ATTENTION: Due to a miscalculation, this week’s program is only 45:48 in length. We apologize for any difficulty this may cause.
Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 9, 2018
Every Murdered Black Person Deserves Protest
“We should hear about these killings every day, because they happen every day,” said Margaret Kimberley, editor and senior columnist (“Freedom Rider”) for Black Agenda Report. Kimberley is encouraged by the response to Stephon Clark’s death-by-cops in Sacramento, California, but the scale of protest is dwarfed by the crimes. “Every day, an average of three people are killed by police, and one of these people will be a Black person,” said Kimberley. “These protests should be constant.
Black Missouri Senate Candidate Endorses 19-Point Self-Determination Agenda
“I’m running against 20 rich white folks,” veteran activist Coffee Wright told the crowd at the Black Is Back Coalition’s national Electoral School, in St. Louis, Missouri. “I’m definitely supporting” the 19 points of the National Black Political Agenda for Self-Determination, formulated by the Coalition. “It’s on my flyers, it’s on my posters, it’s on my web site, and I ain’t scared to say it,” said Ms. Wright, who is running as a Democrat.
Cops CAN be Convicted of Murder, If Prosecutors Follow the Law
Stephanie Morales, Portsmouth, Virginia’s 34 year-old top prosecutor, succeeded in sending a cop to prison for two and a half years for shooting an unarmed suspected Black shoplifter. She does not accept the conventional wisdom: that it’s near-impossible to prosecute killer cops. Prosecutors should stop excusing their own inaction pr blaming defects in the law. “We cannot say, we want to do this, but the law doesn’t allow it; otherwise, I would not have been able to” get a voluntary manslaughter conviction against the officer.
Let Herman Bell’s Parole Stand!
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo have been pressuring the state parole board to reverse its pending release of Herman Bell, the former Black Panther imprisoned since 1973 in the death of a cop. The two Democrats’ campaign against Bell “should end their political careers; they ought to be marked ‘done’ in the Black community,” said Ralph Poynter, of the New Abolitionist Movement, husband of the late people’s lawyer and political prisoner, Lynne Stewart.
Mumia Bids Goodbye to Winnie
In a commentary on Prison Radio, Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, bid farewell to Winnie Mandela, South African heroine and widow of the man who was once the world’s most famous political prisoner. Winnie Mandela, who died at age 81, was a “lifelong revolutionary” who “labored under the white state’s total surveillance while she raised their children,” said Abu Jamal. When the “marriage ended, she remained a powerful presence in South Africa, loved by the nation’s poor and dispossessed.”
Black Caucus Punks on Israel Every Time
Israeli Army sniper fire killed 17 Palestinians and wounded as many as a 1,000, but such massacres do not seem to bother the Congressional Black Caucus, said BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon. “You will search in vain for statements condemning this or previous Israeli massacres in Gaza from the Congressional Black Caucus,” said Dixon. “As in Ferguson and Sacramento, the settler state’s enforcers enjoy immunity and impunity.”
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:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
Shani Robinson taught in the Atlanta, Georgia public school system.
Dr. Nicole Price is the Forbes Books author of Spark The Heart: Engineering Empathy In Your Organization.
Nick Encalada-Malinowski is Director of the Civil Rights Union campaign at Vocal-NY.
The climate emergency won't end because of heartfelt pleas to the people and the interests who created the crisis. Ecocide will stop when capitalism ends.
To mark the last days of Black August, we reprint below Freedomways’ 1975 editorial about Joanne Little, a Black woman indicted for killing her white prison guard and would-be rapist.
