Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 18, 2016 | Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 18, 2016

19 Apr 2016

🖨️ Print Article

Elections are a “Distraction” – Take it to the Streets

A spokesperson for the group that confronted Bill Clinton on his mass Black incarceration and anti-welfare policies, provoking a 13-minute tirade by the former president, said Bernie Sanders’ campaign is “another distraction, another cop-out from getting in the streets to demand justice.” Megan Malachi, of the Philly Coalition for Racial, Economic and Legal (REAL) Justice, told BAR: “As a coalition, we will not and have not endorsed any candidates, because we believe that electoral politics will not liberate the Black and poor communities. But, we definitely want to take the politicians to task for constantly and consistently betraying the aspirations of poor people.”

“Renounce and Reject” the Black Misleadership Class

Pennsylvania holds its primary election on April 26. Veteran activist and scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a co-founder of the Philadelphia-based Black Radical Organizing Committee (BROC), calls it a contest between “Hillary Clinton versus the people.” Monteiro is “convinced that Black people in Philadelphia will express their opposition, not only to Hillary and her corporate 1% backers and her war plans, but they will renounce and reject the Black Misleadership Class.”

Coalition Will Craft a National Black Agenda

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations “intends to move our general struggle forward by initiating an independent Black agenda for self-determination,” said chairman Omali Yeshitela, speaking at a Coalition conference in New York’s Harlem. The process will “culminate with our traditional November rally, march on the White House and national conference, where we will unveil our own agenda, created independent of the participation and wishes of either of the bourgeois political parties.”

One of the Coalition’s principal demands is Black community control of the police. “There has clearly been an intensification of oppression of African people since the Ferguson rebellion, and since Baltimore,” said Diop Olugbala, of the African People’s Socialist Party, a coalition member organization. “Marching, demonstrating, protesting is extremely important,” but not “if it is separated from strategic goals and demands.”

Nellie Bailey, longtime tenants activist and co-host of Black Agenda Radio, told the conference that “housing activists are engaged in class warfare with finance capital for living space. We have to build a national movement that is a broad tent, that will bring in progressive forces” that can unite around principles of unity.

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/3847bz/BAR_041816.mp3

More Stories

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Hourly, Hate America Rallies Stampede Through heads of Cruel Reich Cultists
29 Oct 2025
"Hourly, Hate America Rallies Stampede Through heads of Cruel Reich Cultists" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
Mosaab Baba
El-Fasher's Fall: A New Chapter in Darfur's Ethnic Cleansing
29 Oct 2025
The world's worst humanitarian crisis just found a new epicenter. The capture of El-Fasher signals the start of a worsening chapter in the history of Sudan.
Clau O'Brien Moscoso
Peru's Executive in Crisis: The Anti-Democratic Legacy of Fujimori's '93 Constitution
29 Oct 2025
Peru's congress has perfected the art of the constitutional coup, disposing of presidents the moment their usefulness expires. The removal of Dina Boluarte continues a decades-long strategy to…
International League of Peoples' Struggle , International Peoples' Front , People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty
The Right to Resist is the Right of the People! International Organizations Launch the International People’s Tribunal for Palestine
29 Oct 2025
When established institutions refuse to respond in the face of genocide, the mandate for justice falls to the people. This tribunal is a global grassroots movement taking the international law into…
Black Alliance For Peace , Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
Black Alliance for Peace Stands Firmly with Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution
29 Oct 2025
We condemn U.S. lawlessness in Our Americas and call for multinational intervention to guarantee a ‘Zone of Peace’.