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.
In rural Zambia, an elder named Gogo Breeze investigates his listeners’ grievances and renders public service at a small privately-owned radio station.
Repression of the poor in South Africa has resulted in the criminalization of the very forms of struggle that made the democratic transition possible.
Truth rises from the graves of Black ancestors in a wealthy Maryland county.
Chinese investment may come with strings attached, but Africa deserves an alternative to U.S.-led neoliberalism and militarization.
Dr King was a radical, a democratic socialist who saw economic transformation and social justice as inseparable.
