Black Power Talks

Episode #100: African Liberation Day 2022 - 50 Years of Leadership Towards African Redemption

On this special 100th episode of Black Power Talks we uplift African Liberation Day.  African Liberation Day is May 25.  May 25, 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the first African Liberation Day mobilizations in the United States.  May 25, 2022 also marks the 50th anniversary of the African People’s Socialist Party.
As African Internationalists, we know that Africa is not free and that the Organization of African Unity, now rebranded the African Union (AU), served the colonial and neocolonial interests of legitimizing the colonial borders in Africa.  These colonial borders were forced upon African people through centuries of colonial assault that produced the wealth of the white world at the expense of the African world:  the colonial mode of production.  African Internationalists observe African Liberation Day as a part of our quest for true African Liberation, the way Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and others envisioned it:  A united socialist Africa governed by the African Working Class.
We have a real treat for you.  First, we introduce our newest team member, Solyana Bekele.  Second, we dug in the crates and found a real gem in our archives:  the 1973 African Liberation Day presentation by Chairman Omali Yeshitela entitled "We Are At War" delivered in Gainesville, Florida.
For more information on African Liberation Day mobilizations happening around the African World, visit alduhuru.org.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #99: Reparations Series Part 2 - A Profile of Queen Mother Moore w/ Prof. Tiffany Caesar

On part two of our reparations series, we lift up a leader in the struggle for reparations to African People, Queen Mother Audley Moore.  Elements of the reparation demand go back to the 19th century.  Yet, in 1957, Queen Mother Moore gave the struggle an important mass character and organization when she formed the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women (UAEW) in New Orleans.  Queen Mother Moore and the UAEW took their reparation demand to the United Nations.  The UN shot it down but she passed on the legacy of her work to African National Reparations Organization and the Uhuru Movement.
To discuss Queen Mother Moore with us today, we are joined by Dr. Tiffany Caesar, the Margaret Walker Center Visiting Mellon Scholar and History Lecturer at Jackson State University in Mississippi.  Dr. Tiffany gained her PhD in African American and African Studies at Michigan State University in 2019 where she completed the research project entitled “African Women Stories:  Mothering in African Centered Educational Leadership.”  Tiffany has researched African women’s stories from the United States to South Africa (Occupied Azania).  Her recent project is a public history project on Queen Mother Moore and New Iberia, Louisiana.  
You can find more information on the Queen Mother Moore Celebration being held in New Iberia at the Iberia African American Historical Society: iaahs.org.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #98: Reparations Series Part 1 - Make Wall Street Pay Reparations

In 1982, the African People’s Socialist Party convened the first international tribunal on reparations in Brooklyn, New York.  The verdict is that Africans in the US are owed no less than 14 trillion dollars in damages, or about one million dollars per family.  The African People’s Socialist Party aimed to make reparations a household word by taking it out of the hands of the legislative and legal sector and giving it to the African working class.  It has succeeded. 
Black Power Talks salutes the 40th anniversary of the Reparations Tribunal.  Throughout 2022, we will be presenting a series of episodes that explore the issue of reparations from an African Internationalist perspective.
This episode is part one in that series.  It is entitle "Make Wall Street Pay Reparations" and features excerpts from a March 20, 2022 panel by the same name.  The panel discussion featured Matsemela Odom, Pres. Yejide Orunmila of the African National Women's Organization, and Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People's Solidarity Committee.   More information on the Make Wall Street Pay Reparations campaign can be found at uhurusolidarity.org.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #97: The Role of the Artist in the African Revolution w/ Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets

On this episode of Black Power Talks, we discuss the Black Arts Movement, the role of the African artist and African revolution with Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets. Abiodun is one of the founders of The Last Poets and penned some of their most widely known works such as New York, New York and When the Revolution Comes. He is one of the original emcees.
Abiodun discusses the origins of the Last Poets and their political inspiration from Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X to the poet Keorapetse Kgositsile from South Africa, father of Earl Sweatshirt. 
Abiodun also discusses his new album Gratitude, a family endeavor.  You can learn more about Abiodun and the Last Poets at thelastpoets.com.  You can find his album wherever you get your music.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.
 

Episode #96: Africa and the Russia/Ukraine Conflict

It’s been a month since the beginning of Russia’s military campaign to stop NATO expansion in Ukraine. 
The March 2nd vote in the United Nations General Assembly on a resolution denouncing Russia revealed a split between the white countries of the world and many of the countries of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, 52 of which either voted against the resolution, abstained or did not cast a vote at all. 
On today’s episode of Black Power Talks, we explore the African Internationalist perspective on this war.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #95: The Politics of Hip Hop with Jermaine ”Complex” Simpson

We discussed hip hop and politics with our guest for this episode is Jermaine"Complex" Simpson.  Complex is a rapper from San Diego, California.  
Born Jermaine Simpson, Complex was raised in the heart of the African community of San Diego.  Complex is the author of four albums, West Coast MC’n, State of Mind, A Beautiful Mess and Wrath and Roses.  Much like his favorite artists, Ice Cube, Rakim, Tupac, and among others, Complex straddles the lines of a few genres of hip hop, namely the hardcore hip hop and the much more political genres of rap music.  He explores topics such as mental health, reparations, police terror, and African resistance.
In his colonial job, Jermaine is a trained counselor and holds four different degrees and many other certifications but his profession is as a hip hop artist.  After a long hiatus, Jermaine released his first studio album in over 15 years in January 2021, A Beautiful Mess.  In January 2022, he released his fourth album, Wrath and Roses.  You can find his music at https://complexgotbars.com/
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #94: Colonialism as The Mode of Production

In this episode, we engage what is amongst the most important interventions into socialist and communist thought ever, Colonialism as the Mode of Production.  Since its inception, the African People’s Socialist Party, the Uhuru Movement and the ideology of African Internationalism has clearly stated that the African struggle for liberation is against colonialism. 
In his recent treatise, Colonialism as The Mode of Production, Chairman Omali Yeshitela synthesizes 50 years of his relentless leadership and the Party’s relentless leadership on this question and points the way forward.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela’s “Colonialism as the mode of production” Chapter Two of his political report to the 3rd Plenary of the Seventh Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party.  Today’s episode is composed of excerpts from the January 16, 2022 episode of Omali Taught Me, the regular Sunday study held by Chairman Omali Yeshitela.  The episode can be viewed in its entirety at the The Burning Spear TV youtube page.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #93: Covid-19, Pop Culture and the Anticolonial Turn in Africana Studies

In this episode, we speak with Professor Layla Brown about her scholarship, the covid-19 pandemic and the way forward.  Professor Brown’s work is emblematic of that anticolonial turn, or might we say anticolonial return, that has taken place in Africana Studies.  This anticolonial return has been directly impacted by the spread of African Internationalism, evinced in the Chairman Omali Yeshitela's 2019 Oxford Union "Africa Debate".
Professor Brown is trained as a Cultural Anthropologist, researcher, and educator.  She earned her PhD from Duke University and specializes in the contemporary and historical study of social movements in the African Diaspora.  She places specific focus on African communities in the Americas as well as African women liberation.  She is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Africana Studies at Northeastern University but is currently a visiting professor in Germany.  Professor Brown’s recent research looks at the covid-19 colonial virus pandemic, African resistance, and colonial domination.  Her recent article “The Pandemic of Racial Capitalism: Another World is Possible” was published in From the European South.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.

Episode #92: Project Black Ankh continues leadership in the fight against Covid-19

On today’s episode of Black Power Talks, we discuss the Covid-19 Omicron Variant surge and a recent trip to Cuba with Dr. Aisha Fields.
Dr. Fields is a physicist who has dedicated her skills for the development and empowerment of African people. She is the International Director of the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP), a non-profit organization whose mission is to “collectivize the vast skills of Africans around the world in order to establish community based development projects that improve the quality of life for African people everywhere while promoting self-reliance and self-determination as key to genuine, sustainable development.”
Dr. Fields recently led a team of AAPDEP officials to Cuba where they visited the Latin American School of Medicine, ELAM, and learned about Cuba’s progressive fight against Covid-19 which dwarfs the US.
AAPDEP has organized renewable energy, water purification, farming, healthcare and ecological sanitation projects in West and Southern Africa, and community gardens in Washington, D.C.; Houston, Texas and Huntsville, Alabama. AAPDEP’s “Project Black Ankh '' is a worldwide African emergency response organization.  Since March 2020, Project Black Ankh has mobilized volunteers to conduct health education and community support efforts to combat COVID-19. 
Project Black Ankh was initiated during the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone and was employed to assist Africans trapped in flood waters in Houston during Hurricane Harvey where emergency aid was denied to the black community.

Episode #91:The Role of Black Students and Intellectuals in the African Revolution

On this episode of Black Power Talks, we discussed the role of the African Intellectual in the world.  African students and teachers everywhere are entering into their spring semesters.  Spring semesters are often filled with academic conferences and graduations.   On campuses, African students are organizing summits where they tackle some of the pressing issues in the world such as the mass imprisonment of African people, reparations, and the university investments into the colonial settler state of Israel.  On the flip side, many African students will increasingly feel the pressure to decide their postgraduate career plans.  
In his fundamental essay, "The Role of African Intellectuals in the World," Secretary General Luwezi Kinshasa identifies the colonial contradictions of higher education and lays out a blueprint for African students and intellectuals to join the revolution.  Students cannot be apolitical because the colleges they attend are not apolitical.  The role of intellectuals is to solve the solution of a given society. Colonialism uses African genius to solve colonial problems.  Luwezi calls on African students to become African Working Class intellectuals and solve the problems of the African Nation.
In this episode, we hear from a presentation that SG Luwezi gave on the role of African Intellectuals.  Luwezi the Secretary General of the African Socialist International.  Under the leadership of Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Luwezi oversees the work of  the African People’s Socialist Party around the world, including but not limited to Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean.  SG Luwezi was born in the Congo and is currently based in London. He is affectionately known as Mwalimu, which means “teacher” for his extensive knowledge and engaged story-telling about the history of the world’s peoples.
Then we talk with Solyana Bekele.  Solyana is the Managing Editor and a writer for The Burning Spear Newspaper.  Solyana is also a junior at Hampton University, one of the oldest Black colleges in the US.  Solyana studies Political Science and Journalism.  Solyana was born in Ethiopia and raised in the Washington DC area.
Black Power Talks is produced by WBPU 96.3 FM "Black Power 96" in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is hosted by Dr. Matsemela Odom and Dexter Mlimwengu, bringing an African Internationalist perspective to the important issues of our world.