory minimum sentences for other crimes. However, the National Urban League and Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) are refusing to give their blessing to the Sentencing Act, which actually expands the list of crimes subject to mandatory prison terms. The bill “will have a disproportionate effect on minority communities,” according to FAMM president Julie Stewart. “They have created a new class of crime that can now trigger” a sentence of 25 years, she said. Gun possession and crimes of domestic violence would also carry mandatory penalties.

New Film in the Works on Black Panther Party

Former Black Panther Party chief of staff David Hilliard and Emmy Award-winning director Dante James hope to have a documentary on the party completed in time for the 50th anniversary of the BPP’s founding, next September. “Our film is not going to be a response or reaction” to The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, directed by Stanley Nelson, Jr. and distributed by PBS. “For many, many years,” said James, “the corporate media has defined the Black Panther Party from the outside-in.” This time, the party will by defined, not by “fringe or part-time party members, but by people who were there from the very beginning, who knew and worked with Huey P. Newton.”

First Cop Goes on Trial in Freddie Gray Killing

The manslaughter trial of Baltimore police officer William Porter began on Monday, the first of six cops charged in the death of Freddie Gray, last April. Porter drove the police van in which Gray was fatally injured. Jill Carter, a Maryland state legislator and lawyer, told The Real News Network that some of the cops should have been charged with murder. “We all saw in the video that an assault happened prior to Freddie Gray ever being placed in the van,” said Carter. “If there was an illegal arrest that was contemporaneous with an assault, I would argue that would be first degree assault and attempted murder, with cumulative charges for everything that happened after that.” Baltimore erupted in street rebellion in the wake of Gray’s death.

subscribe to our free weekly email notifying you of new content published at Black Agenda Report

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.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/BlackAgendaRadio_20151130.mp3

More Stories


  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    US Seeks to Turn Eritrea Into “a Bulwark Against Iranian Influence”
    29 Apr 2026
    As the militarization of the Red Sea escalates, the US tries to enlist Eritrea in exchange for sanctions relief.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Documents of Disaster and Conferences of Calamity: Rhetorical Questions, Questions of Rhetoric and the Transition  from Fossil Fuels
    29 Apr 2026
    The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels produced a People's Declaration. There have been many such statements over the years, yet the climate crisis continues unabated.
  • Mark P. Fancher
    Political Snobbery Delays Black Liberation
    29 Apr 2026
    The conditions are ripe for growing Black political consciousness, but revolutionary movements must broaden their reach to all sectors and classes of the people.
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    Move the Games: No World Cup for Genocide, Ecocide, or State Thuggery
    29 Apr 2026
    A celebration of the most popular sport in the world can't be held in a country that commits genocide, ecocide, and daily state violence. The World Cup must not be held in the U.S.
  • Joshua Reaves Charmelus
    Exporting Apartheid: Israel’s Role in Haiti’s Water Crisis
    29 Apr 2026
    Behind the Dominican Republic’s assault on Haitian water sovereignty stands an Israeli Occupation apparatus – arming border forces, training police, and designing a thirty-year plan to control their…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us