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

Black Agenda Radio for Week of July 13, 2015
14 Jul 2015
🖨️ Print Article

Austerity Rendering Detroit Unfit for Habitation

A serious fire raged out control due to chronic low water pressure in Detroit, despite the majority Black city’s location in one of the world’s major fresh water regions. “The whole process of so-called rebuilding of Detroit has not been clearly thought out,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, veteran activist and editor of the Pan African News Wire. “How can you rebuild a city when you don’t have fundamental infrastructure, such as fire services, public safety, education, emergency services, simple things like being able to go to a supermarket?” The economic elite are “doing everything possible to drive out the African American population,” he said, but poor infrastructure discourages white resettlement. “What you have is the anarchy of capitalism.”

Big Business Tries to Roll Back Socialist Alternative in Seattle

Corporate contributions are pouring into Seattle Urban League chief Pamela Banks’ campaign to unseat Kshama Sawant, the Socialist Alternative councilwoman who championed the city’s $15 an hour minimum wage law. “It’s not so much about my opponent’s qualities,” said Sawant, “It’s because corporations, billionaires, the people who have an incentive to uphold the status quo, recognize that if we win re-election this year, then it really confirms to working people in Seattle and everywhere that we can prevail against the full might of big business and the political establishment.”

Mumia: “Flags and Rags”

The heritage of the Confederate battle flag is “one of terror and violence in support of a system of organized theft of Black labor, in the name of white supremacy and Black subjugation,” said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, in a report for Prison Radio. “Dylan ‘Dumb and Dumber’ Roof knew, instinctively, what the flag stood for.”

Justices OK Painful Death Drug

The U.S. Supreme Court ended its term by allowing states to continue lethal injections with a cocktail that can cause horrific pain for condemned persons. “Prisoners remain less than human” in the High Court’s eyes, said Kenneth A. Hartman, a writer and prison activist serving life in California. “How else can a decision that allows for deliberate torture be explained?”

Fear of Blacks Triggered 1776 War of Independence

White settlers turned against the their mother country partly in fear that the British Crown would put guns in the hands of Blacks, according to Dr. Gerald Horne, chairman of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston and author of more than 30 books, including The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America. In 1775, the British colonial governor of Virginia established an “Ethiopian Regiment” to counter rebellious white settlers. “One of the factors that caused formerly patriotic British subjects to revolt against British rule was this ‘Black scare’ that, I argue, led to the formation of the United States of America,” said Dr. Horne, in a lecture at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

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.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://blackagendaradio.podbean.com/mf/web/ai86mg/BAR_071315.mp3

More Stories


  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    March, March, March… (For Million Worker March and Brother Ray Quan)
    30 Apr 2025
    "March, March, March… (For Million Worker March and Brother Ray Quan)" is the latest from BAR's Poet-In-Residence.
  • Kai Cash
    Planting Seeds of Sovereignty: Lessons from the Sahel and Beyond
    30 Apr 2025
    When the West slaps on tariffs, it’s 'economic security'—but when the Sahel rejects exploitative deals, it’s called a threat. From Cuba to Burkina Faso, countries have fought for self-sufficiency:…
  • Sean L. Malloy
    How the creation of the ‘New Antisemitism’ was used to shield Israel and attack the Left
    30 Apr 2025
    Challenges to Zionism in the late 1960s and 1970s sparked an effort to redefine antisemitism focused on defending Israel while attacking the political Left. This resulted in the IHRA definition and…
  • Dave DeCamp
    Sixty-Eight Reported Killed by US Airstrike on African Migrant Facility in Yemen
    30 Apr 2025
    The detention facility appears to be the one that was previously targeted by the US-backed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
  • Red Malunga
    Red Malunga Denounces Institutionalized Violence Against Haitian Migrants in the Dominican Republic
    30 Apr 2025
    As the Dominican Republic escalates its brutal crackdown on Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent, Red Malunga condemns the racist policies fueling systemic violence and human rights…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us