Black Agenda Radio 04.19.21

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: The nation’s best known political prisoner will celebrate his 67 th birthday later this month, if Mumia Abu Jamal survives his latest health crisis. And, most people think of maroons as enslaved people that escaped to hideouts in the mountains. However, history shows that maroons often found freedom at sea.

But first – George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police set off the largest protests in US history. The trial of the cop charged in Floyd’s murder was still in progress when police in a nearby town killed another unarmed Black man. In Washington, Sputnik Radio host Garland Nixon spoke with Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific writer and professor of African American Studies and History at the University of Houston. Dr. Horne says Blacks have always been in conflict with the U.S. State and its police.

That was Dr. Gerald Horne, speaking on Sputnik Radio, in Washington.

Justin Dunnavant is a post-doctoral student with a deep interest in Maroons, the enslaved people that escaped captivity and established relatively free settlements in the Americas. Dunnavant has researched enslaved and maroon communities in the Caribbean, Central America and Africa. He’s written an article titled, “Have Confidence in the Sea: Maritime Maroons and Fugitive Geographies.” Dunnavant says people that escaped from slavery lived in lots of places besides up in the mountains, thanks to their seagoing skills.

That was Justin Dunnavant, an expert of seagoing maroon communities.

Supporters of Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, expected that he would undergo heart surgery for blocked arteries last week. But the Pennsylvania prison system won’t even tell Mumia’s family what medical plans they have for responding to Abu Jamal’s health crisis. A number of his supporters gathered for a press conference last Thursday, in Philadelphia, hosted by educator Marc Lamont Hill. First up, was Mumia’s grandson, Jamal, who said the people’s movement – not supposedly progressive district attorney Larry Krassner – would ultimately free Mumia.