| Black Agenda Report

David Bacon
Detroit Residents Respond to Bankruptcy: “We Have No Democracy!”
20 Aug 2013
by David Bacon Detroit’s saga is a tale of U.S. industrial decline and the rapidly fading vision of urban Black political power. “More than half of Michigan's 1.4 million Black residents now live under rule by emergency managers, which effectively nullifies their right to vote,” while good jobs “…
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
Leaders I lost— SORRY I LOST…
20 Aug 2013
by Raymond Nat Turner My leaders were chased To China, Tanzania, Cuba and France by lynch mobs and Death squads posing as public servants— I LOST
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Freedom Rider: Sex Tapes and Butlers
21 Aug 2013
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley Racist propaganda comes in many forms, and from many sources. Russell Simmons and Lee Daniels are well-paid Black purveyors of the anti-Black propaganda arts. Daniel’s turns history and truth on its head in The Butler, while Russell Simmons…
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Black Mis-Leaders' Love-Fest with Power on the Mall
21 Aug 2013
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford The commemoration of the March on Washington has been ruined. President Obama, the global assassin, protector of Wall Street, and reigning Great Mass Incarcerator, will star in the production on the National Mall. “Dr. Martin Luther King serves as a mere prop in…
by BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka
President Obama Should Not Be Welcomed at March on Washington Commemoration
20 Aug 2013
by Ajamu Baraka The Black “leaders” that invited the commander-in-chief of the racist global capitalist order to the Washington Mall, later this month, are committing a desecration. “It brings a clear message, even though it is not acknowledged on a conscious level, that the highest aspiration and…
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Who Will Lead A Movement Against the Prison State, If Not the Formerly Incarcerated?
21 Aug 2013
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon The black political class, whose leaders will be on the podium at this week's 50th anniversary observation of the March on Washington are not going to lead any movement to roll back mass incarceration or the prison state. It's just not in them, not even to use…
Jemima Pierre
Living Under the Cloud of Stop-and-Frisk in Washington DC
27 Aug 2013
by Seema Sadanandan Black children in poorer sections of the Nation’s Capitol grow up under constant hyper-surveillance of police. The armed occupation of their communities is anything but benign. “A community’s desire to be free from crime is not an invitation to treat all men in that community…
Bill Quigley
Katrina Pain Index 2013: New Orleans Eight Years Later
27 Aug 2013
by Bill Quigley The “new” New Orleans that developers hoped to construct when 100,000 poor Black people were purged from the city is still a place of daunting poverty. “African American households in the metro New Orleans area earned 50 percent less than white households.” By almost every…
Paul Street
King, Obama, and the Inner Core of Despotism
27 Aug 2013
by Paul Street Dr. Martin Luther King was a social revolutionary who preached that “a storm is rising against the theprivileged minority of the earth” that will result in a “just distribution of the fruits” of the planet. Barack Obama “has made it clear that Dr. King’s unpaid promissory note will…
Wangui Kimari
March Against the Genocide of Black People in Brazil
27 Aug 2013
by Wangui Kimari Recent police excessive force against mass demonstrations in Brazil should not overshadow institutional state violence directed against the nation’s poor Blacks. “Many Black communities in Brazil are living in a state of siege” – levels of mass-produced death that can justifiably…