Listen to Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network, with Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey – Week of 2/2913
The Looming Police State
“There’s a push to scare Americans into a police state,” said Dr. Johnny Williams, professor of sociology at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut, referring to the overwhelming force brought to bear following the Boston Marathon bombing. State repression is designed to contain “a division within society that is expanding.” The only way to resist the police state, said Williams, “is to take it to the streets, to create chaos for them, because they understand nothing else.”
White Terror
“If we did a little racial profiling, in terms of the FBI’s list of groups and individuals that are engaged in domestic terrorism, they’re all white,” said Beau Grosscup, an author of several works on terror. “But, of course, that doesn’t fit the portrait that we have been encouraged to adopt in terms of who is responsible for U.S. terror.”
Operation Ghetto Storm
“Roughly 90 percent” of the extrajudicial killings of Blacks documented in “Operation Ghetto Storm,” an updated report by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, “are just straight-up coverups” of routine police practices, said Kali Akuno, one of the authors. The report concludes that a Black person is murdered by police, security guards or vigilantes every 28 hours in the United States. Police are “under no real pressure or threat” to change their practices, “except for what we organize as a community,” said Akuno, speaking on Your World News.
Stop the Torture of Solitary Confinement
Anti-mass incarceration forces must start now to build support for prisoners held in long term solitary confinement in California, who went on hunger strike in 2011, said Carl Dix, of Stop Mass Incarceration. “The authorities promised to change conditions” two years ago, “but they lied,” said Dix. This time, “we want to spread the word” before the inmates’ next tentative strike date, July 8.
Obama’s Behavior Predictable
President Obama is a deeply conservative politician who “has been making noise about rolling back” entitlement programs “pretty much from the beginning of his career,” said Paul Street, author of The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Real World of Power. “Obama has damn near explicitly stated that, for all intents and purposes, he’s a Republican.”
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.
BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist, Margaret Kimberley, analyzes the 2026 midterm election with Jamarl Thomas.
The Black Agenda Report celebrated its 20th anniversary on November 7, 2026, at Arnhold Hall at The New School in New York City, hosted by its School of Media Studies.
The recent midterm elections have brought more Black people to high elected office, but for 20 years, Black Agenda Report has warned about the dangers of the Black misleadership class.
We reprint Dr. Jemima Pierre’s remarks at the 20th anniversary celebration for Black Agenda Report, New York City, November 7, 2026.
We reprint Ajamu Baraka’s remarks at the 20th anniversary celebration for Black Agenda Report, New York City, November 7, 2026.
