The New Dark Age

20 April 2021 — Black Agenda Report

Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 19, 2021

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Blacks and the US: a History of Resistance / Maroons Sought Freedom on Ocean Currents / Criminal Neglect of Mumia’s Health

Blacks and the US: a History of Resistance 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
The United States has been in constant conflict with its Black population, which has been the greatest source of its wealth, said Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific author who teaches African American Studies and history at the University of Houston. Enslaved and free African Americans often “collaborated with the real and imagined enemies” of the United States, to undermine the nation’s systems of oppression. “So, this was a troublesome property,” that consistently resists its subordination by a hostile government.

Maroons Sought Freedom on Ocean Currents 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Justin Dunnavant, a post- doctoral scholar who has researched maroon cultures in the Caribbean, Central America and African, said “there is a Black history that occurs on the ocean – its’ not just land-based.” Dunnavant authored a recent article titled, “Have Confidence in the Sea: Maritime Maroons and Fugitive Geographies.” Escaped enslaved people found opportunities on the high seas, as well as in the mountains and swamps.

Criminal Neglect of Mumia’s Health 

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Supporters of Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, held a press conference last Thursday demanding medical treatment for his damaged arteries, yet Pennsylvania prison officials refused to even confirm that heart surgery was scheduled. Abu Jamal will mark his 67th birthday on April 24. Dr. Ricardo Alvarez, Abu Jamal’s longtime physician,  noted that “in some states, close to 20 percent” of the prison population are elderly.

Yellow Peril and Red Scare: Forum on Anti-Asian Racism

Anti-Asian racism is on the rise in the United States and the West and has been discussed most frequently in the aftermath of the murder of six women of Asian descent in Atlanta on March 16th. However, the roots for anti-Asian racism have been entirely left out of the mainstream discourse on the issue. On this episode of The Internationalist Transmission, Danny Haiphong is joined by Invent the Future’s Carlos Martinez and a panel of Chinese and Asian diaspora activists and political analysts to connect the dots between the history of anti-Asian racism and present day U.S