| Black Agenda Report

Mississippi Autoworkers Mobilize
18 Jul 2017
by Michelle Chen Union sentiment is rising at the Nissan auto plant in Canton, Mississippi, where the mostly Black workforce has experienced “increasingly unstable working conditions and general deterioration in benefits and safety protections.” Much of the work is temporary, and “Nissan promotes a…
Resurrecting the Radical Pedagogy of the Black Panther Party
18 Jul 2017
by Christopher F. Petrella The Black Panther Party for Self Defense was deeply engaged in “education for liberation.” The party’s Intercommunal Youth Institute served children in East Oakland until 1982. Huey New and Bobby Seale “explicitly insisted upon ‘education for our people that exposes the…
50 Years Later, Newark and Detroit Still Feel Tremors from 1967 Rebellions
18 Jul 2017
by Todd Burroughs The shock of the two largest Black rebellions of 1967 caused President Lyndon Johnson to assign the Kerner Commission to study race relations in the U.S. However, the commission’s report “was buried by Johnson because it was honest about the effects of white racism and poverty on…
by BAR contributor Ann Garrison Ann Garrison
Organizing Pennsylvania’s 197: Cheri Honkala on Frontline Communities
19 Jul 2017
by BAR contributor Ann Garrison Cheri Honkala has always believed in taking direct action on behalf of the poor and dispossessed. A lifelong activist, currently with the Green Party, Honkala has tried to play by the duopoly’s rules. But the rule-makers are the biggest rule-breakers. “I learned…
Paul Street
The Abandonment: Reflections on James Foreman’s "Locking Up Our Own"
19 Jul 2017
by Paul Street James Forman’s new book is indispensable “for those who want to get the whole story on the rise of the “the New Jim Crow.” The Black middle and upper classes, which have been largely exempt from the mass Black incarceration regime, “actively participated in the rise of the racist…
by BAR contributor Danny Haiphong
Jay-Z and the Rest of his Class Belong in the Dustbin of History
19 Jul 2017
by BAR contributor Danny Haiphong Jay-Z’s album 4:44 confirms his deep loyalty to the capitalist system and profound disdain for the people that buy his records. He is a parasitic preacher of I-gotta-get-mine politics, like other celebrities whose existence does “nothing to alleviate the…
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Freedom Rider: Kamala Harris and America’s Oligarchs
19 Jul 2017
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley California’s new senator is actively being vetted as the “next Obama, “ or “Obama 2.0” -- a youngish, biracial corporate Democrat and a woman. Democratic honchos are betting that “white people will consider her exotic enough to be acceptable and…
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Black Women in the Killing Fields
20 Jul 2017
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford A white woman from Australia was gunned down by militarized police in Minneapolis – part of the collateral damage that flows from the U.S. mass Black incarceration regime. The intended targets are Black women like Charleena Lyles, killed by Seattle cops, last month…
The Venezuelan Constituent Assembly: Pillars of a Communal Culture
19 Jul 2017
by The Philosophical Gathering of The Poor The U.S.-backed opposition has played its cards, unleashing terror and economic sabotage against the Bolivarian revolution. Now it is the people’s turn, with the convening of a National Constituent Assembly with “the option of eliminating the old laws…
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
White Liberal Guilt, Black Opportunism and the Green Party
20 Jul 2017
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon Building a new kind of left party isn't easy, or it would have been done a long time ago. The Green party's annual meeting in Newark last week revealed some of the deep problems caused by liberals whose goal is "diversity." Diversity creates token blacks…