by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

 Having failed to head off the beginnings of a Black mass movement, the Black Misleadership Class and the White House cite violence in Ferguson to discredit youthful activists. However, “any movement that defies police power and rejects the legitimacy of the state – including its prosecutors and grand juries – will inevitably commit acts that are deemed illegal and which are accompanied by some level of violence.”

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Unrepentant old rapists aren’t funny. Nor are they good media investments. Karma has caught up with Bill Cosby, who slandered the Black poor as amoral criminals, but “will never have another television show or book on the best seller list and that is as it should be.”

by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

Washington, DC, which recently lost its Black majority, last week lost the only mayor it ever had who was committed to Black empowerment. Marion Barry “was on the front line fighting to maintain black control of Washington, D.C. from the politically powerful investors bent on ethnic cleaning cum gentrification.”

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

In secrecy and deceit, President Obama reversed his promised phase-out of the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan. Which simply proves that Obama “is no different than any other U.S. imperial leader – except that he is a more accomplished liar than most.
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A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

President Obama’s so-called “bold executive action” on immigration is not a victory for the grassroots movements in immigrant communities. It’s an old bone with rotten meat, more evidence of their bottomless contempt for Democrats’ so-called “base voters”, especially those of color.

by BAR editor and columnist Ajamu Baraka

The U.S. State, corporate media and slavish elements of the Black community are determined to paint the most spirited resistance to white supremacy as illegitimate. Pay them no mind. “The task of the African American resistance movement is not to worry about sitting down with white people infected with the disease of white supremacy, but to build the capacity of black poor and working class folks to resist.”

by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

What do the protesters in Ferguson and their allies around the country want? The Hands Up Coalition has issued a comprehensive list, demanding demilitarization of police, systematic review of all police departments, targeted federal spending for police reform, an end to racial profiling and the criminalization of Blacks, and a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice.

by Raymond Nat Turner

Media white-out—
…Wilson’s shots loudest heard?

by Danny Haiphong

Boston, like most U.S. cities, is attempting to banish its homeless population. “Working class and poor people, especially Boston’s Black residents, are being forced outside” the city. Dedicated activists have mobilized to “address the criminalizatiorica:n of the nation’s most oppressed section of the working class, US imperialism’s own wretched of the earth.”

by Ajamu Nangwaya

The Jane and Finch community is the epicenter of Black Toronto and, not coincidentally, the most intensive arena of police abuse. In Canada, “carding” is the equivalent of U.S. stop-and-frisk. “If the people are able to win victory on the issue of carding, it might build their resolve and confidence to take on other structural or oppressive economic and social issues.”

by George Mwai

Transitional Justice seeks to enable societies to come to terms with legacies of large-scale past abuse, in order to secure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation towards a future that is democratic and free from violence, but its groundings and mechanisms are fraught with multiple dilemmas.

Cornel West and Bob Avakian Dialogue at Riverside Church

The nation’s foremost Black public intellectual shared the stage with the head of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) at New York’s historic Riverside Church. RCP leader Bob Avakian, an atheist “to the bone,” said: “The movement I envision is one in which people like Cornel and myself can walk together on the road of revolution and emancipation, uniting in struggle to bring about a world in which there will no longer be a wretched of the earth.” His “Christian revolutionary” interlocutor, Dr. Cornel West, of Union Theological Seminary, told the crowd: “This is a unique historical moment. Why? Because, historically, Black rage has always been the central threat to the status quo – not because Black people have a monopoly on truth, goodness or beauty, but because when Black folks wake up, all people who are subordinated and dominated can get in and wake up.”

Roadblocks to Community Control of Police

Activists have been trying to set up civilian boards to oversee police for almost 50 years, with only limited success, according to Larry Hamm, chairman of northern New Jersey’s People’s Organization for Progress (POP). “States must confer power on such boards, such as subpoena powers,” said Hamm. Would effective controls on police get through the state legislature in New Jersey and elsewhere? “I would dare say it would not. It’s gonna be a bumpy road.”

Who Keeps Track of Killer Cops?

The Black community lacks even the capacity to keep track of abuses committed against it by police departments across the nation, said author and activist Kevin Alexander Gray, of Columbia, South Carolina. “In the past, the NAACP in local areas was the place to report police abuse,” said Gray, an editor of the new book Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence. “Some organization needs to take on that role again. The way things are now, if a person has a complaint against the police department they’ve got to take it to – the police.”

Haitians Protest Life Under Occupation

Thousands demonstrated in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, last week, fueled by a variety of grievances, said Ezili Danto, of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. “They were asking for an end to the U.S. occupation, behind UN guns and private military subcontractors; they were asking that the militarized, Ferguson-like police stop killing the people; and they were asking for mock elections not to continue in Haiti, but for real elections to be held.”

Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. Click this link to download the show.