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

Dr. King’s Televised Challenge to Obama: Tavis Smiley's Anti-War MLK
Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
31 Mar 2010
🖨️ Print Article
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Since the onset of the Obama phenomenon, Dr. Martin Luther King’s birth and death days have been “polluted” by false and ahistorical comparisons between Obama and MLK. The two men represent opposite political poles: one, a radical opponent of imperial war and concentrated economic power, the other, an ally of Wall Street and commander-in-chief of “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” In focusing on King, the man of peace, Tavis Smiley’s PBS special corrects a history that has been distorted, sometimes beyond recognition – not the least by the revisionist and poseur in the White House.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: Renisa Mawani’s “Across Oceans of Law”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Renisa Mawani’s “Across Oceans of Law”
    15 May 2019
    The mass deaths along the Mediterranean are part of a much longer colonial history of maritime security aimed at protecting the freedom of (European) mobility.  
  • BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Achille Mbembe's "Critique of Black Reason" (Part 3)
    Calvin Warren
    BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Achille Mbembe's "Critique of Black Reason" (Part 3)
    15 May 2019
    Mbembe invites us to rethink the foundation of thought upon which the world is predicated. 
  • In Baltimore, Police Officers Are the Bad Guys With Guns
    Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg
    In Baltimore, Police Officers Are the Bad Guys With Guns
    15 May 2019
    Plainclothes police officers are waging war on citizens. “They often planted guns and resold narcotics.”
  • Adrift in a Decolonizing World, the White Settler Makes a Final, Furious Stand
    Jon Jeter
    Adrift in a Decolonizing World, the White Settler Makes a Final, Furious Stand
    15 May 2019
    From Ramallah to Rio, Capetown to Caracas, Green Bay to Gaza, the sun is setting on the colonial racial order.
  • Where Have All the Anti-War Warriors Gone?
    Dr. Kweli Nzito
    Where Have All the Anti-War Warriors Gone?
    15 May 2019
    Has the US public become desensitized to the horrendous suffering inflicted by their government, or are they blissful co-imperialists?
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us