Black Agenda Radio - 12.31.18

Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Mumia Abu Jamal wins a victory in court, and celebrates a legal win for sick inmates in Pennsylvania’s prisons; and a police reform group wants to safeguard mentally ill people from police violence.

a New Year is dawning, and it’s been two years since investigations began into the so-called Russiagate scandal. But Black Agenda Report editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley says, the main charge against President Trump, Wikileaks and the Russian government remains unproven.

If there is an anti-war faction in the Democratic Party, it’s been very quiet in the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria. We spoke with longtime peace activist Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center. Flounders is also active in the Hands Off Syria Campaign. The Democrats are screaming to high heaven with outrage at Trumps plans for a Syria pullout..

A Philadelphia judge has ruled that the nation’s best known political prisoner has the right to present another appeal of his 1982 conviction in the death of a police officer.  Mumia Abu Jamal proved his contention that a prosecutor in his case, who went on to become a judge, unconstitutionally influenced Abu Jamal’s previous appeal, which was turned down. Meanwhile, Abu Jamal continues to turn out award-winning journalism for Prison Radio. This week, he reports on another victory for Pennsylvania prison inmates.

Millions of white people live in New York City, but you wouldn’t know that if you visited the courts and jails of the city’s five boroughs. The Police Reform Organizing Project, or PROP, reports that close to 9 out of 10 people facing arraignment in local courts on any given day, are Black or Latino.  PROP executive director Robert Gangi says his group’s new project is to change the way mentally ill people are treated in New York.