Black Power Talks

The People's War Radio Show, Episode#42: 60th anniversary of the assassination Congo's Patrice Lumumba

Patrice Lumumba was elected the first Prime Minister of the Congo and took power on June 30, 1960.  Within months, Lumumba was forced out of office.  On January 17, 1961, Lumumba was assassinated under the leadership of the United States and other imperial powers. 
The assassination of Patrice Lumumba reverberated throughout the African world.  In the United States, Africans rushed the floor of the United Nations in protest.  In Cairo, protestors surrounded the United States embassy and set an embassy car ablaze.  In Belgrade, the Belgian embassy was attacked.  In London, people took to the streets and marched in protest from Trafalgar Square to the Belgian embassy.  Argued by some to be the most significant political assassination of the 20th century, the murder of Patrice Lumumba was a critical lesson in the rise of neocolonialism.
We talk with Luwezi Kinshasa, Secretary General of the African Socialist International about the significance of the Patrice Lumumba and the future of the struggle for African liberation in the Congo.
SG Luwezi was born and raised in the Congo and speaks 7 languages. He is now based in London and works as an educator and organizer in African communities throughout Europe and the continent of Africa. 
SG Luwezi has come to be known as Mwalimu, meaning "respected teacher" in Swahili.  He writes a monthly column in The Burning Spear Newspaper titled “Kinshasa International” and conducts regular livestream broadcasts to the African nation on Facebook in English and in French.

The People's War Radio Show, Episode #41: Celebrate Haitian Independence Day, Vive Ayiti!

January 1, 2021 marked the 217th anniversary of the Haitian revolution against French colonialism. We talk with Elikya Ngoma, Haiti Editor for The Burning Spear newspaper and musical artist.
Elikya's family is from Haiti, she speaks Kreyòl and maintains a close connection to politics in Haiti. She is also a singer and musician who has just released an album "Freedom in the Mix" featuring freedom songs in various genres and languages.
In this interview we talked with Elikya about:
The African Revolution in Haiti, the first successful workers' revolution
Legacy and philosophy of Haitian General Jean Jacques Dessaline
Highlights of the Haitian anti-slavery constitution and promise
Ongoing French looting of the Haitian treasury
Review of the recent Haitian film “Douvan Jou Ka Leve”
Revolutionary culture and the process of producing "Freedom in the Mix"

The People's War Radio Show, Episode #40: 2020 year in review with Chairman Omali Yeshitela

In our final episode of 2020, we talk with African People's Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela about:
African community's fight against the pandemic
Uprisings against police containment and violence
Global economic power shifts
Completing the black revolution of the 1960s
African political and economic unification and liberation
Chairman Omali Yeshitela is leader and founder of the Uhuru Movement.  Over the past five decades, Chairman Omali has initiated campaigns to defend the democratic rights of the African community, to organize and raise up African women, to mobilize opposition to U.S. wars and to popularize the demand for reparations to African people.
He’s built the worldwide Uhuru Movement and the African Socialist International with branches in the U.S., Europe, the Caribbean and on the continent of Africa. He's developed the theory of African Internationalism, which can be found in his published works at burningspearmarketplace.com
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People's War radio show, Episode #39: Sinterklass & Zwarte Piet, Jim Crow minstrels, black face and falling statues

"The truth is that virtually every celebration done in this country and throughout Europe, certainly since the 15th or 16th century, have been celebrations of slavery and genocide. "Sinterklaas was the patron saint of shipping in Holland. The first African captives to come to America were brought by the Dutch. I would imagine that the 'Good Ship Jesus' that brought us here was probably blessed by Sinterklaas. You could say that we were a gift from Santa to America." - Chairman Omali Yeshitela
Activists worldwide are fighting anti-African traditions and tearing down symbols of colonial slavery.
We talk with two leaders in Take Em Down NOLA,  - Angela Kinlaw and A Scribe Called Quess? - about the relationship of traditions and imagery with the material living conditions of oppressed peoples. We discuss the phenomenons of:
Sinterklass and Zwarte Piet
"Jim Crow" black face minstrel shows
Black face and the Zulu Social Club in New Orleans' Mardi Gras parade
Colonial statues heralding leaders of slavery and genocide
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People's War Radio Show, Episode #38: FBI war on today's black activists

On December 4th, Grand Master Jay was arrested at his home in Ohio on a federal charge of pointing a rifle towards federally deputized task force officers perched on a rooftop during a rally in Louisville, Kentucky two months earlier. 
57-year-old John “Jay” Johnson is leader of the Not F’in Around Coalition (NFAC), an armed black security force formed this summer. Over 500 NFAC members from across the U.S. marched in Louisville for justice for Breonna Taylor. If convicted Grand Master Jay faces 20 years in prison.
We talk with Rakem Balogun, leader of the Dallas-based group Guerilla MainFrame and co-founder of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club.
In 2017 Raken was arrested and imprisoned under an FBI program targeting what they classified as “Black Identity Extremists''.  We discuss:
Attacks on the constitutional rights of African people in the U.S. to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and to keep and bear arms.
History of the U.S. government's COINTELPRO counterinsurgency program that militarily defeated the black revolutionary movement of the 1960s.
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People's War Radio Show, Episode #37: 50 shots fired, 38 pierced the body of another black man killed by police in St. Petersburg, Florida

On December 2nd, 2020, six Pinellas County Sheriff's deputies fired over 50 bullets into a car and hit 20-year-old Dominique Harris 38 times, killing him.
This police killing of another black man took place in a parking lot of a neighborhood store in south St. Petersburg in front of dozens of witnesses. It was filmed and went viral on social media.
On this episode we talk with lifelong St. Petersburg residents Ntambwe Bhekizitha and Akile Anai. Ntambwe is owner of Freedom Cutz Barbershop in south St. Pete and Akile's father. Akile Anai is Editor in Chief of The Burning Spear newspaper and former candidate for City Council in St. Pete. 
We talk about:
Police role in the forced removal for gentrification of St. Pete and African communities throughout the U.S.
The importance of black working class owned media vs. white colonial media in controlling the narrative of our lives
The need for political strategy to answer the question "to what end" do we protest the endless police murders of black people?
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People's War Radio Show, Episode #36: Give us the land! Hands off the Bethesda African Cemetery!

The Moses African Cemetery in Bethesda, Maryland, holds the remains of hundreds of African people dating back to at least the 18th century.
Today the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition is fighting developers and Montgomery County to stop the desecration of the sacred site as bulldozers tear the land to build a self-storage compound.
We talk with Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and her husband Reverend Segun Adebayo about:
The brutal colonial kidnapping and theft of human and intellectual capital from the world's original universities in Africa to build the tobacco agricultural industry of the U.S.'s mid-Atlantic region.
The attack on and forced disappearance of a vibrant working class neighborhood of black farmers, quarry workers and small business owners that was initially founded in the years immediately after the end of chattel slavery - reminiscent of Tulsa, OK and Rosewood, FL.
The work of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition - comprised of several concerned organizations and individuals - to protect the Moses African cemetery and build a museum on the historic site to tell the story of Africans in America.
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is the Pulitzer prize-nominated author of No FEAR: A Whistleblowers Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA, based on her work at the Environmental Protection Agency for almost 20 years, where she sought to stop the endangerment of African miners in Occupied Azania (South Africa).
Reverend Segun Adebayo is pastor of the Macedonia Baptist Church, the last remaining institution from the early community of Africans, custodian and protector of the Moses African Cemetery.
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People's War Radio Show, Episode #35: The "white people's State"- pilgrims, proud boys, police

Last week, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was released from jail where he was being held on murder charges after killing 2 people who were protesting the Kenosha, Wisconsin police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed African man. 
Rittenhouse’s 2 million dollar bond was raised through a crowdfunding effort that drew popular support from white people around the U.S., including from the CEO of the My Pillow company.
Rittenhouse is associated with and influenced by armed white nationalist groups and individuals who are making a lot of noise around the country these days, threatening and carrying out violence against African, Mexican and Indigenous people and those who stand with us. 
These actions are taking place in the context of the polarization between overt white nationalists groups represented and egged on by Trump vs. the growing resistance to state violence led by the African working class with some support from white progressives following the murder of George Floyd.
On this episode of the People’s War radio show we talk about the roots of white nationalist violence - whether from citizens or the state - and how it can be stopped. 
Our guest is Penny Hess, author of the book, “Overturning the Culture of Violence” and Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee, an organization formed by the African People’s Socialist Party to build political support and reparations from the white community for the African freedom struggle.
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

The People's War Radio Show, Episode #34: Culture, the "war of ideas" and the Black Power movement

2020 has been a year of African resistance - resistance to police violence, poverty and mass incarceration.
This episode looks at the role that culture plays in the “war of ideas” - how books, movies and music can express the worldview and serve the interests of the oppressor or those of the oppressed.
Aundrey Jones, Ethnic Studies doctoral candidate at UCSD, and Curtis Howard, early Crips member who was incarcerated for decades in California prisons - both organizers with "All of Us or None" ex-prisoner advocacy organization - discuss the political and psychological impact of:
Movies - Hollywood's "Blaxploitation" films of the 1970s, American Gangster, L.A. Rebellion films, 3rd Cinema
Authors - Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Iceberg Slim, Donald Goines, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley 
TV shows - Cops, America’s Most Wanted, First 48, Lockdown, Scared Straight
Curtis Howard is a writer, blogger, public speaker and activist from San Diego, California.  One of the earliest members of a local San Diego Crips set, Curtis spent decades in various California prisons including Salinas Valley and Pelican Bay.  He is the author of the popular book Cellmates and Cellouts, a collection of stories of life on the streets and behind bars, and the forthcoming book Crips and Politics. Curtis recalls the books found in the prison library that influenced his political development, including on Malcolm X and Assata Shakur.
Aundrey Jones earned received a degree in African-American Studies from UC Riverside and has done extensive research on black cultural expression, policing and mass incarceration. His doctoral project, “A Dream Eclipsed: The Cultural Politics of War and Carcerality in Black Los Angeles” argues that "Los Angeles...signifies not only a geopolitical region enabled through war, but an entity whose total socioeconomic structure has depended on the preservation and reproduction of discourses of war” and makes the case that the Cold War, the War on Poverty, the Vietnam War, the War on Drugs, and the War on Gangs were all wars on Black people.

The People's War Radio Show, Episode #33: Philadelphia - democracy for who?

Philadelphia is credited with sealing a victory for Joseph Biden in the U.S. presidential race and "saving democracy". At the same time, the city is reeling from nightly protests demanding an end to police violence against the African community.
This episode of The People's War radio show looks at the city's legacy of violence against the black community and African people's resistance to that violence - from Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad to the bombing of MOVE to last month's police killing of Walter Wallace.
We talk with Philadelphia residents:
Ikemba Bomani Ojore. Professor at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, Ikemba lives in Philadelphia where he was born and raised.
Jess, community activist, born and raised in Philadelphia.
Len Demmer, community activist and Philadelphia resident for 12 years.
Jihaad Lassiter, survivor of Philadelphia police shooting.
The People's War radio show is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Muambi Tangu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.