Out of Prison, Rev. Pinkney Resumes Protests
“They knew that if they got an all-white jury, I had a 99.9 percent chance of being convicted, even without any evidence,” said Rev. Edward Pinkney, the Benton Harbor, Michigan, community leader who served 30 months of a possible ten-year sentence for allegedly tampering with election documents. Pinkney now faces a year on parole, but he plans to hold a protest at the Berrien County courthouse on July 11 “to let them know I’m back,” and will picket the Whirlpool Corporation, which has long dominated the politics of his mostly Black home town.
East St. Louis Massacre Remembered
Activists from Greater St. Louis and around the country marked the centennial of the bloody massacre that left hundreds of Blacks dead in East St. Louis, Missouri. The 1917 white mob assault was part of a century-long pattern of racist violence, said Dr. Randy Short, a key organizer of the commemoration. “These things go all the way back to the Jacksonian pogroms” of the 1820s. “The elite classes of whites offered impunity to whites who took action to destroy Black people,” said Short. “It was almost an expiation for their failure to provide jobs for their fellow whites.”
Green Party Challenger Says de Blasio is No Progressive
“This man has nothing to do with the day-to-day lives of Black and brown men and women in New York City,” said Akeem Browder, the Green Party candidate for mayor. “He doesn’t make what we make per year. He doesn’t live in our communities.” Browder’s brother, Kalief, spent almost three years in the Rikers Island jail awaiting trial on a charge that was finally dismissed, and later committed suicide. Akeem Browder says he’ll fight for defendants’ right to a speedy trial. He says the New York criminal justice system operates on “the ‘ready rule’: when we’re ready, we’ll get to you.”
Mumia Charges Prosecutorial-Judicial Bias
Supporters of the nation’s best known political prisoner are “asking people to call, email or tweet” the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office “and ask them to release all of the files in Mumia’s case,” according to Dr. Johanna Fernandez, of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home. A former prosecutor, who later became a judge, may have exercised undo influence in Mumia’s case as a judge.
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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