Black Agenda Radio - 06.22.20

Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Margaret Kimberley, along with my co-host Glen Ford. Coming up: It started in Baltimore, but now it seems that the government has spy planes over at least 15 U.S. cities; a Black scholar examines the role that rage plays in Black politics; and, we’ll take a look at the long history of African Americans’ engagement with the people of Haiti.

But first – the current wave of Black-led protests are the largest and most sustained since the 1960s. Joshua Myers teaches Africana Studies at Howard University. He’s author of the book, “We Are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989.” Dr. Myers rejects the idea that the current protests are unique to this particular moment in history.

RAGE is one of the engines that has kept the current wave of protests going, week after week. Nicholas Brady teaches Africana Studies at Bucknell University. 

It’s been revealed that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security deployed airplanes, helicopters and drones over at least 15 cities to spy on the latest wave of public protests. The U.S. military isn’t supposed to back up local police without specific presidential authorization. Police spies in the skies are nothing new to the majority Black city of Baltimore. A police spy plane was discovered operating in secret four years ago. Now it openly spies on the public, as Vanessa Beck reported to a Zoom conference of her organization, the Black Alliance for Peace.

Haiti has seen wave after wave of popular protest against a succession of governments imposed on Haiti by the United States. African Americans have had a close relationship to the people of Haiti since the island’s slaves revolted and declared independence in 1804. We spoke with Vanderbilt University professor Brandon Byrd, who’s written a book entitled, “The Black Republic:: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti.”