by Raymond Nat Turner / July 29th, 2021
n the fall of 2006, Glen Ford, Bruce Dixon, Margaret Kimberley and Leutisha Stills of CBC Monitor left Black Commentator, which Ford had co-founded and edited since 2002, and launched Black Agenda Report.
Historic “firsts,” “mosts,” and “onlys” are the hallmarks of Glen Ford’s long career.
The son of famed disc jockey Rudy “The Deuce” Rutherford, the first Black man to host a non-gospel television show in the Deep South – Columbus, Georgia, 1958 – Glen was reading newswire copy on-the-air at age eleven. Glen’s first full-time broadcast news job was at James Brown’s Augusta, Georgia radio station WRDW, in 1970 – where ‘The Godfather of Soul” shortened Glen’s surname to “Ford.”
What do nations care about the cost of war, if by spending a few hundred millions in steel and gunpowder they can gain a thousand millions in diamonds and cocoa?― W.E.B. DuBois He died. In an assisted (sic) care (oxymoron) home (nope) facility/prison (yes). Homeless for a few years; he was a photographer; and his […]
Shinobu, is this what solidarity looks like?
April 29, 2021
Civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama was present at the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965. Kochiyama held the movement’s visionary hero in her arms, attempting to help him pull through. Kochiyama endured the racist incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, which set her on a path of seeking justice for all marginalized communities, leading to her becoming a major champion of civil rights for Black and all Americans. – Photo: Rea Tajiri and Pat Saunders, “Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice” (1993)
amidst toppled chairs, gun smoke
scented chaos, cradling Malcolm’s
heavy head on the Audubon Ballroom
Residents from their neighbor’s slowly
fading cries for help…
Fathers “ finding evidence locker guns,
knives, drugs magically appearing at
shootings or in poor peoples’ pockets?
Are we funding the epithets fired through
donut holes like ‘rubber’ bullets shred-
ding the 1st Amendment?
care for killers masquerading as ‘peace’ officers?
Are we paying pensions for the privilege of ’10-
ring’ targeting on lethal 9-1-1 calls?
Are we suckers and losers, bankrolling blu klux
klansmen death squads slaughtering 1,000 a year
Sucking up .50 cents of our every dollar?
Are we underwriting Rotten Orchard bad
apples protecting/serving the 1%? Are we
bankrolling badges breaking bones “earning