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 Aug 3, 2015
04 Aug 2015
🖨️ Print Article

Predator Cops Fill Graveyards

U.S. police killed 412 people in 1976, 333 in 1984, and 385 in 1990, wrote Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, in an essay now republished for his new book, Writings on the Wall. The cops “obviously haven’t protected or served the thousands they’ve murdered over the years. They serve and protect the system, not the people,” he wrote. “They are predators.”

Stop Police Terror

Murder by police can only be stopped by “our independent action,” said Carl Dix, co-founder of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. “We are not looking for Obama, Loretta Lynch or any governors or mayors to do this, because they preside over the horrors that we have to stop.” Dix spoke outside the recent national conference of the Movement for Black Lives, in Cleveland. He’s gearing up for “Rise Up October” campaign of actions to “stop police terror,” under the slogan: “Which side are you on?”

Baltimore Black Political Class Protected White Mayor O’Malley

Jill Carter, a young Black lawyer from Baltimore and the most progressive member of the Maryland state legislature, said it’s no wonder that former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley has trouble dealing with Black activists’ on the presidential campaign trail. During his term as mayor of Baltimore, between 1999 and 2007, O’Malley oversaw the arrest of 750,000 people, more than the total population of the city, many of them on charges that “were illegal or unwarranted,” said Carter. Nevertheless, the entire Black city leadership supported and protected O’Malley, “even when faced with the reality that he was destroying the city and the community’s relationship with the police department.” O’Malley’s protectors included the current and former mayors of Baltimore, the whole of the city council, plus all of the city’s delegation to the state legislature – except for Jill Carter.

Bernie Sanders Runs as Populist, not Socialist

Paul Street, the veteran political scholar and activist, said Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is running as a populist, not a socialist. “He doesn’t say ‘socialism’” in his campaign speeches,” said Street, who was among the first to point out Barack Obama’s conservative political tendencies. Senator Sanders “identifies himself with the social democratic states of Scandinavia, particularly Denmark, Sweden and Norway, but does not refer to himself as a socialist,” said Street. “And, unlike the serious Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, back in the day, I haven’t heard him mouth the term ‘capitalism’ once.”

New Black Movement Combines Mix of Older Tactics

The emerging Black political movement “combines the tactics of the Civil Rights Movement – mass marches, civil disobedience, shutting things down – with programs and ideas that did not always crystallize in the Black Power Movement, but were thought about” during that period, said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, former professor of African American Studies at Temple University, in Philadelphia. Protesters gathered on Temple’s campus to demand Dr. Monteiro’s reinstatement to what chairman Molefi Asante has renamed the “Department of Africology.”

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://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/Black_Agenda_Radio_20150803.mp3

More Stories


  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Theme From the Bottom: Post COP 30 Reflections and the Case for a Global Bottom/Up Collective Intervention of Oppressed and Colonized People
    26 Nov 2025
    The path to climate liberation requires a radical break from failed leadership and a serious commitment to class analysis.
  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    The Lima Group and “Peaceful Transition”: the Neocolonial Role in US/Canadian Sanctions and Militarism Against Venezuelan Sovereignty
    26 Nov 2025
    While the U.S. justifies its new war on Venezuela as a counter-narcotics operation, the real target remains the Bolivarian Revolution and the alternative model of sovereignty it represents to the…
  • Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    On The Left Side of History: Political Prisoner Imam Jamil Al Amin
    26 Nov 2025
    Imam Jamil Al-Amin was a revolutionary targeted by the state from the 1960s until he was unjustly convicted of murder in 2002. He died on November 23, 2025, an elder political prisoner who had been…
  • Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    The End of American Thanksgivings: A Cause for Universal Rejoicing
    26 Nov 2025
    Glen Ford wrote many powerful essays, but his unflinching analysis of the history of the holiday we call Thanksgiving remains relevant over 20 years after it was published.
  • Hanna Eid
    Pan-Americanism and Internationalism
    26 Nov 2025
    The official rationale for a new U.S. military operation against Venezuela is narcotics, but the true objective remains regime change. This escalating conflict demands a robust anti-imperialist…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us