If the Left Doesn’t Critique Endless War, Who Will?
“We must raise the issues of war and imperialism in electoral politics in this country,” even if the Democrats don’t, said BAR senior columnist Margaret Kimberley, speaking at the annual conference of UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. “In the debates, foreign policy is discussed very little, and when it is they all sound the same, even those who are supposed to be progressive,” said Kimberley.
“Respectable” Black Women Fought Mass Incarceration
Back in the days when 90 percent of southern prison inmates were Black, socially conservative Black clubwomen fought for prison reform, believing that “putting Black women in jail was hurting the Black community,” said Nikki Brown, professor of history at the University of New Orleans. The National Association of Colored Women, who practiced what we today call “respectability” politics, played a key role in creating alternatives to incarceration, said Brown, who authored an article titled, “Keeping Black Motherhood Out of Prison: Prison Reform and Woman-Saving in the Progressive Era.”
Last Surviving Member of the Move 9 is Released
Delbert Africa, imprisoned along with eight other members of the Move organization in 1978 in the death of a Philadelphia policeman, is finally free to “tell his story,” said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, who was convicted in the death of another Philadelphia cop in 1981. Abu Jamal recounted how a Black city councilman described Delbert Africa as “one of the greatest Black men that ever lived.” Two Move members died mysteriously in prison.
Black Scholar Praises Heroes and Indicts “Scoundrels” of McCarthy Era
The peace activists that were persecuted in the McCarthy era were not fighting just for the absence of war, but were “anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-capitalist and demanded an end to United States policing of the world,” said Charisse Burden-Stelly, professor of Africana Studies and political science at Carleton College. The exemplars of this struggle were W.E.B. Dubois, Paul Robeson and Claudia Jones, “Peace was construed as a Soviet ploy to undermine the American way of life,” said Burden-Stelly. Sound familiar?
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.
This week the Democratic Party and the failures of US healthcare were on your mind.
The global citizenry shows increasing apathy towards each other’s social and political conditions.
Chicago’s Ujimaa Medics bring a racial justice and cultural specificity lens to community health care through mutual aid.
Trump’s administration is more interested in saving Wall Street and boosting their profits than they are in saving lives and meeting the needs of the people.
Overcrowded jail, prison and immigration detention facilities force people together in close quarters without access to proper hygiene or medical care.
