If no video is visible above, click here. Was the election of the nation's First Black President a victory for our people in the long struggle against racism and empire? Or does it simply mark a change in establishment tactics that will make it even more difficult to press the case for economic justice, and an end to militarism and racism? Professor Anthnoy Monteiro, Distinguished Lecturer in African-American Studies and Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought at Temple University tells us the answer is easy to see, but hard to swallow.
In this brief talk at a Harlem event commemorating the life of Hubert Harrison, one of the pre-eminent black activists of the early 20th century, Monteiro expertly discerns the wreckage of our political landscape, and divines the difference between popular myth and facts on the ground. “
Obama's victory, he suggests, was the transient and temporary victory of marketing, symbolizing neither a new acceptance of black America's strivings on behalf of white America and her establishment, nor of rising black power. Go to the prisons in this country and tell us we have transcended race...” Monteiro demands. And while the black turnout in last November's presidential election was unprecedentedly high, turnout in the mayoral elections of Detroit and Philly, majority black cities for the better part of two generations, was well under 20%. So while black people were sold on Barack Obama, they have yet to be sold on the overall legitimacy of the American political system.
Defying Ecuador’s attempt to bar international monitors, election observers documented how Daniel Noboa’s contested victory, secured amid militarized polling stations and state violence, escalates…
DEI isn’t dead—it was never alive to begin with. A corporate pacification project dressed as progress, it launders Black rage into diversity statements while police budgets grow and material…
The Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) continues the legacy of Black radical resistance, uniting organizers to confront imperialism, capitalism, and white supremacy while…
Despite Ecuador's attempts to block international observers, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and Movimiento Afrodescendiente Nacional Ecuatoriano (MANE) documented the violent realities of Daniel…
Haiti Action Committee is honored to share the keynote address given by Haiti’s former First Lady Mildred Aristide at the April 8th, 2025 Samuel Dash Conference on Human Rights: Truth, Solidarity and…
