Podcasts about afro descendant

Follow the Labyrinth of the First Gen on InstagramSign Up for the Quarterly Labyrinth of the First Gen Newsletter at the bottom of our websiteMyra and Kimberly are Puerto Rican women from Colectivo Ilé, an organization that has been campaigning against racism in Puerto Rico for the past 25 years. The focus in this part is on their understanding of race in the context of Puerto Rico, both historically and politically, and how this influences their work. They also discuss the impact of Hurricane Maria, and how it acted as a catalyst for change and a heightened understanding of their Afro-Descendant identity, particularly within a US framework. The episode concludes with a discussion about their involvement in the US-based Census and how they used it as a political tool to emphasize their unique racial identity."This is a labor of love and it takes all of us  to have that anti-racist future. It takes all of us. White, Black,  young kids, older people. It's all of us. So we have some, we are almost obsessed about talking about dreams because that's a way to manifest that future, that anti-racist future." ~ Myra, Colectivo  Ilé Administrative Director For more information about Colectivo  Ilé  check out their website at https://www.colectivoile.org/Listen to the Coletivo  Ilé  podcast called Negras here Show Themes00:00 Introduction to Colectivo  Ilé  03:05 The Mission of Colectivo  Ilé  08:08 The Impact of Colonialism on Puerto Rico09:18 Embracing Black Identity in Puerto Rico14:01 The Aftermath of Hurricane Maria18:52 The Importance of Community and Home25:46 The Impact of the U.S. Census on Puerto Rico33:09 Conclusion and Contact Information The Labyrinth of the First Gen yearly survey to get your feedback on Season 1 and Season 2 is hereSchedule 30 minutes to chat with me during my open office hours

Capítulo 016: On this episode of Ocu-Pasión we are joined by acclaimed visual Artist Gerardo Castro. Listen in as we discuss artistic truth, inspired introspection, and joining the creative charge for LGBTQ+ rights and BIPOC visibility. "I was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, grew up in the New York metropolitan area.  I obtained my MFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY in 1997. My work has been exhibited, in museums and galleries, nationally and internationally, including China, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Budapest, Latin America and major US cities. In my artwork, I use art forms such as drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, beading, sewing, and fire. My work explores the politics of identity, addressing issues of colonization, diaspora, history, gender, spirituality, and religion.  As a contemporary Afro- Latino/Latinx artist, I've created personal artistic vernacular by recycling elements of Yoruba and Santeria aesthetics. I describe my work as Art that is political, erotic, mystical, decorative, and elaborate that brings to mind Magic Realism, Caribbean travel posters, religious icons, and Latin album cover art. I'd say, there's lots of bling in my work.  My relationship to my use of Color is not passive, I don't shy away from it. My use of Color is a form of resistance -   it's intentional - it's a political statement- it's a language.  I create fanciful constellations of marvelous glittery, unmistakably black, and emphatically brown figures in environments that take the viewer on journeys of material, psychological, and sociopolitical transformation. I celebrate the visual texture of my Afro-Descendant culture, affirming that Latino identity is a means of empowerment (be it social, spiritual, political, or personal).  These images are in a sense icons or doorways to the sacred. When you look at an icon, it is meant to make you aware that you are in the presence of someone sacred. "    “To have imagery that looks like us, honors us, reflects us, reminds us that we are sacred.”Feature Spotlight in AFROTAINO online magazine.  Read Claire Lambe's review, of Emanations, in Roll Magazine, the meaning and purpose of the exhibition and the artwork.  Write-up by Faheem Haider, Sex as Salve gives the reader a glimpse into the sensual and tactile side of Gerardo Castro's paintings: Illuminated Shadows.  His Fire & Indigo series are burnings on paper emanating what the artists sees as the most seductive and important color regarding his history and spirituality,  Indigo. He is currently working on a series The Good, The Wicked and The Fablous - empowerment of Latina women. Contact Artist for Recent CV and upcoming exhibitions, events, invitations, purchasing art or to arrange a studio visit, in Newburgh, NY where he currently lives. Gerardo Castro is the organizer of the  11th annual Newburgh OPEN Studios and the The Lightbulb Project: a public art experience. Follow Gerardo :  Website: http://www.gerardocastroart.com/IG: https://www.instagram.com/gcastroart/https://www.instagram.com/newburghopenstudios/https://www.instagram.com/thelightbulbprojectnewburgh/

Dans cet épisode spécial, Laetitia te donnera son opinion sur sa communauté afro-descendante. Elle mettra en avant plusieurs concepts fondamentaux comme le pouvoir de la volonté, l'amour propre, l'acceptation et l'union!Installe-toi confortablement avec une tasse de thé! ou pas...Instagram de l'émission iciMusique : Streedy - Chit Chat (Tous droits réservés)Retrouvez le ici

9:00 PM EST - The Afrodescendant Nation was established in 2011 to obtain our right to self-determination, reparations, and United Nations Human Rights protection. We offer to you African Americans, Black people, a just people, the global identity 'Afrodescendant'. Special guests   Rashaun Shabazz Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Afrodescendant Nation Pastor Victoria Brady Min Rahim Aton Conversation Reparations is hosted by Jumoke Ifetayo SE Region Representative of NCOBRA and he can be contacted by email at reparationsj@gmail.com or 678 437-7882 N'COBRA, The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America is an organization based out of Washington, DC, that seeks full repair for the descendants of former victims of slavery in the United States based on the United Nations's five forms of Reparations. Visit N'COBRA online. On Twitter @NCOBRA40 

The Afrodescendant Nation was established in 2011 to obtain our right to self-determination, reparations, and United Nations Human Rights protection. We offer to you African Americans, Black people, a just people, the global identity 'Afrodescendant'. Special guests   Rashaun Shabazz Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Afrodescendant Nation Min Rahim Aton   Conversation Reparations is hosted by Jumoke Ifetayo SE Region Representative of NCOBRA and he can be contacted by email at reparationsj@gmail.com or 678 437-7882 N'COBRA, The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America is an organization based out of Washington, DC, that seeks full repair for the descendants of former victims of slavery in the United States based on the United Nations's five forms of Reparations. Visit N'COBRA online. On Twitter @NCOBRA40 

[produced & aired, 2017] This past weekend over a 150, 000 people were in Washington, DC to protest and call attention to the ever-increasing violent reality of climate change. The devastating effects are already being felt across the planet and can no longer be denied, despite the best efforts of those who choose to ignore the facts. And the continent of Africa is feeling every bit its violent effects. The 2011 drought-induced famine in the Horn of Africa affected more than 10 million people, claimed 257,000 lives and cost over $1 billion in damages. The Africa Adaptation Gap Report by the UN Environment Programme warns that climate change could reduce total crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa by as much as 20% by 2070. Additionally, a projected sea-level rise in Tanzania of 70 centimeters by 2070 could devastate the port city of Dar es Salaam, its largest and richest city and a major player in East Africa trade, and cost the country about $10 billion in property damages and related losses. Environmentalists warn that rising sea levels could cause severe flooding, submerge land and destroy African coastal ecosystems. Africa World Now Project's executive producer; international journalist and human rights advocate recently sat with activist Matheca Mawinda, Executive Director at Pan African Climate Justice Alliance and Cecile Ndjebet Coordinating African Network of Community Management of Forrest, to discuss this crisis in greater detail. Next, you will hear a presentation on the Africa-China question from a symposium titled Africa and World in the 21st Century. Howard French in his work, China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa estimates that there are currently at least a million Chinese living in sub-Saharan Africa and says that may be a conservative figure. Several countries alone (Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique) have a hundred thousand each. Others have fairly decent sized enclaves or Chinese towns, often of ten thousand people. Africans have said for years that the Chinese isolate themselves, that they don't integrate, though French shows that there are numerous exceptions to that, especially when Chinese males have married African women and started families. There is little question, however, that often these enclaves have sprung up because in many places Chinese companies have brought their own workers to complete a specific project. What is the role of China in Africa? How do we understand the implications of this role in the context of a 21st century global economy? What are the new social, economic, and potential political formations that are being produced from China in Africa? What about Africa in China? Africa has a long historical record of interacting with China…what are the contemporary possibilities of Africa reversing the influence? After all, W. E. B. Du Bios writing in his 1947 work: The World and Africa suggests that Chinese ships traded directly with Africa from the 8th to the 12th centuries. These and a myriad of other important questions come to mind when exploring the China-Africa question. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Originally produced and aired in 2016...: The great political theorist, cultural philosopher, revolutionary, C. L. R. James once said that he is black, number one, because he is against what they have done and are still doing to us; and number two, he has something to say about the new society to be built because he has a tremendous part in that which they have sought to discredit.— C. L. R. James, C. L. R. James: His Life and Work. In the article The University and the Undercommons: Seven Theses (The—sees), Fred Moten and Stefano Harney start their analysis with this powerful quote: “To the university I steal, and there I steal.” They go on to write that this is the only possible relationship to the university (American) today. In fact, this may be true of universities everywhere. It cannot be denied that the university is a place of refuge, and it cannot be accepted that the university is a place of enlightenment. Their analysis is centered on a sharp critique of how we produce and reproduce a certain forms of knowledge. And the role and responsibility of those who step into this dialectical process of who has the right to know and what they should do with what they know. Moten and Harney go on to suggest that in the face of these conditions one can only sneak into the university and steal what we can. To abuse its hospitality, to spite its mission, to join its refugee colony, its gypsy encampment, to be in, but not of—this is the path of the subversive intellectual in the modern university. The authors are attempting to peel back the cover of knowledge for knowledge sake. They suggest that in this present moment, we must begin to take the path of heretical thinkers. The "maroons knew something about possibility. They are the condition of possibility of production of knowledge in the university—the singularities against the writers of singularity, the writers who write, publish, travel, and speak. It is not merely a matter of the secret labor upon which such space is lifted, though of course such space is lifted from collective labor and by it. It is rather that to be a critical academic in the university is to be against the university, and to be against the university is always to recognize it and be recognized by it, and to institute the negligence of that internal outside, that unassimilated underground, a negligence of it that is precisely, we must insist, the basis of the professions. And this act of against…always excludes the unrecognized modes of politics, the beyond of politics already in motion, the discredited criminal para-organization, what Robin Kelley might refer to as the infrapolitical field (and its music). It is not just the labor of the maroons but their prophetic organization that is negated by the idea of intellectual space in an organization called the university" [31]. Next we will hear an further elaboration of the ideas set out by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney with Dr. Claudrena Harold, author of New Negro Politics in the Jim Crow South from University of Virginia, Dr. Will Boone, Dr. Corey Walker, and myself of Winston Salem State University. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program…! Image: Toward a Black University Conference 13-17 November 1968. Hilltop, 8 November 1968...available here: https://www.dc1968project.com/blog/2018/12/27/12-november-1968-amp-toward-a-black-university-conf-hu-begins-tomorrow

[originally produced & aired May 2018] What is meant by the term “Pan-Africanism?” What do we – can we - make of “pan Africanism”? There have been various attempts by scholars, activist, artist, musicians, to develop a clear definition of Pan Africanism. While a clear and solidified definition of Pan Africanism has been the preoccupation of these thinkers, others have hesitated due to the vast diversity of thought and activity found among self-identified Pan-Africanists across time and space. According to Hakim Adi in his work Pan Africanism: A History, Pan-Africanism is considered a composed of ideas and movements “concerned with the social, economic, cultural and political emancipation of the peoples of Africa and the African diaspora.” Broadly speaking, it stems from “belief in the unity, common history and common purpose of the people of Africa and the African diaspora” and their interwoven futures. Finally, historically Pan-African “thought and action” emerges within efforts to connect and reconnect those in the African diaspora created, in particularly, through the forced dispersal of enslaved people from continental Africa simultaneously with the solidification and emergence of global racial capitalism, “European colonial rule and anti-African racism” (2). While containing a multitude of diverse ideological, political, cultural, and organizational expression, Pan-African thought and action share a commitment to resist “the exploitation and oppression of all those of African heritage,” rejecting anti-African and African-descent racism and celebrating “African achievement, history, and the very notion of being human through a positive construction of an “African” identity (3). Today, AWNP's Josh Myers is in discussion with Dr. Hakim Adi on his new book, Pan Africanism: A History Professor Hakim Adi is Professor of History at the University of Chichester, focusing on the history of Africa and her diaspora. Author of a number of works, including West Africans in Britain (1998), Pan-African History: Political Figures from African and the Diaspora from 1787 (with Marika Sherwood) (2003), and Pan Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the Diaspora, 1919-1939, Adi's scholarship is grounded in understanding the historiography of various struggles for African liberation. We interviewed him about his latest effort to engage with the histories of that struggle, in his recent book, Pan-Africanism: A History. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

The question of land as a fundamental aspect of African/a liberation movements is an often-neglected point of inquiry. Nevertheless, it is indeed, ever-present. Promisingly, there has been an uptick of more folk who are paying attention to the demands of Black radical thought and behavior that sought and seek to engage in understanding its role in material and nonmaterial ways. One such important treatment is Edward Onaci's, Free the Land: The Republic of New Afrika and the Pursuit of a Black Nation-State. In dominant discourse, however, the question around land as fundamental to liberation is often couched in a warped sense of capitalist ownership, which highlights the fundamental contradictions engrained in an imposition of a European modernism, and its attendant political philosophy of liberalism. All of which has produced, limited discourses around the idea and practice of rights, a discourse rooted fundamentally in what does it mean to be human as the development and maintenance of private property; all contradictions that radicals must, also, seriously engage when exploring questions around land and freedom. It cannot be lost nor taken for granted the totalizing nature of colonialism as a product of imperialist logics, as the neglect of internal critique often leads to the reinscription the very power dynamics that movements say they intend to disrupt. Ultimately, land, in the epistemic and ontological purview of African/a peoples is understood not in the limited capitalist sense of ownership but the transmission of communal practices of human stewardship as being primary caretakers of the planet. And when land as a fundamental component of Black liberation is centered, ideas around national identity, critical consciousness formation, human rights, citizenship…what it means to be human can be better mapped to understand the interconnectedness of the various manifestations of the global Africana (Black) struggle for freedom. a black internationalism becomes clearly defined. Today, we will hear a recent roundtable discussion, exploring the questions that Kurt Oderson presents in his documentary, We Rise for Our Land. Kurt Otabenga Orderson is an award-winning filmmaker from Cape Town, South Africa, whose work has been featured on Al Jazeera, SABC, ESPN, ZDF, and HULU. He has worked on six continents and has directed and produced over ten feature documentaries screened at international film festivals, universities, and colleges. Kurt Orderson is the founder of Azania Rizing Productions, a company that aims to inspire young people through creative storytelling about Africa and African Diasporas and is a member of the Africa World Now Project Collective. Others you will hear are: Savi Horne, Esq. Executive Director of the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers Land Loss Prevention Project; Dr. Tasneem Siddiqui, member of the Africana World Now Project Collective and Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History, Political Science and Social Justice at WSSU; Dr. Yousef Al-Bulushi, Assistant Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California, Irvine; Dr. Kamau Rashid, Associate Professor of Educational Foundations and Inquiry at National-Louis University in Chicago. And yours truly…James Pope. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

[Originally produced and aired in 2019] Vodun, Voodoo, racialization into Black Magic as currently understood is a distorted figment of a Western imagination. Voodoo is narrated as a sensationalized ‘pop-culture' caricature of voudon, which is an Afro-Caribbean spiritual system that was brought with enslaved Africans forced onto the plantations in Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the United States and elsewhere. The fictitious associations with drinking blood sacrifices, voodoo dolls or zombies are directly a result of the same dehumanization processes innate in a system of chattel slavery, the lifeblood of racial capitalism. To be clear at the onset, Voudon is "an assortment of cultural elements: personal creeds and practices, including an elaborate system of folk medical practices; a system of ethics transmitted across generations [including] proverbs, stories, songs, and folklore... voudon is more than belief; it is a way of life," wrote Leslie Desmangles, a Haitian professor at Hartford's Trinity College in "The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal" (Prometheus Books, 1996). Voudon teaches belief in a supreme being called Bondye, an unknowable and uninvolved creator god. Voudon practitioners recognize many ancestral spirits (called loa), each one of whom is responsible for a specific domain or part of life. Followers of voudon see a universal energy and a soul that can leave the body during dreams and spirit possession. In Western Christian theology, spiritual possession is usually considered to be an act of evil, either Satan or some demonic entity trying to enter an unwilling human vessel, unless of course you go to black worship services. This is in contrast to the fact that in voudon, possession by loa is desired. In a ceremony guided by a priest or priestess, this possession is considered a valuable, first-hand spiritual experience and connection with the spirit world. In 1685, variations of a practice to forbid the practice of African religions and required all masters to Christianize their slaves within eight days of their arrival—which codified into various laws. Slavery was condoned by the Catholic Church as a tool for converting Africans to morally upright Christians. Furthermore, one Haitian scholar notes, "Many of the African spirits were adapted to their new environment in the New World. Ogun, for instance, the Nigerian spirit of iron-smiths, hunting and warfare took on a new persona... He became Ogou, the military leader who has led phalanxes into battle against oppression. In Haiti today, Ogou inspires many political revolutions that oust undesirable oppressive regimes." The practices of dehumanization and hiding Africans histories (it is a misunderstanding to say African histories are lost)…has contributed much to the survival of racist logics that promotes false notions and ideas of racial white supremacy. These practices were applied to Africana total existence. Nevertheless, the spiritual practices of the various peoples who were forced across the oceans have ancient origins. In fact, we can see ancient links between the Yoruba peoples and ancient Egypt…. Today, we are pleased to have filmmaker Onuora Anthony Abuah back with us to talk about another one his films, a two-part documentary that explores the Danhomé Kingdom. Part 1 is titled, Danhomé & Vodun and Part 2 is titled, Voodoo in Togo. As a filmmaker and under the banner of AEA Films UK, his projects include MONA, Catching a Thief, Woodfalls, Woolwhich Boys. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Film[s]: https://www.youtube.com/c/TalesFromtheMotherlandProductions/videos

[Program produced & aired in 2017] While there have been many explorations of the histories and figures in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, little attention is paid to the role that Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe played as a leading thinker and activist in resisting its deeply entrenched racist structures. While Nelson Mandela is normally given highest status in the discourse around the movement, often presented as the primary symbolic representation of South African anti-apartheid resistance. What is often lost is the deep influence and standard set by Robert Sobukwe not only on Nelson Mandela, but more importantly the youth movements within the struggle that coalesced into what we know as the Black Consciousness Movement. It is lost, in this dominant discourse, that Robert Sobukwe was a mentor to Steve Bantu Biko. His inspiration, ideological leadership, and example to seeking an advanced framework toward liberation in South Africa was captured in the praxis of Steve Bantu Biko and his comrades. The framework as it was articulated by Biko and many young South Africans was the Black Consciousness Movement. For Biko, Black Consciousness and the defeat of the inferiority complex instilled by apartheid institutions is a necessary precondition for progress in South Africa (for the African world for that matter). For Biko and those young folk resisting, the fact that apartheid was interdependent with white supremacy; capitalist exploitation and deliberate oppression made the problem much more complex. Black Consciousness both inspired and parallels decolonization in the African/a world; a decolonization process that is very much still in process. Our show was produced, today, in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

In this episode of Solidarity Radio we explore the history of U.S. intervention in Colombia and the efforts by Afro-Descendant, Indigenous and Campesino communities to protect themselves from political violence. Our international team accompanied the Refuge for Life, Peace and Dignified housing in one of Bogota's largest slums, Ciudad Bolivar. The Refuge and it's Indigenous and Cimarrona guards, represent an alternative way to think about public safety and peoples' right to self-determination.

Image: Fannie Lou Hamer & Ella Baker, Aug. 6, 1964 [https://snccdigital.org/events/mfdp-holds-state-convention/] Knowledge is the intentional organization of information to meet an expressed objective and/or objectives. If this is, indeed, a viable conceptualization of knowledge, then the ability to correctly analysis the conditions within which a people find themselves must operate as praxis, consistently and constantly. As stated before, European modernity rooted in the intellectual and material construction of a global order as founded in the creation of whiteness, supported by the culture of racial capitalism is rupturing. In reaction, this whiteness, as an organizing construct is attempting to hold its position of authority. While the U.S. is currently in the middle of what to some is a peculiar national election cycle, to others, that critical thinking and radical vibrating other, this period is only peculiar in that we are once again in a cyclical discourse around voting in a settler nation that was organized on genocide; forced labor; systemic and institutionalized race/ism; and continuous imperial engagement with the world. In order to maintain one's sanity living in such contradiction, one can only think with those who provide sharp and penetrating clarity when analyzing the discourses of the moment. “It isn't revolutionary or materialist to disconnect things. To disconnect revolutionary consciousness from revolutionizing activity, to build consciousness with political agitation and educational issue-making alone is idealistic rather than materialist....” (George Jackson, Blood in My Eye, 1972: 26-27). Thinking through the binary, the either/or category of thought that limits our capacities for strategic praxis in Western capitalist democracies, we see how the dialectical processes operate throughout the Africana world to create contradictions [and opportunity]. For example, Senegalese political economist Ndongo Samba Sylla (2013), echoing the scholarship of Samir Amin (2004) in The Liberal Virus, demystifies the celebratory language of ‘free and transparent' elections for ‘liberal democracies' in Africa as fictitious systems that benefit the economic elite in-so-much as they create an impression (rather than a reality) of an emancipated collective.” (A Certain Amount of Madness: The Life, Politics, and Legacies of Thomas Sankara, 2018: 130-131; Sylla, 2013). Said all this to say, we are at a juncture. An unavoidable fracture that is weaved into the sociopolitical and cultural fabric of the nation-state. The conflicts inherent in political discourse, that is the competing narratives between the political activity of the collective and the political act of the individual are a manufactured reality in a capitalist democracy. Cedric Robinson provides more clarity for us on this arguing: “capitalist democracy” is one of the most powerful and enduring metanarratives of modern Western historiography. As an ideological formation it has inscribed discursive domains as distinctive as politics and science…As icon, its aura hovers over our institutions of knowledge and power, permeating inquiry and decision making with the counterfeit certainties of predestination” (Cedric Robinson, Oliver Cromwell Cox and the Historiography of the West: 7). So, what is to be done? How do we make sense of all this? Today…: of elections and beyond, thinking through the Crisis in Western Hegemony. I recently sat down with Corey Walker, Professor of the Humanities at Wake Forest University. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

[Note: Produced and aired in 2016] Image: Wise Two https://www.wisetwo.org/ Over the past week and a half…unless one has been locked away in a cave…with absolutely no access to technology of any sort…the world has been attempting to understand and rationalize the US election of Donald Trump. To be more clear, Donald Trump—the person—and his election is a euphemism for and declaration of…the existence and prevalence of racism, sexism, colonialism, imperialism as the modus operandi of the US. Articles have been published with titles such as: Seven These on Trump; How Trump Won; welcome to the Fight; Donald Trump won on White-Male Resentment—but don't confuse that with the working class; Abolish the Electoral College; Panic in America: People in Revolt; It's Class, Stupid, Not Race; and lastly, The GOPs Attack on Voting Rights was the most under-covered story of 2016. What does this have to do with the African world? What makes this moment different from periods of protracted struggle to dismantle the institution of slavery; the fight against Jim Crow; the call for a fundamental restructuring of society during the Black Power Era; efforts to find Pan African solidarity and action during African and other nations of color struggle for independence? To people of the African world, what is different in this moment than any other moment of struggle against some of the highest forms of human bondage—materially and spiritually? What is to be done? What steps need to be taken? In an article published November 11, 2016 on the multimedia news commentary platform, Africa is A Country, titled, Trump's America, Paul Zeleza asserts that: “The world and many Americans are reeling in shock and anxiety at the election of Donald Trump as the next president of this mighty, but deeply disunited and disoriented country. All but a handful of opinion polls pointed to the victory of the incomparably experienced Hillary Clinton. But they were utterly, unforgivably, embarrassingly wrong. They couldn't pick up Trump's ‘silent majority' of ordinary white voters, not just the unapologetic alt-right that quietly cheered on the boisterous candidate, who openly said in public what Republicans and racist whites say in private." The postmortems will be brutal on the other failures of America's collective imagination that resulted in this stunning election result...In this popular American political sport of endless punditry and second guessing, few will take real responsibility for having enabled Trump, few in polite circles will own up to having voted for Trump, much as many whites in South Africa denied ever having been ardent supporters of Apartheid...” Zeleza goes on to ask: What does it say about a country that could elect such an unsavory character? Zeleza answers: Countries get the leaders they deserve. I would add that the myths that create false historical narrative of the United States maintain a false sense of belonging which simultaneously bolster the legitimacy of the rulers through the coerced consent from those they seek to rule …produce the necessity to demand that the nation—and its components—re-evaluate its functionality whether it wants to or not. This program: discourse & explanations seeks to highlight new types of praxis in light of this current manifestation of a long process of global white domination. I sat down with Corey Walker, [former] Dean of The College and the John W. and Anna Hodgin Hanes Professor of the Humanities at Winston Salem State University [now Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities] Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous African and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!!

Religion or one's spiritual practice are the center of one's understanding of themselves in relation to the world within which they live. It is indeed the essence of who are. And for better or worse contextualizes and informs our identity. The development of practices and/or rituals that seek to help us understand the relationship between humanity, nature, and the universe are both a science and an art. When exploring the contours and continuities of Africana radical traditions, religion and/or spirituality or spiritual practices are often explored in relation to Western European traditions, in many ways, intentionally. The project to situate mainstream denominational formations at the center of the Africana religious experience began as a retort to those who claimed that Africa had no religion—only fetishism (Pietz 1988, 105–123). More than this, it has operated to silence traditions that have fallen outside regnant post-Enlightenment understandings of religion as “faith”. This has meant that, for the better part of a century, religion has been deemed synonymous with Christianity, and the institutional Black Church, in the U.S, in particular (Pérez, 2014: 82). Yet, Africa, still flashes through. There have been calls to reevaluate the grand narratives of Eurocentric religious thought and entertain the viability of de-centering the Black Church (Pérez, 2014: 93). I mean, was it not Cécile Fatiman, a mambo, and Dutty Boukman, a houngan, presiding over a Vodoun ceremony that gave direction and energy to Africans to free themselves in Haiti? What about our maroon ancestors? In Working Roots and Conjuring Traditions: Relocating Black ‘Cults and Sects' in African-American Religious History, Pérez argues that it is imperative to de-center the Black church in order to approach the heterogeneity and richness of lived religion…” (73). In relation to the Black radical tradition and Islam, specifically what's considered its unorthodox formations, little attention is given. Accordingly, narrow conceptualizations of Islam, or any spiritual practices of Africana peoples for that matter, marginalizes the impact of unorthodox communities. We miss the fact that Clarence 13X, Father Allah, a dissident follower of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, use the “Black God trope that 13X learned from El Shabazz to articulate their humanist worldview” (Collins, A Disciple of Malcolm X: Clarence 13X Smith's Embodied Black God Rhetoric, 2020). In the final analysis, a historical consciousness that does not inform a radical imagination that invents paths to an African future is counterproductive to liberation. Today, we will explore, contextually, Islam and the Black radical tradition. AWNP's, Dr. Tasneem Siddiqui is in conversation with Dr. Bilal Ware. Dr. Rudolph (Bilal) Ware is a historian of Africa and Islam. He is currently an associate professor at the UC-Santa Barbara, and the founding director of the Initiative for the Study of Race, Religion, and Revolution (ISRRAR). His first book, The Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa, explores the history of a thousand years of Quran schooling in the region. His research and teaching examines Muslim anti-slavery movements in Africa and the Atlantic World. His most recent book, Jihad of the Pen: Sufi Thought in West Africa, with co-authors Zakary Wright and Amir Syed, explores Sufi thought in West Africa. Dr. Ware is currently working on: Visionaries: Second Sight and Social Change in Islamic West Africa; and The First Atlantic Revolution: Islam, Abolition, & Republic in West Africa c. 1776. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

[Note: This program was produced and aired in 2016] Image: Acclaimed Kenyan street artist & muralist, Wise 2 [https://www.singulart.com/en/artist/wise-two-5599] Today, we will listen to Pt. 2 of a two-part series titled: Hip Hop as Critical (Pan African) Consciousness. In this series, we engage a range of artists, activist, & thinkers in deeply exploring the essence of and finding the continuities in African and Diasporic sociopolitical thought and behavior—focusing specifically on hip hop as a form of cultural expression and creative resistance. The series engages in a substantive discourse on the viability of hip hop being a platform for developing a critical consciousness. A platform based in Pan African activity that has implications for the entire African world as well as other oppressed people. Today's conversation, in particular, is intent on sparking a shift in our approaches to cultural production, resistance, and art as emancipation practice—it seeks to interrogate what we know?—And how we have come to know what we know?—knowledge production not simply for the sake of knowing…but for the purpose of guiding our doing—framing our activity. We are working to move conversations beyond "mainstream" discourse about hip hop and situate it in a proper context…addressing real-time problems faced by Africans and African descendant across the globe… It does this…by first, examining the origins and continuities in African and Diasporic dimensions of hip hop…and secondly, look @ its ability to transmit complex messages that have collective sensibilities in inform the formation of a critical consciousness… With this, several fundamental questions arise, which asks, but are but are not limited to: 1. Why is culture such an important place for contestation?2. How can hip hop be used as a force for creative resistance? 3. Can hip hop serve as a platform for developing a critical consciousness? If, so, in what must it be rooted?4. What is the role of the artist?...Or More importantly what is the role and responsibility of the listeners? Today, in Part 2 of this series…we will listen to a recent wide-ranging conversation with scholar, activist, and artist Will Boone. Dr. Boone is an Associate Professor and chair of English at Winston Salem State University where he teaches courses on African and Diasporic Studies. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

Image: Ella Baker at the November 1974 Puerto Rican Independence Solidarity Rally Attempts to distort, rewrite, dilute, misdirect, and misguide the impact of our radical scholars, radical thinkers, activist, artist, and advocates are carefully planned practices by those who hold perceived positions of authority. The exclusion of important Africana thinkers and activist is not a matter of simple exclusion, but a matter of intentional attempts to disrupt the continuity of radicalization.Ella Baker words from a speech titled, “The Black Woman in the Civil Rights Struggle” delivered at the Institute of the Black World in 1969, are still sharply true today. Ms. Baker reasoned that: “In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed. This means that we are going to have to learn to think in radical terms.” Barbara Ransby, one of the world's preeminent thinkers and activist, writes in Ella Taught Me: Shattering the Myth of the Leaderless Movement that “those who romanticize the concept of leaderless movements often misleadingly deploy Ella Baker's words, “Strong people don't need [a] strong leader.” Baker delivered this message in various iterations over her 50-year career working in the trenches of struggle, but what she meant was specific and contextual." Professor Ransby, who also wrote the important, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision, suggests that “Ella Baker spent her entire adult life trying to “change this system as rooted in exploitation, oppression, and the idea that Whiteness equals supremacy.” Somewhere along the way she recognized that her goal was not a single “end” but rather an ongoing “means,” that is, a process. Radical change for Ella Baker was about a persistent and protracted process of discourse, debate, consensus, reflection, and struggle.” Employing an Africana critical human rights consciousness if you will. In addition to Professor Ransby work, it is vital and essential that I highlight and call attention to the work of Joanne Grant who provided us with: Black Protest: History, Documents, and Analysis 1619 to Present, 1968; Ella Baker: Freedom Bound, 1998; Confrontation on Campus: The Columbia Pattern for the New Protest, 1969; but she produced an important documentary film titled: Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker. Joanne Grant, a radical journalist and activist of African descent who served as an assistant to W.E.B Du Bois; she was a member of the Communist Party, which made her a target of the House Un-American Activities Committee; was an author; documentary filmmaker is yet another important link in the genealogy of Black radical praxis that have continuities with not only Diaspora exemplars such as but not limited to, Ella Baker, Septima Clark, Fannie Lou Hammer, Madie Hall Xuma but continental Africa as well, Winnie Mandela, Miriam Makeba, Mariama Ba to name a few. Today, in response to screening of Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker AWNP co-sponsored this past August, we will listen to a conversation I had with Zach Norris where we explore the continuities of the praxis of Ella Baker. Zach Norris is the Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, author of We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities, and co-founder of Restore Oakland. Zach is also a co-founder of Justice for Families, a national alliance of family-driven organizations working to end our nation's youth incarceration epidemic. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

Image: Painting by Najma Ahmed, founder of Nujuum Arts. Based in Mogadishu and Hargaisa. Somalia/ somaliland. More information available here: https://web.marcelforart.com/nujuum_hashi/about The geopolitical conditions within which Somalia was born cannot be divorced from the conditions that institutionalized themselves in 1884/85 at what has come to be called the Scramble for Africa at the conference convened in Berlin, the Congo Conference. During the Conference where European white supremacist decided it was their right to divide the lands to which they had no affinity other than economic motives, the geographical region of Somalia was divided into three parts: British & Italian Somalia [gaining independence 1960—immediately untied, forming greater Somalia], and French Somalia [gaining independence in 1977, becoming Djibouti]. Other historical influences that produced current Somalia, are located in the conditions that surround the periods when the Ethiopian Empire took over [Ogaden] and Kenya took over [Northern Frontier District] regions. These historical conditions bolstered by exacerbating and fomenting divisions among the various groups of people who live in the region are important to understand as they directly impact the environments within which the people live today. To erroneously label Somalia as a fail state, instead of a collapsed state, distorts the how and why the region is in a state of intentional conflict accelerated at the behest of Western foreign capitalist interest that have historical roots in the many attempts to control the region; that is the wars between European cultural groups and the sociopolitical, cultural ‘Others' they created as their ‘enemies'. To be clear, upon closer analysis the real threat of the region is the fact that the people of Somalia are really showing that the nation state is not the only system upon which peoples can organize themselves. What do I mean, the people in the region have been functioning against the imposition of foreign structures that have cause internal conflict for over 30+ years. If left to organize themselves on the trajectory they were ancestrally on before the intentional and aggressive efforts of Western nations to destabilize the region for its own economic and geopolitical ends, Somalia as we know it would be what it once was erroneously labelled, the Switzerland of Africa. The reason I say erroneously labeled [but still useful to highlight the point]; the model of peaceful sociopolitical organization should not be limited to a European nation. This label, also, dismisses the deep logics and sociopolitical histories of African peoples who organized themselves into civilizations before the creation of the nation state. These histories and logics are in the ancestral membrane of the people. And the peoples of Somalia, despite the distorted narrative and images are exemplar to this fact [https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2016/10/somalia-forgotten-story-161027115655140.html]. Today, AWNP's, Mwiza Munthali is in conversation with, Mr. Abukar Arman. Abukar Arman is a former diplomat, once serving as Somalia's Special Envoy to the US. As a Somali political analyst, he is widely published on issues related to foreign policy, Islam, the Horn of Africa, and extremism among other topics. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Note: This program was produced and aired in 2017. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first prime minister and president after declaring their independence on March 6, 1957…founding member of the Organization of African Unity, wrote in the preface of the 1969 second edition of his work titled Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization that: “Since the publication of the 1st edition of Consciencism in 1964, the African revolution has decisively entered a new phase, the phase of armed struggle. In every part of our continent, African revolutionaries are either preparing for armed struggle, or actively engaged in military operations against the forces of reaction and counter-revolution. The issues are now clearer than they have ever been. The succession of military...” [https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/consciencism-philosophy-and-ideology-de-colonization-kwame-nkrumah]. According to historian John Henrik Clarke in his 1974 article titled Kwame Nkrumah: His Years in America, "the influence of the ten years that he spent in the United States would have a lingering effect on the rest of his life." Key to the maturation of his sociopolitical thought, it is during these 10 years, Kwame Nkrumah, along with Nnamdi Azikiwe the first president of Nigeria attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Dr. Clarke goes on to suggest that “there is no way to understand the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, or any other man, without also understanding the country in which he was born and to what extent that country and the circumstances of his birth did influence the total of his life...” Today, Africa World Now Project Radio will bring you a recent exploration into the Social and Political Philosophy of Kwame Nkrumah with Dr. Kofi Kissi Dompere. Dr. Dompere is professor of economics at Howard University. He is author of many scientific and scholarly works in economics, philosophy, and decision theory. Some of this work includes his 2006, Polyrhythmicity; his 2017, The Theory of Philosophical Consciencism: Practice Foundations of Nkrumaism in Social Systemicity; 2006, African Union: Pan African Analytical Foundations; 2017, The Theory of Categorial Conversion: Rational Foundations of Nkrumaism in Socio-natural Systemicity and Complexity; 1995, Epistemics of Development Economics: Toward a Methodological Critique and Unity. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program…!

Photo: Col. John Charles Robinson of Chicago In Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, Robin DG Kelley writes that “most black people believed there was an order higher than the Constitution. Throughout the Africana experience in the Americas, Psalm 68, verse 31 of the Bible promised redemption for the black world. It reads: “Princes shall come out of Egypt. Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God.” Kelley goes on to suggest that this passage was as important to Pan-Africanist and emigrationist sentiment as the book of Exodus, even becoming the theological and ideological basis for what became known in the nineteenth century as Ethiopianism. One of the earliest published examples of this doctrine was Robert Alexander Young's Ethiopian Manifesto: Issued in Defense of the Blackman's Rights in the Scale of Universal Freedom (1829), which predicted the coming of a new Hannibal who would lead a violent uprising to liberate the race. Just like Haiti, Ethiopia's reputation as a beacon of hope and strength for the Africana world was solidified in 1896, after the defeat of Italy at the Battle of Adwa. The histories of Afro America and Ethiopia interacting are both deep and complex. But what is clear, Ethiopia held its own space in the sociopolitical thought of the Africana world. In his New World A-Coming, Roi Ottley wrote that "Negroes first became aware of the black nation [of Ethiopia] back in 1919, when Ethiopian dignitaries arrived in the United States on a diplomatic mission. During their stay in New York, this group received a delegation of Black folk from Harlem. During a ceremonial reception for this diplomatic mission, held at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Harlem, the Mayor of Addis Ababa, delivered a speech expressing Ethiopian and Afro-American unity. Throughout the 1900s, African responded to various official invitations and appeals recruiting technically skilled Black Americans to settle in the country. Universal sympathy expressed by Afro-Americans for the Ethiopian-Italian war was shaped into concrete reality through the activities of several war relief committees. Actual participation in the war was expressed through the military activities of two Afro American airmen. "Colonel" John Charles Robinson, of Chicago and Trinidadian-born "Colonel" Hubert Fauntleroy Julian, who arrived in Ethiopia in late 1934 (as volunteer pilots for the only two Ethiopian planes that were airworthy during the war). After the war, Robinson remained in Ethiopia to establish commercial air service into East Africa and the Sudan. With the purchase of an old World War II surplus DC-3 aircraft, Robinson became service crew and pilot for the forerunner of the present Ethiopian Air Lines [Shack, 1974]. I wanted to contextual this deep historical context of U.S. African descendant connections and continuities with Ethiopia in effort to prime your historical memory of the importance of Ethiopia in the context of Africana internationalism and its place in the radical black imagination as a platform to understanding the current conditions in nation. More importantly why Africa, its nations, and the conditions within which communities face there are directly related to the conditions within which Africana people's faces across the world. Today, AWNP's Mwiza Munthali speaks with Ayantu Ayana, doctoral student and a member of the Oromo Advocacy Alliance, where she contextualizes the current conditions in Ethiopia. Aynatu Ayana addresses the underlying historical-rooted issues that manifest today in the country. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

Wangũi wa Kamonji in her article, Women in Kenya rebuild resilience amidst an eco-cultural crisis, published in February of this year, a few weeks before the current global pandemic takes its cripplingly hold, writes that: “in the global North, it has become more common to declare that indigenous peoples hold the solutions to the climate crisis. Such rhetoric risks being only lip-service if solutions do not recognize and resource indigenous-led work to repair damage to indigenous cultures, commitment to an indigenous resurgence and the full integration of wisdom of these indigenous values in projects that seek solutions. After decades of shame, [violent] suppression and devaluation, much indigenous knowledge held by groups like the Tharaka [in Kenya] has been forgotten, hidden or impaired. Tharaka women [have] often commented that it seemed like “everything was going to disappear.” Facing this eco-cultural crisis, remembering, and restoring indigenous women's knowledge and practices, grounded in a paradigm of respect and collaboration with the Earth, emerges as the most salient pathway to recovery and restoration. Professor Gloria Emeagwali adds sharp clarity to this notion when she argues that, I must quote in its totality: “Throughout Africa, in spite of ongoing colonization and the continuing effects of globalization, there are people, particularly in rural communities, who still associate their existence to, and with, the land, and with their immediate socio-physical environments and surroundings. Land has been a source of Indigenous identity for Africans, in that through associations with the land, local cultures, spiritualities, politics, economics, and the relations of society to Nature are defined. There are knowledges associated with the land that continue to guide everyday existence. People continue to negotiate identities, cultures, and spiritualities with particular understandings of the place of the human in their environments. These phenomena constitute important dimensions of the knowledgebase, and such knowledge also informs everyday existence. African indigeneity must be read as both a process and a form of identity. It is an identity that defines who a people are at a particular point in time. But it is also a recognition that such identities are in a continual process of existence. The lesson here is that a peoples' indigeneity and indigenousness is not simply taken away from them simply because they encounter others on their homeland [or beyond]. The Eurocentric constructions of the Indigenous as primitive, culture-based, and static is a ploy to privilege European identity, and should be distinguished from what the people claim and assert of their own indigeneity and indigenousness. The latter is about the affirmation of self, community, history, culture, tradition, heritage, and ancestry. Eurocentric constructions are about establishing cultures of hierarchies as a way to accord privilege and power. This is how racism worked and continues to work. Today, AWNP's Tasneem Siddiqui [@DrT_Siddiqui] is in conversation with activist and thinker, Wangũi wa Kamonji [@_fromtheroots]. They explore the contours and practice of indigenous knowledge and ancient technologies as that inform a decolonization that is simultaneously in resistance & restoration. Through research, dance, storytelling and facilitating diverse public spaces for critical consciousness and transformation, Wangũi wa Kamonji is retrieving and restoring indigenous Afrikan lifeways and practices. [Also see: @afrikahai_] Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

[Image: Claudia Jones Paul Robeson Amy A Garvey with friends in London England, Source: Source Pan African News Wire] W.E.B. Du Bois (1933) in, Pan-Africa and new racial philosophy, presents his early articulations of Pan Africanism as “the industrial and spiritual emancipation of the Negro people” wherever they are in the world. George Padmore (1955) in, Pan Africanism or Communism, asserts that “the idea of Pan Africanism first arose as a manifestation of fraternal solidarity among Africans and peoples of African descent" (95). I have explored in, Pan-Africanism in the United States: Identity and Belonging, why Pan-African discourse is not a dominant expression in African diasporic resistance in the U.S. today. This is not to say a Pan-African discourse is not present at all, but when situated in the historical and intellectual genealogy of African decedent experiences in the U.S., it is marginal at best. Even with this contextualization, the marginalization of Africana women in the formation and evolution of Pan African thought and practice is important to center. This disarticulation has distorted the historical narrative of radical and Pan African thought of the fact that in “early coverage of the 1900 Pan-African Congress reveals delegates, “all eminent in their sphere” who represented the United States, Canada, Ethiopia, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the then Gold Coast, most of the islands of the then British West Indies included Miss Anna Jones (Kansas), and Mrs. Annie Cooper (i.e. Anna Julia Cooper) (Washington, D.C.) among others (see Adi & Sherwood 2003, for listings). Mabel Dove Danquah attended the 2nd Pan African Congress. Her husband Joseph Boakye Danquah, himself a major pan-Africanist was one of the African students that Amy Ashwood Garvey nurtured in the West African Students Union in London (Davies, 2014: 80). Adelaide Casely Hayford, who married the pan-Africanist J.E. Casely Hayford in 1903 and as a pan-Africanist herself, briefly held the position of lady president of the UNIA branch in Freetown, Sierra Leone. She spent two years in the U.S. studying girls schools, became an associate of U.S. women like Nannie Burroughs, and would later develop her own school for girls. In 1927 she attended the fourth Pan-African Congress in New York (Davies, 2014: 80). Today, we explore the current rebellion through a Pan African lens with Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity. Africans Rising is a Pan-African movement of people and organizations. Next, you will hear, in order, of speaking: Coumba Toure, co-coordinator of Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity; Hakima Abbas, executive co-director of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID); M. Adams, community organizer and co-executive director of Freedom Inc; Taalib Saber, Pan Africanist, filmmaker and principal attorney at The Saber Firm, LLC, where he practices Education and Special Education Law, Civil Rights, and Personal Injury Law; Dimah Mahmoud, co founder of the Nubia Initiative, a humanist, activist, and passionate change-maker; Gacheke Gachihi, Coordinator, Mathare Social Justice Center and member, Social Justice Centres Working Group in Nairobi, Kenya; and Yoel Haile, Criminal Justice Program Manager with the ACLU of Northern California. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

[Note: Produced and aired in 2017] For more than four centuries, the communities formed by such escaped enslaved peoples dotted the fringes of plantations in the Americas, from Brazil to southeastern United States, from Peru to the American Southwest. Known variously as quilombos, mocambos, or mambeses, these new societies ranged from tiny bands that survived less than a year to powerful states encompassing thousands of members that survived for generations and even centuries. Their descendants still form semi-independent enclaves in several parts of the hemisphere -for example, in Suriname, French Guiana, Jamaica, Colombia and Belize. For generations, historians believed that even the most remarkable of maroon settlements in the North America did not rival the achievements of maroon communities in South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. Nevertheless, according to a number of scholars such as Cedric Robinson, Gerald Mullin as well as Herbert Aptheker evidence of the existence of at least fifty such communities in various places and at various times, from 1672 to 1864, has been found. Taken further back, Herbert Aptheker's work shows us that the 1st maroon communities pre-dated Jamestown settlements by 82 years. They were slave insurrectionists from abortive Spanish colonizing efforts in North and South Carolina. With this……We will listen to part of a discussion between famed independent filmmaker, activist, scholar Haile Gerima and Dr. Akinyele Umjoa where they discussed maroons and Dr. Umjoa's book, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement… Haile Gerima is an independent filmmaker and professor of film at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in Ethiopia, Gerima immigrated to the United States in 1967. After the award-winning Ashes & Embers (1982) and the documentaries Wilmington 10—U.S.A 10,000 (1978) and After Winter: Sterling Brown (1985), Gerima filmed his epic, Sankofa (1993). Gerima continues to distribute and promote his own films, including his most recent, Teza, which won the Jury and Best Screenplay awards at the Venice Film Festival in 2008. He also lectures and conducts workshops in alternative screenwriting and directing both within the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Akinyele Umjoa is a scholar-activist, who currently serves as the Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Georgia State University (GSU). Dr. Umoja's writing has been featured in scholarly publications such as The Journal of Black Studies, Black Scholar, Radical History Review and Socialism and Democracy. And a number of edited volumes. He is also author of We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement. We then turn our attention to the theory and practice of the Black church. I sat down with Dr. Torin Alexander, where we explored the deep epistemological and ontological underpinnings of the black church. Paying attention to the differentiation of the Black church as an institutional-physical space and incubator of liberatory practice. Dr. Alexander is a scholar of African American religion and religious experience. His interdisciplinary research and teaching are influenced by phenomenology, critical theories on race and gender, and post-colonial/post-structuralist studies. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program….

We are currently living in an age where poverty and disease are big business. In a world where race and class produce and reproduce ways of interacting. This process has found ways to attach itself to our very construction of individual and group realities, therefore entrenching conscious and unconscious acts of racism as being natural and/or universal occurrences. We live in a world where racial diversity is misunderstood as ideological diversity…a constructed reality where the ascription of power is imposed on old ideas of identity and re-incorporated in new forms of marginalization. This holds true, despite any claim of post-this-or-post-that…that is made by dominant discourses. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in 1903 in Souls of Black Folk that: “THE PROBLEM of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, —the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea” Today, in the 21st Century, we are still confronted with this color line, which is exacerbated by a symbiotic relationship with the drive to secure material wealth at rates that often rival the height of the age of imperialism, where the total control of Africa as well as other resource rich lands were dominant behavioral expressions in geopolitics. Prophetically, in his later writings, as W.E.B Du Bois is known to do, expands or situates his conceptualization of the color line into being intimately linked with class formations. In the Preface of the 1953 Edition of the Souls of Black Du Bois argues that: “I still think today as yesterday that the color line is a great problem of this century. But today I see more clearly than yesterday that back of the problem of race and color, lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance, and disease of the majority of their fellowmen; that to maintain this privilege men have waged war until today war tends to become universal and continuous, and the excuse for this war continues largely to be color and race.” Often ignored by the sympathetic democratic rhetoric of liberals, are the racialized consequences of massive poverty and cultural displacement integral to the globalizing project of democratization (a euphemism for the unbridled proliferation of capitalism). Within this environment, the meanings of race are constantly re-configuring itself as various forms of exclusion built upon the consequences of enslavement, colonialism, and imperialism are perpetuated and refined. Today: We will dive deeper into understanding race. What we will hear next is Charles W. Mills describe how race was materialized with the advent of modernity. He argues that capitalism is racialized, and white supremacy was interwoven within it from its origins. Charles W. Mills is a Caribbean philosopher from Jamaica. He is known for his work in social and political philosophy, particularly in oppositional political theory as centered on class, gender, and race. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. He is the author of numerous books on race and political theory, including The Racial Contract (1997), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (1998), and the forthcoming Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism (2017). Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program

[Note: This program was produced and aired in 2017] The question of land as a fundamental aspect of Africana liberation movements is an often-neglected point of inquiry when exploring the long genealogy of Africana thought and behavior—radical or otherwise. Nevertheless, it is indeed, ever-present. A reading of the large cache of demands, treaties, and platforms of various communities of Africana people and organizations provide the historical reality of this fact. With this, a place that one can start, and move forward or backward is with, of course, Brother Malcolm. As his revolutionary praxis evolved, he once exclaimed that: “Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research. And when you see that you've got problems, all you have to do is examine the historic method used all over the world by others who have problems similar to yours. Once you see how they got theirs straight, then you know how you can get yours straight. There's been a revolution, a black revolution, going on in Africa. In Kenya, the Mau Mau were revolutionary; they were the ones who brought the word "Uhuru" to the fore. The Mau Mau, they were revolutionary, they believed in scorched earth, they knocked everything aside that got in their way, and their revolution was also based on land, a desire for land. In Algeria, the northern part of Africa, a revolution took place. The Algerians were revolutionists, they wanted land. France offered to let them be integrated into France. They told France, to hell with France, they wanted some land, not some France. And they engaged in a bloody battle. So, I cite these various revolutions, brothers and sisters, to show you that you don't have a peaceful revolution. You don't have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. The only kind of revolution that is nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only revolution in which the goal is loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. It is the only revolution in which the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public toilet; you can sit down next to the white folks -- on the toilet. That's no revolution. Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis for all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality...” Brother Malcolm's ideas are firmly situated in the long tradition of early radical activist and thinkers such as Detroit attorney Milton Henry, the 19th century movements of Benjamin Pap Singleton. And, of course, the Communist Party's Black Belt Nation Thesis, lest we forget the efforts of the Republic of New Afrika. Together, these, and the many other efforts across the African world all center the question of land as being the fundamental component in black liberation movements. We see this reality in communities in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Colombia, Brazil…etc Land is understood not in the limited capitalist sense of ownership but the transmission of communal practices of human stewardship as being primary care-takers of the planet. Today, we will explore the question of land and African world liberation with Dr. Tasneem Siddiqui and Dr. Willie Jamaal Wright. Dr. Siddiqui is Assistant Professor of History at Winston Salem State University and Dr. Wright is Assistant Professor of geography at Florida State University. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

We are witnessing a period that is trending towards unprecedented, but it is not without genealogy or tradition. Those who seek to counter this rebellion promote narratives with increased use of violence that tries to narrow the righteous rage to suggest that folk are responding to one instance of violence. They think that folk are rebelling against a video. They think folks must protest peacefully. The ‘they' are those in positions of perceived power where thought and action are built upon racial capitalist logics that maintain and reinforce systems of dehumanization. Folk are not responding to an instance of violence. People are instinctively responding to the structural and historical realties of violence… It is essential in this moment where European modernity is fracturing, for every critical thinking African and person of African descendant, globally, to grab hold of the fracture and pull with all your might. Even more important, it is essential to gain clarity of objective and practice a sharpness of means. George Jackson wrote: “We find ourselves today forced into a reexamination of the whole nature of black revolutionary consciousness and its relative standing within a class society…” Political education then becomes the call of the day. In this regard Fred Hampton provides a clear analysis of the role of political education in this reexamination [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffmg6i0lv_k]. Education—political education must be evident. And allow me to quickly point out that to be educated is to—read. The revolutionary importance of reading is key. Therefore, our rebellious, ungovernable discourse must be rooted in a critical Human Rights consciousness, specifically a critical Africana human rights consciousness It is here, the platform that guides the question, what next? can be built. From this CAHRC, we must engage in five activities: 1) seek to institutionalize this moment; 2) develop ideological refinement for clarity towards objective; 3) all efforts must be linked with internationalism—PanAfrican being organizational goals; 4) consolidate written & nonwritten projects of black critique into a sustained counter discourse, that provides response and self-critique; and 5) root all of this in a critical Africana human rights consciousness, which is, in fact, a critique and expansion of human rights theory and practice, currently organized. As we begin to move further into next phases, we must move, in the words of Kwame Ture, our unconscious to conscious organized response. Above all, we must also keep in mind the tactics offered by Amilcar Cabral: 1) those engaged in struggle, should unflinchingly practice class suicide; & 2) in spite of all fought for and gained: “Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies…Claim no easy victories.” It is in this historical genealogy we walk. It is in this ancestral tradition we live. It is here, George Jackson provides more clarity: “We must prove our predictions about the future with action.” And I will add within all expediency of black critique, as the future of our humanity rests on getting this right. Next, you will hear a recent conversation I had with Dr. Daryl B Harris. Daryl B. Harris is an associate professor and former chair of political science at Howard University. He is author of The Logic of Black Rebellions; Postmodernist Diversions in African American Thought; as various other chapters and articles. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

Note: This conversation with Brother Ah was the first program produced for AWNP Radio. It aired as the inaugural program in 2016. Brother has joined the ancestors today (May 31 2020). We will need to hear him speak with us on a higher frequency. He was, is and will continue to be. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I recently had the pleasure to sit down with one of our scribes…Bro. Ah…to Reflect upon Africa's Deep Influence on Diasporic Cultural Production. Robert Northern (aka Brother Ah) is the musical director of the World Music Ensemble and The Sounds of Awareness Ensemble. He specializes in Wind Instruments, African Drums, and Percussions. Brother Ah constantly seeks to celebrate the emergence of a world culture, while retaining the distinct expressions of each cultural style in it, paying particular attention to African inflections. Brother Ah extensive experience spans the musical field. He was the musical director of “Sounds of Awareness”. A musical collective that utilizes music, dance, poetry and the sounds of nature to inspire and raise individual levels of consciousness. The group also produces music for meditation, relaxation and healing. He also founded The World Community School of Music in 1992 and offers instrumental and vocal music classes to students of all ages from. As a lecturer and educator, he has taught at public and private schools in New York and Washington, DC, as well as Brown University in Rhode Island (9 years), Dartmouth College in New Hampshire (3 years), Talladega College (Alabama). Brother Ah is a performer, educator, lecturer, composer and arranger both in Western and non-Western traditions. He has composed and directed numerous extended works including “Ode to Creation”, The Forces of Nature” and “Tribute to the Ancestors”. Brother Ah, as a French horniest, has played and recorded with musical greats including, but not limited to, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Sun Ra, Dizzy Gillespie, Eric Dolphy, Max Roach, John Lewis, to name a few. His classical performances include the New York Metropolitan Opera (stage band), Radio City Music Hall Orchestra; symphony orchestras in Vienna, Austria, West Germany and Broadway Theatre orchestras. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, the Vienna State Academy in Vienna, Austria, and he is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, DC. This is Africa World Now Project…I am James Pope. [Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!] Enjoy the program…

Image: Monument to the Maroon, Alberto Lescay, in El Cobre, Santiago de Cuba, taken June 2019; https://albertolescay.com/ It must be said, we have entered the most aggressive phase of European modernity's disintegration. One that has been built upon decades of exploitation—human and natural. This may seem to be a very strong statement. Some may even suggest that it is an overstatement. It is neither. It is not based on speculation or opinion. The map of human history, the warnings of anti-racist, anti-racial capitalist, environmentalists, antiwar thinkers, advocates, activists have predicted this moment. Octavia Butler, Martin Delany, Ngugi, write and wrote about this. Fanon, Cabral, Biko, Armah, Gyekye, Du Bois, the Boggs, the Jacksons, Baraka theorized this moment. Coltrane, Coleman attempted to play us toward another direction. Simone, Lincoln, Holiday, provided a way to understand and see beyond this moment. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that we utilize this space, this moment of fracturing to create something new. We have been given the tools; our ancestors gave us the map. Let us read it together. To reformulate a black studies within the epistemic and philosophical architecture that is inadequate to properly engage its trajectory and call it new, is a contradiction of the highest order. Today, we will explore the contradictory musings of this new black studies...with Dr. Corey Walker. Corey D. B. Walker is the Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities at Wake Forest University. He is the author of A Noble Fight: African American Freemasonry and the Struggle for Democracy in America (University of Illinois Press), editor of Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy: Can We Make American Democracy Work? (Edward Elgar Publishing), editor of the special issue of the journal Political Theology on “Theology and Democratic Futures,” and associate editor of the award-winning SAGE Encyclopedia of Identity. He has also published over sixty articles, essays, book chapters and reviews appearing in a wide range of scholarly journals and co-directed and co-produced the documentary film fifeville with acclaimed artist and filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson. He has held faculty and academic leadership positions at Brown University, University of Virginia, Virginia Union University, and Winston-Salem State University and visiting faculty appointments at Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena, Union Presbyterian Seminary, and University of Richmond. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Image: ODO NNYEW FIE KWAN, "Love never loses its way home" Kahlil Gibran, writing in the 1921, The Prophet presents us with a serious meditation on love: Gibran writes: “Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love” (The Prophet, 1921). Our great ancestor, Toni Morrison writing Beloved in 1977, provides an even more clear meditation on love… Morrison writes: “Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all” (Beloved, 1977). Love, as a praxis, a concept and practice, requires serious deliberation, specifically, in the context of relationships, interactions, and black family stability. As love is often the platform, or base, upon which family units are built. It is also the platform upon which knowledge systems rooted in generative human progress and spirituality are built. When broaching a conversation such as this, it spurs great, and varying debate on the fundamental meanings of love, relationships, and family. Understandably so because they impact every aspect of our being. Yet, a cursory study suggests that every philosophy of life, religion and/or spiritual system understand that love is defined as unconditional, as it is rooted in things seen and unseen. It is the root of all life—biological, spiritual, the life of the mind…and is essential to its proliferation and evolution. The most important experiences we will have in our journey through this material reality are directly related to the relationships and interactions we create, nurture, and evolve. Thus, the primary task in our efforts to create, nurture and evolve, is rooted in balancing our individual and collective philosophies of life. [a task that is really the fulcrum upon which relationship and/or interactions survive the various stressors within which they form]. This brings us to today's conversation. I would like to be clear; it is not an attempt to provide definitive answers. It is not a claim of right or wrong, promoting one perspective over another. It is an attempt to disrupt normative assumptions about one of the most important aspects of our human existence: love, relationships, interactions, and marital stability, in our case the Black family. Our program is not an attempt to intellectualize and disregard the emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical components of love, relationships, interactions, and stability. It attempts to provide a platform that can provide help in understanding and balancing these, at times, destabilizing factors, molding them into lasting connections…in this world and beyond… It is an attempt to help us find forever! In this regard, we bring you a recent conversation I had with Dr. Antonius Skipper. Antonius Skipper, PhD [LSU] is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Winston-Salem State University. Dr. Skipper maintains an active research agenda that explores the social, medical, and familial experiences of African Americans. He qualitatively explores factors that contribute to the stability and resilience in African American families. He is widely published on issues such as, religion as a source of coping and resilience for older African Americans, religiosity and health, marital stability in strong African American couples, and generative fathering for Black men. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

I would like to be clear at the outset: the question of the survival of black colleges and universities is actually a very problematic inquiry… It highlights the internalization of racialized ideological propensities, as this question is debated primarily by folk within the black community. The colonized ideological impulses that drive the philosophy of education as it relates to Africana peoples filter into and arrest the imagination of communities who attach to survivalist projects that suggest the only way out is to be cogs in a machine designed to overwork, underpay, and discard its human remains… The ancient practices rooted in Africana peoples congregating in common space [whether forced or voluntarily] has produced much of the world most innovative thought and practices, that range across all disciplines. In short, #HBCUsWork... This is despite working within constrains that if one simply scratches the surface of explanations, are due to manufactured budget and other non-monetary constraints. This is all wrapped within another layer of insidious structures run by, quite frankly, a comprador class of managerial black elite [and want to be elite] who have been trained in the best traditions of plantation philosophical practices that arrest the radical imagination if its students and faculty who are invested in nurturing a critical consciousness... If allowed the unfettered freedom to develop its most potent substance, the intellectual capital of some of the world's most brilliant minds, that are fed by the river of genealogies that run through the ancestral and historical memories of its students—fragments of memories of Library of Alexandria, the temple complexes throughout Kemet and Nubia… The questions posed by Du Bois that challenges black institutions delivered in various speeches from 1906, The Hampton Idea to his 1960, Whither Now and Why should serve as the frame through which we look, through which we will look today… Black institutions must deal with questions around radical imagination, intellectual capital moving away from the fallacy of attainting access to the plantation capital that PWIs are built upon, HBCUs will never be players in this game... HBCUs must substantively align with African institutions, rooting a praxis in constant decolonization and advancement of knowledge systems. We must move the intellectual boundaries of HBCU knowledge production beyond limited and arrested expectations… The danger and delusion of black [brown and poor] folk as Du Bois warned is the substance upon which institutions have inculcated in the structures that educate generations of students is summed up in one question parents ask, but reality perpetuate the colonizing ideological impulses that drive the philosophy of education as it relates to Africana peoples around the world: what are you going to do what that degree in Africana Studies? Art? History? Literature? Or they demand that you go to school and get a job… We no longer live in that space. The global racial capitalist system does not have enough room to accommodate all peoples clamoring for jobs… The question still stands, to which we are ancestrally and historically bond to answer: Whither Now and Why? Today, Dr. Josh Myers will explore these themes and more in a talk he gave at Winston Salem University centered around the recent publication of his: We Are Worth Fighting ForA History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989. He engaged this history in relationship to the form and function of HBCUs. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

[Note: This program was produced & recorded in 2017] Needless to say, most of you are extremely aware that we are indeed living in a moment that implores each and every one of us to have a clear, resolute, and radical perspective of one's own position in the current sociopolitical environment as well as develop strategies that are broadly informed to address present and coming forms of marginalization. To be clear…the current systemic forms of violence—that is legal, physical, economic, cultural, political, and social—are not new phenomena to Africans and people of African descent. I say this because historically, the naked imposition of power as exhibited through the mechanisms of racial capitalism—chattel slavery; colonialism, neocolonialism; settler colonialism; Jim Crow; Apartheid—has often manifested itself in the material and nonmaterial life of the African world. The difference today…by most accounts is the reconstitution of these older forms of marginalization in a new time and space. The idea of progress is wedded to the movement of time—history. The standard equation reads that the further away we move from something the smaller or the further away we move from that point. So, this accepted understanding brings us to a deep problem…time is often materially bound to structures that are constructed to support various forms of social, political, cultural, and economic relations that are relative to the worldview of those who are in positions of perceived power or authority. Being so, it becomes the work of the radical intellectual—the radical black intellectual in our case—to dig at the root of these structures…pushing the foundations of these structures, systems, and institutions to expand, include, or break! I sat down with M1 of Dead Prez to explore his work, political activity, and the importance of the relationship between cultural production and strategy…in our current moment… When then turn our attention to the International Decade for People of African Descent. The UN General Assembly has proclaimed 2015-2024 as the International Decade for People of African Descent citing the need to strengthen national, regional and international cooperation in relation to the full enjoyment of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights by people of African descent, and their full and equal participation in all aspects of society. Today, we will contribute to this mandate by paying tribute to the people of African descent in the U.S. history month by listening to various speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the most often overlooked aspects of Dr. Martin Luther King in his evolution within the Black freedom movement is his ever evolving internationalism—and growth toward embracing a more radical fight against racism—imperialism—and colonialism…Although we have been inundated with sound bites and narrow frames of reference when exploring Dr. King…Dr. King's activism in many respects was just as evolutionary as El Hajj Malik Shabazz—the ends on the same pole...Dr.King was living in revolutionary times that was grounded and guided by the foundation set by the work of towering international left activist such as Paul Robeson, W. E. B. Du Bois, William Patterson, James and Esther Jackson, National Negro Congress, an early more radical NAACP …In fact, it is often lost that Dr. King in his last book—was keenly aware of the importance of the international struggle. With the help of a compilation produced by Dj Sese titled: Liberating Dr. King: The L is Coming, we will be exposed to Dr. King from a decidedly radical perspective (Big shout-out to @imixwhatilike). Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program…

The resilience, creativity, and genius of African peoples wherever they are found in the world will always be apparent. It is without doubt this pandemic is unraveling and laying bare its core principles that devalue life while at the same time the myths that have supported the systems and structures that create an illusion of a social contract rooted in ideals such as equality and justice are in fact being exposed in the most brightest and boldest way possible. What we are witnessing is the implosion of what Charles Mills calls the racial contract. A contract that is rooted in white supremacy, expressed in economic, political, social, medical interactions. These expressions are global as they are engrained in the cultural milieu of an European antiquity where Europe discovered itself through unbridled expeditions of exploitation over centuries. And let's be honest, this narrative that suggests that: we are all in this together is, but another contradiction rooted in yet another temporality of Western economic, political, social, cultural systems imploding under the weight of its fictitious existence. We are not in this together. The science, material realities, data show, in the Diaspora, people of African descent are dying at disproportionate rates. A few weeks ago, French scientist suggested that vaccines be tested in African communities.1 It has been reported that in 2014, during the West African Ebola outbreak, more than 250,000 blood samples were collected from patients by laboratories in France, the UK, and US without informed consent as patients underwent testing and treatment for Ebola.1 But this practice is not new, and we do not have to go deep into the past…in 1996, in Kano State, Nigeria, where there was a meningitis outbreak, Pfizer conducted clinical trials to test a drug it was developing without the consent of patients. Similar trails were conducted in Zimbabwe in 1994, funded by the US-based CDC and NIH which resulted in adverse effects for patients.2 We can go on and on throughout the African world: Tuskegee Experiment, Henrietta Lacks, the entire practice of gynecology during chattel slavery in the U.S. History shows, data shows, practices show that we are in this…but not together. But through all of this, Africa, Africans and people of African descent have relied upon principles that are rooted deep in ancestral and historical genealogies that are articulated in traditions, cultural expressions, & rituals that will prove, as they have throughout global history to provide paths out of crisis, natural or otherwise. Today, we speak with Kenyan street artist, project curator and trainer, Kerosh who is based in Nairobi. We explore the implications of COVID19 in Kenya. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program! For more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diVWr_eLdnM 1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/ebolas-lost-blood-row-samples-flown-africa-big-pharma-set-cash/ 2. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/medical-colonialism-africa-200406103819617.html https://www.kenyanvibe.com/kenyan-graffiti-artist-wisetwo-paints-largest-murals-in-east-africa/ https://www.facebook.com/anidanarts/posts/introducing-kerosh-kiruri-the-second-artist-who-will-be-coming-to-work-with-the-/1104133713080496/ https://www.tuko.co.ke/102997-make-cool-150k-month-graffiti.html Image: https://www.wendiartit.com/2017/03/meet-kerosh-part-i.html

There is a danger in using and/or buying in to the ‘unprecedented' narrative as being projected by dominant [medical, political, economic] discourse. In relation to the Africana world, it distorts, hides, and marginalizes the impact and community rooted efforts Africana people throughout history have presented the world. This current pandemic is no different. Therefore, identifying historical and ancestrally rooted collective responses [being clear of delineate reaction to conditions, although there were instances of reactions] is essential. Local health. National health. Global health, as being exposed in this current pandemic to be an appendage to racial capitalist logic, is woefully inadequate. This is without any debate. In order to properly contextualize and organize a collective global response to this pandemic, analysts who are using the term—response—who be better served as transmitters of information to adjust their lens to understand that what is happening is a reaction that is innate to the reverberations of sociopolitical and economic structures that are rooted in exploitation, marginalization, and the continued devaluation of human life. Nevertheless, the African world, properly organized, will as in the past provide a way forward for the West—the rest. Today, in the context of World Health Day, which was recognized yesterday, April 7, we speak with Coumba Toure, Coordinator of Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity, speaking to us from Dakar, Senegal. Coumba Toure was born and raised between Mali and Senegal. She is a writer and storyteller and publishes children stories and organizes art events focused on nurturing the mind of children through Falia. She also designs popular education programs with a focus on impacting and is a board member of TrustAfrica. We then turn our attention to the Eastern Cape province, South Africa, where we spoke with writer, activist and poet Siki Dlanga from Eastern Cape, South Africa. She is author of Black Lives Matter alive or dead, which was featured on PBS News Hour in conjunction with her work on protecting an African burial ground with Macedonia Baptist Church in Bethesda, Maryland and performed throughout the states as well as author of a poetry anthology titled: Word of Worth. But, before we dive in, AWNP's collective member, Funa Ngonda, provides a bit of context for us. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Image: This Papyrus is the world's oldest surviving surgical document written in hieratic script in ancient Egypt around 1600 BCE. Plate 6 and 7 of the papyrus, pictured here, discuss facial trauma [https://www.ancient.eu/image/4542/].

Note: This program originally aired in 2016, we were just starting!______________________________________Amilcar Cabral…one of the African world's foremost intellectual—theoreticians is also one of the most marginalized in the study of the African world. If we were to try to encapsulate Amilcar Cabral influence into a single phrase it would have to be his insistence on the study of reality [the material conditions within which culture moves history]. He insisted that "one does not confuse the reality you live in with the ideas you have in your head"…he would frequently elaborate on this by asserting your "ideas may be good, even excellent, but they will be useless ideas unless they spring from and interweave with the reality you live in." What is necessary is to see into and beyond appearances: to free yourself from the sticky grasp of “received opinions”, whether academic or otherwise. Only through a principled study of reality, of the strictly here and now, can a theory of revolutionary change be integrated with its practice to the point where the two become inseparable. For Cabral, it is always necessary to “tell no lies, and claim no easy victories”! Africa World Now Project will bring you a community-based discussion [organized as part of a continuing series to remove the real and imagined barriers between the academy & community] on the impact and implications of Amilcar Cabral in the 21st century. We bring this organic forum which was after a screening of a documentary film titled Cabralista. This film was developed with the expressed purpose to be made publicly accessible to all that what to know. "Cabralista" is an ambitious documentary trilogy, chronologically divided in Past, Present and Future: Part I—Past, is a visual biography of Amilcar Cabral, based on historical facts and testimonies of his lifetime collected throughout the years and narrated by Val Lopes, the director and author of the trilogy. Part II—Present - Collective Memory, which explores the present, how Cabral is remembered, defining a non-formal zeitgeist around his ideology, showing an African Youth with strong Cabralist views. Part III—Future - Utopia, is a futuristic view, of a "better Africa", in a world where the early African freedom fighters have not been eliminated and our development has not been disturbed and distorted, but left in our own hands to grow freely. In today's program…we will listen to the discussion after Part I of the Trilogy was screened. What you will hear is James Early, former Director of Cultural Studies and Communication at the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. And Member of the Board of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), myself and the audience engage in a non-traditional, organic discussion that explored the legacy and impact of the praxis of Amilcar Cabral. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

[Note: This program originally aired in 2016]_______________________The June 16 1976 Uprising that began in Soweto and spread countrywide profoundly changed the sociopolitical landscape in South Africa. Of the various events that led to the uprising—the primary impetus was located in the Apartheid government's policy that resulted in the introduction of the Bantu Education Act in 1953. The rise of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and the formation of South African Students Organisation (SASO) raised the political consciousness of many students while others joined the wave of anti-Apartheid sentiment within the student community. When the language of Afrikaans alongside English was made the required medium of instruction in schools in 1974, black students began mobilizing themselves. On 16 June 1976 between 3000 and 10,000 students mobilized by the South African Students Movement's Action Committee supported by the BCM marched peacefully to demonstrate and protest against the government's directive. The march was meant to culminate at a rally in Orlando Stadium. Although their protests were peaceful, police opened fire on the students, killing many and injuring even more. Images of police flogging, firing at and arresting students were forever impressed upon our minds and stowed away in the archives of painful history as a country. Only three decades later, we bore witness to the rise of a similar student movement––the birth of #FeesMustFall. We then look at Ethiopia with AWNP's, Mwiza Munthali. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous African and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Image: Everything Must Fall: The High Cost of Free Education, a film by Rehad Desai [Miners Shot Down, 2014; The Bushman's Secrets, 2006; How to Steal a Country, 2019]. This film was featured in Africa World Now Project's New African Film Festival, held, yearly every March, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, Washington DC metropolitan area.

Note: This version is an update to the version aired on Feb. 26 2020. Dr. Greg Carr engaged in this discussion at the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago on January 31, 2020.____________________________________________When thinking of history, one tends to categorize or disassociate the contextual conditions that create & propel phenomena/phenomenon that move across time and space. Events and thought are relegated to a disassociated moment, mapped on categories of time that have been redefined to fit a particular worldview---Western European historiography and historicity and its notion of modernity. The concept is strip of its promise of futurity. I have stated before and will state again, the perspective of history that holds together the web of the past, present and future is the one presented by John Henrik Clarke. Dr. Clarke writes: “History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be.” It is precisely because of this, I argue that those who are interested in black history should---must---also be concerned with an Africana future. Of the many places we can start to understand the nexus of time and space, and given what this month has come to mean for many, it is appropriate and necessary to think about the: Life and Legacy of Carter G Woodson. Today, we will explore the very ideas I just presented, with Dr. Greg Carr through a lecture he conducted earlier this year that deeply explored, in depth, the life, impact, legacy & intellectual genealogy of Carter G Woodson. Greg Carr is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University as well as Adjunct Faculty at the Howard School of Law. He holds a Ph.D. in African American Studies from Temple University and a JD from the Ohio State University College of Law. His work has appeared in, The African American Studies Reader, Socialism and Democracy, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America and Malcolm X: A Historical Reader to name a few. Dr. Carr is the first Vice President of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and a former member of the board of the National Council for Black Studies. Having been named Professor of the Year three times by the Howard University Student Association, the College of Arts and Sciences Student Council and the College of Arts and Sciences Honors Association, he has led or co-led student research and study programs to South Africa and Egypt. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Additional Credit: Noël Camille Gardner; See video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEiXx8pwVFw

Today, Africa World Now Project's Executive Producer, Human Rights Activist, and International Media Journalist, Mwiza Munthali talks with Mozambican investigative journalist Estacio Valoi (@estaciosvaloi), with the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) about COVID-19 and conditions on the ground a year since cyclone Idai devastated communities in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique. Mwiza connects with Estacio who is currently in Maputo, Mozambique. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Protect our Journalist! https://gijn.org/about/staff-member/estacio-valoi/https://pulitzercenter.org/people/estacio-valoihttps://www.zammagazine.com/engage/the-network/568-estacio-valoi Image: https://archief.socialhistory.org/en/collections/posters-mozambique

Data shows that, one (1) in five (5) of Rio de Janerio's inhabitants reside in one of its more than 1,000 favelas. It is in these spaces where inequality and human potential is molded, identity is created, resistance is formulated. After the abolition of slavery in 1888, favelas began to rapidly appear. Majority moved to urban areas to take part in and create informal economies, primarily due to official policies between former plantation owners and government officials who prioritized immigration of European migrants. It is within this abbreviated history that we locate Marielle Franco, a black queer woman, mother, sociologist, socialist, human rights defender, councilwoman from the favela of Maré who was assassinated March 14, 2018. Marielle was born & raised in one of Rio's favelas and was murdered representing her and other communities like it. Of the many continuities that we can identify with the assassination of Marielle Franco & the efforts she fought to expose, extrapolating them to conditions and experiences around the African world, we must not forget that Marielle Franco was a part of a long tradition of freedom fighters... In the statement, On the Imperative of Transnational Solidarity: A U.S. Black Feminist Statement on the Assassination of Marielle Franco, Professors Kia L. Caldwell, Wendi Muse, Tianna S. Paschel, Erica L. Williams, Christen A. Smith, and our very own Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, writes that: “it is important to recognize that Black Brazilians have also been speaking out and organizing against anti-black police lethality and brutality for generations. Black resistance can be traced back as far as the wars between slavery-era quilombos (maroon communities) and Portuguese military forces”. Today, in the tradition of holding up those who contribute to freedom, in recognition of the afterlives of Marielle Franco, we explore Afro and Indigenous Womxn's Radical Resistance in Brazil with Joênia Wapixana of the REDE party and Congresswoman for the state of Roraima in the Amazon region, and first indigenous woman ever elected to the Brazilian Congress; and Sara Alves Branco, a black Brazilian human rights lawyer advocating for the promotion of racial and gender equality, as well as legal adviser and project assistant at the black Brazilian organization Center of Studies of Labor Relations and Inequalities (CEERT). Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Sources: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/life-and-battles-marielle-franco/; https://www.leftvoice.org/tag/marielle-franco;https://www.kzoo.edu/praxis/the-life-marielle-franco/; https://nacla.org/news/2020/03/10/mariellepresente-reading-list-marielle-franco; https://newint.org/features/2020/01/24/museum-working-class; https://www.theblackscholar.org/on-the-imperative-of-transnational-solidarity-a-u-s-black-feminist-statement-on-the-assassination-of-marielle-franco/; https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2010/may/17/five-days-favela-complexo-mare; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3BRTlHFpBU; https://www.leftvoice.org/tag/marielle-franco; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10714839.2017.1298243; https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/04/killings-brazilian-police-human-rights-crisis-un-review; https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/JoeniaWapixana.aspx; https://library.brown.edu/create/fivecenturiesofchange/chapters/chapter-4/abolition/; https://psol50.org.br/

Place as understood in Africana deep thought and practice, is both material and nonmaterial. The seed of humanity's ability to evolve is rooted in the practices that are intent to create a balance between this fact. Imbalance, conscious and unconsciously created have deep implications on the lived realities of every community around the globe. Being so, the remedy to imbalance can also be located in mapping Africana praxis, of resistance---of being. The roots of current sociopolitical and cultural disorders can be traced to the processes of European projects that (re)defined the human and the justifications for the creation and maintenance of private property. There is little to debate on this fact. Racial capitalism is not a simple economic system, it is ideological and cultural; it creates, orders, and structures life systems and the polices the knowledge that are out of these systems. Today, AWNP's Tasneem Siddiqui (تسنيم صديقى Twitter: @DrT_Siddiqui) is in conversation with Ashanté Reese (Twitter: @AMReese07). We will have the privilege to sit and listen to the minds of deeply intelligent, action-oriented educators, think through black geographies, the right to food, memories of resistance and the role of land in the scope and range of Africana freedom. Ashanté Reese (Web: http://www.mamboanthro.com/) is assistant professor in the department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Ashanté earned her bachelor's in history with a minor in African American studies from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After graduating she taught middle school at Coretta Scott King Leadership Academy. She later went on to earn a master's in public Anthropology at American University and a PhD in Anthropology, specializing in race, gender, and social justice. Her work is situated around Black geographies, specifically, the ways Black people produce and navigate spaces and places in the context of anti-Blackness. While she is interested in and committed to documenting the ways anti-Blackness constrains Black life, her ultimately is intent to seek answers to the question: what and who survives? Including being a valued member of the AfricaNow! and AWNP multimedia educational collectives, Tasneem Siddiqui is an assistant professor in the department of history, politics, and social justice where she teaches courses that explore the ways of being, practices of resistance, and knowledge production throughout the African world. #HBCUsWork Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

In When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Mahmood Mamdani essentially argues that the dominant narrative of the Rwanda genocide needs to be confronted. Rather than relying upon underlying notions that attributes generic psychological irrationality or cultural stereotypes as being explanatory causes of the genocide, it must not be lost that the acute events the spurred the mass loss of human life must be contextualized in regional and historical conditions (When Victims Become Killers: 8; Book Review: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/08969205020280030805). For Mamdani: “We may agree that genocidal violence cannot be understood as rational: yet, we need to understand it as thinkable.” (When Victims Become Killers: 8; Book Review: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/08969205020280030805) To understand this position, we can extract a more critical understanding, at least in part, from the term ‘genocide' itself. If described as being solely a moral totality, the socio-historical context becomes obscured. As the morality in question is carried and nourished in the cultural seed of a people. Genocide, by its very definition, refers to systematic efforts [with mental and physical elements] to destroy entire of groups of people within the juridical boundaries of a nation-state (https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml). Additionally, genocide refers to acute events that, while located within brutal and irrevocable chronology (exemplified in phrases that include: ‘Final Solution', ‘Eradication', ‘Extermination', ‘Cleansing'), dominant discourse tends to dehistorize—or over historize it, depending on the group it is applied to of course. For Mamdani, understanding the Rwanda genocide as “thinkable” means accounting for regional dynamics and historical realities. As a result, by examining the formation of political identity rooted in narrowly constructed political and economic referential points created by the legal infrastructures of the state, we can begin to see how genocidal conflicts are manufactured for particular purposes. It is here, a framework is developed that can be used to reveal how modalities of colonial rule create distinctive legacies; the subaltern identities that are constructed by colonial state-formation exemplify and moves forward the dilemmas of post-colonial citizenship. In essence, the impact of the dialectical historical processes, between the colonial and anti-colonial, create contradictions captured in a myth of the post-colonial moment…a moment that is yet to realize that it is possible. Today's program was produced in anticipation of the forum that will be held on Feb 6, from 12-1:30 at the Institute for Policy Studies) which will feature todays guest, Judi Rever author of “In Praise of Blood: Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front” and Claude Gatebuke, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, co-founder & Executive Director of the African Great Lakes Action Network (AGLAN). Judi Rever is a freelance print & broadcast journalist who started her career with Radio France Internationale before working for the wire service Agence France-Presse (France Press Agency), Claude Gatebuke is co-founder & executive director of the African Great Lakes Action Network (AGLAN) as well as a Rwandan genocide and civil war survivor. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! For more: UN Mapping Report-- https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/CD/DRC_MAPPING_REPORT_FINAL_EN.pdf

In, Amilcar Cabral and the Theory of the National Liberation Struggle, Professor Nzongola-Ntalaja writes that: “Amilcar Cabral's contribution to understanding the success and failures of liberation movements, resides in his demonstration that national liberation struggles have two phases: the national phase and the social phase, with the latter being more crucial to its ultimate conclusion (1972: 102-110). This analysis is of course theorized within the reality that nation states themselves have deep inherent structural implications that will come into conflict with communities of people that are excluded in its fundamental assumptions of how and for whom society should be organized. It also is based on the reality that nation states, as advanced through European projects, were themselves developed as a direct product of imperialism and its attendant forms of colonialism (direct, indirect, neo, settler, internal). According to Amiri Baraka in Towards Ideological Clarity, “the 18th century [a time when European nation states, driven by the old wars between tribal Europe rapidly began to solidify their existence in national entities] was, also, the time when European capitalism amassed the initial wealth it needed to bring about the unprecedented technological advances responsible for what was later called the: industrial revolution. This primitive accumulation cannot be separated from the European Slave Trade...". Writing in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney further argues that: “throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and for most of the 19th century, the exploitation of Africa and African labor continued to be a source for the accumulation of capital to be re-invested in Western Europe. The African contribution to European capitalist growth extended over such vital sectors as shipping, insurance, [the formation of international corporations-such as but not limited to, the African Royal Company, East Indian Company, etc], capitalist agriculture, technology and the manufacture of machinery...". The legacy of this is encapsulated in an African world left to wrestle with the contradictions inherent in sociopolitical and economic structures where the exploitation of human and natural resources is the foundational ethos and the human response is a reclamation of its humanity as developed from a critical consciousness—in the case of the African world, a critical Africana consciousness. Today, AWNP is in conversation with veteran activist and political theorist, Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party. In 1966, Chairman Omali Yeshitela after ripping down a racist mural from the walls of City Hall in St Petersburg, Florida, developing a political and intellectual trajectory informed by anti-colonial movements around the world and the struggle for liberation by people of African descent in the U.S., Yeshitela has dedicated his life to refining a praxis that seeks to institutionalize freedom for the African world. In 1972, the African People's Socialist Party was formed along with the worldwide Uhuru Movement and the African Socialist International, with branches active in the U.S., Europe, the Caribbean and on the continent of Africa. Last year, Chair Omali, as Malcolm X did 55 years ago, traveled to London to participate in the formal debates at the Oxford Union. He was asked to argue in favor of the house embracing an ever-closer African union. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! For more: https://apspuhuru.org/

On October 12, 1983, Maurice Bishop, prime minster of Grenada and one of the founding leaders of the New Jewel Movement, was placed under house arrest at the orders of Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard (Maurice Bishop Speaks, xii-xiii). On October 19, Maurice Bishop and five other central leaders of Grenada's revolutionary government and the New Jewel Movement were murdered, at the orders of Deputy Minister Bernard Coard. On October 25, thousands of U.S. Marines and Army Rangers landed in Grenada to establish a military occupation of the island and brutally reversed the far-reaching advancements that were implemented as a result of the March 13, 1979, revolution. In less than two weeks, the Grenadian worker and farmer government established after the removal of Granada's dictator, Eric Gairy, saw the U.S. military at the command of President Ronald Raegan, invade the island. Notwithstanding this history of oppression, there is a clear history of resistance. The new jewel movement was formed in 1973, as a result of the merger of two organizations that were established the previous year—the Movement for Assemblies of the People (MAP), and the Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education and Liberation (Jewel). The new organization showed its capacity to mobilize mass support through rallies swelling up to 10,000 people. In a 1977 interview, Bishop articulated the ideological foundations of the movement stating that: “the idea of Black Power that developed in the United States and the freedom struggle of the African people in such places as Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau and unquestionably through the Cuban experience we got the chance to see scientific socialism up close” (Maurice Bishop Speaks, xii-xiii). What must not be lost is that Maurice Bishop and Unison Whiteman are exemplars of what I called a critical Africana human rights consciousness, a praxis that evident in Africana sociopolitical and cultural practices. The praxis of their critical human rights consciousness is rooted in an African ethos and expressed through the processes of: refining and gaining international perspectives; building ways to institutionalization the movement; refining and clarifying ideological guidance; understanding the conditions of struggle as being centered on questions around human rights; developing and disseminating a counter discourse, through various multimedia platforms. Radio Free Grenada was a nod to Radio Free Dixie, established by Mabel and Robert F Williams when they were exiled in Cuba. C. L. R. James is known to be a strong radical intellectual influence on the movement and its members. What we will hear next, is one of the last engagements Maurice Bishop had on U.S. soil; a June 5, 1983 talk Bishop gave in New York. This is one day after he was honored speaker at the invitation of TransAfrica, held on June 4, 1983, an organization of which I, as well as AWNP's own Mwiza Munthali, who was Director of Public Affairs worked with. The June 4 1983 TransAfrica event was filmed by Haile Gerima. It is the intention of AWNP to bring you the voices of those from whom you would not normally get a chance to hear, as they articulate their ideas with their own words; due to the direct efforts of historical marginalization for political purpose. Some of you may have heard this before, while some of you have never even heard of Maurcie Bishop. Either way, AWNP is a platform for building, expanding, and applying ideas. As once explored by Kwame Ture, moving the unconscious to conscious. Forward Ever, Backward Never Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

The ghosts of Hegel, Hume, Locke, and other so-called enlightenment thinkers, are not ghosts at all. The limiting racialized reasoning; the logics of racial capitalism they espoused are in fact material and nonmaterial at the same time. We are living in the 21st century, with 14th century logics and reasoning. The complexities of the language formulated during this period have ensured that this will forever be the case. That is until projects (mass in character) that intentionally and comprehensively disrupt the very power relations that are attendant to the languages that are a product of the racial capitalist logistics that guide everyday racialized reasoning are met with in full force by an African Future. At the heart of Africana world liberation, is a desire to practice humanity. A desire that is rooted in collective sensibilities that are guided by a constant search for an understanding of the relationship between nature and the universe. Paul Zeleza has argued that “African identities, like African languages, are inventions, mutually constitutive existential and epistemic constructions.” This postulation was rooted in questions around the “challenges of defining “Africa.” Arguing along with other scholars that whoever defines and constructs “Africa,” in considerable measure, guides how we identify and analyze African identities and languages. In The Invention of Africa : Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge, V. Y. Mudimbe interrogates the construction of Africa through Eurocentric categories and conceptual systems, which produced enduring dichotomies between Europe and Africa, investing the latter's societies, cultures, and bodies with the representational marginalities or even pathologies of alterity (Mudimbe, 1988; Zeleza, 2006). Elsewhere, Mudimbe, argued that one of the most important aspects of Africa's representation lies not in its invention per se, a phenomenon that is by no means confined to the continent (think of “Asia” and the “Americas” and “Europe” itself and indeed the origins of the names of numerous nations and ethnic groups), but in the fact that Africa is always imagined, represented and performed as a reality or a fiction in relation to master references—Europe, Whiteness, Christianity, Literacy, Development, Technology, even Islam, as codified through Arabic invasions—mirrors that reflect, indeed refract Africa in peculiar ways, reducing the continent to particular images, to a state of lack until their arrival (Mudimbe, 1988; Zeleza, 2006). Without. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o must not be understood as a singular path on a multipath map. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o work must be situated in what Dr. Greg Carr argues that all Africana phenomenon/a must be situated, in a long-view process of memory, translation and recovery. To do so, we can then begin to see how Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's work begins to intersect, inform and be informed by those other Africana thinkers that are committed to identifying, mapping and conceptualizing frame works for understanding human experience, as we move across time/space. Ayi Kwei Armah, Soyinka, Ama Ata Aidoo, Achebe, Tess Onwueme, Ifeoma Okoye, Aminata Sow Fall, Mariama Bâ, Alice Walker, May Ayim, Audre Lorde, to name a few. As listed, the principle of gender is not categorized, as this very abbreviated list does not distinguish Africana female writers from male projecting counterparts…these writers are writers organizing their rhythms of knowledge production through a lens…either way they lead to a common point, as they are writing for freedom. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Image: Nairobi, March 2019

This past August, several former commanders of Colombia's largely demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released a video in which they announced a “new phase of armed struggle.” What this video signaled more than anything, was a clear reminder the peace accord is directly related to the conditions on the ground—the conditions of violence and poverty as they are proliferated and exacerbated by Colombia's elite and attendant corruption at various levels of government (https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/08/how-to-keep-the-colombian-peace-deal-alive-farc-duque-uribe-colombia/). In the words of one of the local residents—Luis, a seventy-three-year-old—living in one of the areas targeted for development, FARC, operating there since 1981, has long been viewed as “a useful group . . . they have been the presence of law in the face of state absence” (https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/colombia-farc-hidroituango-demining-coca-campesinos). In areas, such as this, that have never seen police or government officials, the FARC organized communal work groups to fix local paths, imposed a minimum wage, resolved domestic disputes, and punished criminals. However, the dynamics of FARC presence in the area changed in the late 1990s to 2003, when right-wing paramilitary groups entered the region in force (https://jacobinmag.com/location/colombia). Today, AWNP's, Mwiza Munthali recently spoke with our friend and colleague, Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli. Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli is currently a Senior Associate for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), where she is the leading Colombia human rights advocate. We then turn our attention to Brazil, exploring the current sociopolitical and ecological crises and the implications of Afro Brazilians with Juliana Borges. In recent months, fires in the Amazon Rainforest have put a spotlight on the planetary harmful deforestation occurring there. Just before the September 23 United Nations Climate Action Summit, Human Rights Watch released the report Rainforest Mafias: How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon. According to the report, “Every day, people in Brazil put themselves at risk to defend the Amazon rain-forest from illegal logging. … For Brazil to meet its Paris Agreement commitment, it will need to rein in the criminal groups that are driving much of the deforestation…”. Next, we will hear a talk delivered by Juliana Borges (https://uniondocs.org/people/juliana-borges/). Ms. Juliana Borges is an Afro-Brazilian researcher, writer, anthropologist, and activist working on issues related to racism, gender, drug policy, incarceration, and violence. She is part of the National Council of Brazilian Platform for Drug Policy Reform, a consultant at the Brazilian Bar Association/Sao Paulo Section on confrontation, monitoring, and memory of torture and violence. In addition, she recently published a book on Racism and the War of Drugs in Brazil, titled, “Encarceramento em Massa (Feminismos Plurais),” a book from the “Plural Feminisms” collection. She is a consultant for the Perseu Abramo Foundation in the area of violence studies, and a consultant for the project “They exist—women in prison,” which works in Rio de Janeiro women's prisons (https://sur.conectas.org/en/black-women-under-fire/). Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Writing in Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, CLR James argues that: “the cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than the revenges of poverty and oppression. For the one aims at perpetuating resented injustice, the other is merely a momentary passion soon appeased. The range and scope of CLR James' work cannot possibly be captured in our limited time with you this evening. However, it is the intent for us to spend our time effectively with you in a way that encourages you to explore the work of CLR James as we hear reflections by those who had the opportunity to work closely with him. The epigraph just cited, is one that brings into sharp focus, two of Western Europe's deadly gifts of modernity, its attempted to redefine the praxis of being human (as the great thinker Sylvia Wynter has provide a map for us to understand); and the justification(s) for the creation of private property. This thousand-year process, according to Cedric Robinson, culminating into a racial capitalist system that feeds off the ideas that has structured our current world as a result of slavery, colonialism/neocolonialism, the salience of race as a cultural ideological class construct, the demonization of gender, and iterations of imperialism has left a deep wound on our collective human consciousness, etc… Next, you will hear, in order of speaker, reflections on the Legacy of CLR James from those who worked closely with him: James Early, Former Director of Cultural Studies and Communication at the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution; Kojo Nnamdi, Host of the Kojo Nnamdi show on NPR/WAMU FM Sylvia Hill, Former Professor of Administration of Justice, Department of Urban Affairs, Social Sciences and Social Work at University of the District of Colombia; and Aldon Nielsen, who is currently The George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature at Penn State University and author of C.L.R. James: A Critical Introduction. This program was moderated, in part by, E. Ethelbert Miller. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist and board chairperson of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). He is also a board member of The Writer's Center and editor of Poet Lore magazine. He was previously the Director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University and former chair of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. He is currently a Resident Fellow at UDC. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Music referenced: KAMAUU: Bamboo & LăVĭNDŭR (LaVeNDeR) [Moving Still]; Kojey Radical: Water; Robert Glasper Experiment: Find You (KAYTRANADA Mix) ft. Iman Omari

In a November 1797 Letter to the French Directory, Toussaint L'Ouverture writes a warning to the French and its allies in Haiti of any attempts to (re)institute slavery in Saint Domingue: “Do [the forces of reaction] think that men who have been able to enjoy the blessing of liberty will calmly see it snatched away? ... If they had a thousand lives, they would sacrifice them all rather than be forced into slavery again. But no, the same hand which has broken our chains will not enslave us…” Though most reports point to this current iteration of Haitian resistance are being sparked by the Haitian government's announcement that it was going to cease subsidizing gas and diesel, it must not be lost that the current uprising in Haiti is a reverberation of what was started in the late 1700s and early 1800s, but intentionally interrupted over the next few centuries. As a result, this announcement can be better understood as an accelerator that added to the conditions of poverty, which was proliferated by massive corruption involving members of the previous and current government, including the president, Moïse. To date, “journalists, human rights groups, and a state auditing body have all issued hundreds of pages of reports documenting how up to $2 billion from the Venezuelan fuel assistance program PetroCaribe has been diverted into politicians' pockets. According the article, Why Haitians are Protesting En Masse via Jacobin Magazine, as well as other sources, “every day on the air, elected officials sling accusations of kickbacks and graft at one another. In addition to this, last January at the Organization of American States, Haiti voted with the United States against its longtime former benefactor, Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro. According to Haitian human rights advocate Marie Yolène Gilles, this vote was a quid pro quo. Yet, not surprisingly, the US-dominated OAS has yet to meet officially about the Haitian crisis —although there was a secretive and unofficial US-led trip—even though conditions on the ground are pretty close to the circumstances decried in the January resolution on Venezuela. Environmental [neo]Colonialism The conditions in Haiti are a direct product of the continued conditions of colonialism, neoliberal economic policies and an unjust approach to tackling climate change. The environmental degradation, which is exacerbated with each drought and hurricane season, can be traced back to French colonial rule over Haiti when land and forests were abused, rendering large swathes of the country barren and infertile (https://portside.org/2019-10-01/what-really-behind-crisis-haiti). The US approach to the Haitian economy has been predominantly extractive. The country has an estimated $20bn of mineral deposits consistently exploited by US and Canadian corporations. Today, we take another look at the conditions on the ground in Haiti, through a recent conversation between AWNP's Mwiza Munthali and Nicole Phillips . Nicole Philips is an attorney, specializing in human rights and rule of law and professor at the University of the Aristide Foundation law school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as well as a professor at UC Hastings College of Law at the University of San Francisco. Our show was produced in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, the Avalon Village in Detroit; Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Cooperation Jackson in Jackson Mississippi; Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Questions and discourses around intervention in African nations are quite frankly opaque and attempt to sell contradictory and conflicting reasoning. For instance, the very notions of foreign—intervention—and its relationship between the logic of racial capitalism and its attendant operational institutions and systems, such as—colonialism/neocolonialism, imperialism, unequal trade, forced and coerced migration, issues of citizenship, imposition of colonial borders, who has the right to have rights, human dignity, scramble and (re)scramble for control of material and nonmaterial resources, and international development…are marginalized, hidden, or often ignored. To be clear, the notion of intervention itself—its philosophical and epistemic groundings in Western logics is inherently problematic. One need not move far on the world historical map to see the material implications of Western (or outside) intervention and its deleterious impact across the African world. For many critically thinking folk, the differentiation between intervention and invasion are slim or non-existent. And if we are to understand the roots of contemporary intervention—we must surely deal with the earlier histories and philosophies of raw, unbridled invasions to extract natural resources and to control human physical and intellectual productive forces, and its evolution into post-modern versions of a liberal, gentler imperialism. Nevertheless, the current reality is that Africa consistently face multiple levels of intervention, all normally rooted in a weak and narrow idea of humanitarianism, or a racial capitalist-driven development, not to mention, the justification of intervention under false notions of governance rooted in a Western historiography, of which these same governments do not practice in totality themselves. Today, we deal with the current reality of Foreign Intervention in Africa, specifically After the Cold War and its relationship between Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror with Dr. Elizabeth Schmidt. Dr. Elizabeth Schmidt is currently a professor emeritus of history at Loyola University Maryland. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and has written extensively about US involvement in apartheid South Africa; women under colonialism in Zimbabwe; the nationalist movement in Guinea; as well as foreign intervention in Africa before and from the Cold War to the war on terror. Some of her works include: •Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War: Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror; •Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939-1958; •Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939; •Foreign Intervention in Africa From the Cold War to the War on Terror; and •Decoding Corporate Camouflage: U.S. Business Support for Apartheid to name a few. Today's program, as always, is produced in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, the Avalon Village in Detroit; Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Cooperation Jackson in Jackson Mississippi; Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Over the past few weeks there has been a low-humming buzz on dominant media platforms around the release of New York Times Magazine 1619 Project. The lead author, investigative journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes that: “The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.” History is a very nonlinear, messing process. Therefore, to pinpoint moments as being the beginning can often lead to more questions. In fact, for most of us, history as a concept is narrowly understood. While there is historical specificity to various events and experiences, we must be careful to not miss the convergence, often, of a series of simultaneous events that contribute to what one may identify as the moment, the origin. If we agree, then Dr. John Henrik Clarke's definition of history becomes very important to highlight: “History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are, but more importantly, what they must be.” It becomes very instructive for a critical reader, particularly when reading projects that are developed for public consumption—to always move directly to the sources. The references. The works cited pages. The footnotes. The end notes. Or, if lucky, to the list of supplementary or more information reading lists. To not understand that all writing is political. And that all efforts to tell stories are rooted in epistemic and philosophical frameworks that guide the way we go about doing the work we do, particularly in attempts to quote—tell the whole story—unquote is to miss exactly who is talking and who they are actually talking to, despite who the author or authors of a discourse are. As critical, intentional thinkers who attempt to engage, map, and push forward knowledge of and about the Africana world and its contributions to and relationships with the world; we do not involve ourselves into putting much energy into petty non-substantive critiques of the work or works of others. But we do pay attention. We are cognizant of the various discourses that are promoted. We are interested in ontological and epistemic decolonization processes... Amiri Baraka once wrote: “The actual beginnings of our expression are post Western (just as they certainly are pre-western). It is only necessary that we arm ourselves with complete self-knowledge the whole technology (which is after all just expression of whoever) will change to reflect the essence of a freed people.” Today, AWNP's Josh Myers explores 1619 in context. Moving the conversation and offering those who's curiosities have been primed to see the what this 1619 thing is all about. Josh Myers teaches Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. He serves on the editorial board of The Compass and is editor of A Gathering Together: Literary Journal Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program! Image & Artist: Emilio O'Farrill

Descriptors such as jungle music, negro music, jazz...African American Classical Music. Black Classical Music. Spirit Music...and African Rhythms...have been attached to the vibrational human expressions, that once organized into various rhythms, notes, and harmonies become what we have come to call—music. The deep structures that organize these vibrations have purpose. They have origin. They have life. They represent life. They aide us through life. They are bridges between and expressions of worlds seen and worlds unseen. They are all around us. Exploring the form and functions of African rhythms and all that they contribute to our world are part and parcel of understanding the interconnections between the material and nonmaterial, and how they inform each other. This past April 2019, at the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization's (ASCAC) meeting held at Medgar Evers College in New York, a discussion titled African Rhythms: A Workshop on Cultural Continuity and the Future of Jazz, was developed to explore what was laid out above. Who you will hear next in order of speaker, the wide-ranging discussion from this meeting: George Turner is a longtime activist from Brooklyn, NY and currently serves on the Board of ASCAC. Hank Williams is a jazz writer and radio host and professor at Lehman College. Dr. Anyabwile Love is an assistant professor of Black Studies at the Community College of Philadelphia and a scholar of John Coltrane. Dr. Josh Myers (AWNP Collective, is assistant professor of Africans Studies at Howard University. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

How do we see?...before you become perplexed at such a simple question...the answer is more complex than we usually give time to consider… If you thought and said, with our eyes! Then you are fractionally correct. And I mean fractionally…because the sciences have proven beyond doubt, opinion or belief that, we quote see unquote with our mind(s). The various conflation of influences that coagulate to shape our perspectives and perceptions that over a course of time and space we have, either, been forced to or voluntarily merge into our life trajectories, is in fact what we see. Therefore, what we feel. And, consequently, what we do (or don't do) is directly guided by this fact. The universal consciousness of the what physicists have come to discover— a living universe, a collective consciousness to which we are all linked…known to ancient Africans—refined through centuries of civilization of the Nubians and Kemet (Egyptians), known to them as the primordial waters of nun, known and expressed to us daily as, emotion…identified through science as light…is vital to all life—including the life of the mind. Various Africana systems have attempted to systemize this multiplicity of this knowledge filtered through time and space, material and spiritual explorations. For example, Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau in African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo: Principles of Life & Living introduces us to the scared knowledge of what is conceptualized as the Kongo Vee. According to Dr. Fu-key aw Bunseki, the ‘V' is one of the most important keys to understanding life on the planet earth and the cosmic bodies. The ‘V' is everything because it is the beginning itself. It is the bridging wire between thinking-matter the human (muntu), and the world of un-thinking matter (the world and source of un-grasped ideas and images. (African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo: 130-131). In his book, Dark Light Consciousness, Dr. Bynum adds to our understanding of the role and importance of African wisdom and its influences. In fact, we can say with assured confidence, fundamental facts-or wisdom-that make-up African knowledge systems are the direct origins of contemporary discoveries in various fields of inquiry such as, but not limited to, quantum physics and the musings of advance ideas captured in string theory. Dr. Bynum writes that ‘Light itself now appears more and more to us as a vibration of a fifth dimension. Both forces and Beings appear to us in the realm of light and it is our disposition that influences what we see' (Dark Light Consciousness: 3). In other words, our eyes function to perceive and receive light which allows us to quote see based upon our cultivated (or uncultivated) understanding of the totality of experimental and experiential knowledge invoked by a singular phenomenon or collection of phenomea. More plainly, what we quote see is what our understanding of the mind allows us to quote see. Today, we expand upon and more deeply explore these ideas with Dr. Edward Bruce Bynum, as they are presented in his book, Dark Light Consciousness: Melanin, Serpent Power, and the Luminous Matrix of Reality. Dr. Edward Bruce Bynum is former director of the Behavioral Medicine & Anxieties Disorders Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Health Services in Amherst, a clinical psychologist, a practitioner of kundalini yoga, and author of several books of poetry, psychology, and has published numerous clinical articles for scientific journals. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program! Music: The Light Remix (Common)-J Dilla Like it Is-Yusef LateefNafas-Zeb Picture: Sirius A

In The Price of Racial Reconciliation, Dr. Ronald Walters writes “the power of history is not only its description of events, but also its relation to the identity of those who shape it, and those “who suffer from such shaping. As such, “history” comprises events that groups select as a resource to derive identity and meaning from the past, and to inform present understanding or action. The selectively of such events politicizes history, for the powerful can determine an understanding of historical events consistent with a narrative they wish to advance” (2). Dr. Walters goes on to suggest that a “step toward dismantling systems of oppression in which one cultural group dominates another, reparations are more than simply “payment” for past injury. They are a national question” (3). It is here the myths that support a tenuous national identity crumble with the realities of the systems, conditions and institutions that were constructed to maintain a social order that supports an economic system—in this case racial capitalism. We do not have time to go into the long history of the movement, but highlighting its continuities throughout the world is essential in this period of planetary crisis that are disproportionately impacting the African world. On one level, the essential question of reparations is rooted in the fact that slavery was unjust because it refused to recognize and compensate the labor of those subjected to slavery. In a capitalist society built upon plantation economies, the idea of unpaid labor is in fact a violation of the fundamental principles of the so-called free-market exchange that regulates the notion of supply and demand the establishes the value of both labor and what this labor produces (From Slavery to Genocide: The Fallacy of Debt in Reparations Discourse:109). On another level, the clear morality and legal violations are brought to fore. It is not a question of either, or, but a question of both/and. We will hear Professor Sir Hilary Beckles (older lecture Kingstown, SVG) expand upon reparations. Professor Sir Hilary Beckles is Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. He is a distinguished university administrator, economic historian, and specialist in higher education and development thinking and practice; and an internationally reputed historian. Sir Hilary has published and lectured extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. His work includes: Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados and the Caribbean (Rutgers University Press/Zed Book, 1989); Centering Woman: Gender Discourses in Caribbean Slave Societies (James Currey Press/Randle Publishers, 1999; White Servitude and Black Slavery: white indentured servitude in the Caribbean, 1627-1715 (Tennessee University Press, 1989); The First Black Slave Society: Britain's Barbados, 1627-1876; Britain's Black Debt: Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide in the Caribbean, (UWI Press, 2015). He is Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Commission on Reparation and Social Justice. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Dr. Ichile in her article titled, Black Magic Woman: Towards a Theory of Africana Women's Resistance suggest that when properly contextualized, the role of enslaved African women in history was multiple, but two primary roles are prevalent, they were both spiritual and political leaders. Contextualized as such, Dr. Ichile then show that three major aspects of women's resistance emerge: (1) African women acted as queens and queen mothers, activated at key moments to galvanize enslaved people seeking not only freedom, but sovereignty; (2) In maroon communities, women's maintenance of African cultural traditions, agricultural production and motherhood made long-term settlements possible; (3) As priestesses and "conjurers," women attacked slaveholders with their spiritual gifts and knowledge, in ways that were sometimes more effective than direct, military confrontation, and were often coordinated to work in tandem with armed conflict. According to Dr. M Bahati Kuumba in, African Women, Resistance Cultures and Cultural Resistances, “for African and African diasporan women, culture is a societal dimension that has complex and contradictory implications with respect to their interests, freedom and rights. On the one hand, established/'traditional' African and African diasporan cultures are replete with practices and perceptions that hegemonize patriarchal interests and women's oppression (McFadden, 1997). And “to make matters worse, nationalist discourse and praxis in many African descendent communities position women as the custodians of and conduits for its customary practices, often serving as their own worst enemies.” Nevertheless, the lives of Africana women “have a long and varied 'herstory' of challenging social injustice by deploying, opposing and transforming cultural systems (Collins, 1990, 2000; Steady, 1987, 1993;Terborg-Penn, 1986).” Another important scholar, Dr. Valethia Watkins in Contested Memories: A Critical Analysis of the Black Feminist Revisionist History Project, suggest that “properly framing and naming the intellectual and political tradition of Black women has become contested terrain and reflects the political and ideological diversity and differences among Black women. Black women are often treated as if they are a homogenous group when, in reality, they are diverse in their political consciousness, perspectives, ideas and commitments as any other group. Black women do not speak with a single voice; hence, efforts to articulate “the” Black women's standpoint or perspective are misleading and hegemonic by definition. These views, taken together, provide a contested and expands the narrow view of gender, broadly, Women-Africana women, specifically. Dr. Iyelli Ichile earned her PhD in African Diaspora History from Howard University and a Master's in African American Studies from Columbia University. She has worked with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and developed a research agenda that has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and several university grants. Dr. Ichile has held positions at Temple University, Prince Georges Community College, Virginia Commonwealth University, Florida A&M University, and Goddard College. She is currently a Smithsonian Faculty Fellow at Montgomery College-Rockville. Her work has appeared in Journal of African American History; Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society; Journal of Pan African Studies to name a few. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Louise Winstanley has been working with ABColombia since 2010. As Programme and Advocacy Manager, Louise's role is to manage and co-ordinate the work of ABColombia - the joint advocacy project of five leading British and Irish organisations with programmes in Colombia: CAFOD, Christian Aid UKI, Oxfam GB, SCIAF and Trócaire. Amnesty International and PBI are observers. ABColombia members work with over one hundred partner organisations in Colombia. Many of ABColombia partners are local and national women organisations and human rights defenders working specifically on issues impacting Indigenous, Afro-Descendant and peasant farmer communities. ABColombia has been working with women's organisations throughout the Peace Talks to support ethnic leaders and civil society organisations to achieve a gender focus in the Peace Accord. Louise speaks here with FiLiA volunteer Marta Nunez.Find out more: Twitter: @ABColombia1FACEBOOKInstagram: abcolombiaYoutube: ABColombiaABColombia website: https://www.abcolombia.org.uk     Write a letter to your MP about the situation in Colombia - draft copy here!#ColombiaWomenPeace  

In a Washington Post article titled, Recent protests in Sudan are much more than bread riots, Nisrin Elamin and Zachariah Mampilly, writes “On Dec. 19 2018, the town of Atbara in northeastern Sudan erupted in protest against the military dictatorship that has ruled the country for almost three decades. People took to the streets following a tripling of bread prices to demand “freedom, peace, justice and the downfall of the regime.” But international coverage framing the protests as bread riots obscures the larger political context, misrepresents protesters' demands and supports the regime's insistence that the crisis can be resolved by simply reintroducing targeted subsidies and stabilizing the Sudanese pound.” Let's contextualize this important moment in the African world that is directly related to the long tradition of protest and resistance in the region referred to as Sudan further. According to Nisrin and Zachariah, “It is no coincidence that the protests began in Atbara, a town known for its powerful railroad workers union. Sudan has a history of successful revolutions against military regimes, most notably in 1964 and in 1985, in which trade unions and student movements played a pivotal role. But the absence of formal trade unions and independent local governing structures did not prevent people from forming alternative grass-roots structures for mobilizing against political repression. Youth movements and independent farmer and worker formations multiplied over the last decade as people lost faith in established opposition parties and politics. Most notably, from 2012 to 2014, students and the urban poor held a variety of creative protests before being repressed by the regime.With the oil-export economy emerging in the 1990s, other sectors that produced food and cash crops were left to wither away or were privatized and handed off to foreign investors or regime loyalists. All in all, the conditions that spurred the current Sudan uprisings, were proliferated and promoted by austerity measures recommended by the IMF in 2017 (known as structural adjustment programs). Today, Africa World Now Project's Mwiza Munthali discusses the uprisings in Sudan with Nisrin Elamin. Nisrin Elamin is a Sudanese writer, activist and PhD candidate in Anthropology, based in the New York City area. She has over 15 years of experience working with community-based organizations as an educator, organizer and advocate. Most recently, she served as a Director of the Sadie Nash Leadership Project's summer leadership and social justice program for young women and non-binary folks at City College. She also works part-time with the group African Communities Together, which organizes around immigrant, civil and workers' rights in New York and in Washington DC. Her research examines the ways Saudi and Emirati ‘land grabs' are reconfiguring social relations between landholding and landless communities in central Sudan. In January of 2017, she was one of the first people to be detained under the Trump administration's Muslim ban, causing her work to be interrupted. But since then, she has been able to return to Sudan to complete her research. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! For more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/12/28/recent-protests-in-sudan-are-much-more-than-bread-riots/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fce161deb4fd https://www.thenation.com/article/sudan-protests-revolution-bashir/ Image: Alaa Salah, 22, stands on a vehicle as she sings to the crowd. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images

Writing in Where is the ‘African' in African Studies, on African Arguments, Robtel Pailey asserts that “the extent to which the ‘African' in African Studies is concealed or revealed depends entirely on the politics of the knowledge producer, the ethos of the institution they represent, the pedagogy and methods they employ, and their level of commitment to the continent and its people.” In Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive, Achille Mbembe presents a theoretical lens through which we can use to examine current conditions in present societies who are a product of settler colonialism, (neo)colonialism, chattel slavery, etc. Mbembe introduces us to the notion of a ‘negative moment' (2015). Mbembe goes on to argue that “blackness” is fracturing. “Black consciousness” today is more and more thought of in fractions.” It is here, the clarity of what a negative moment comes to the fore, it is a moment when new antagonisms emerge while old ones remain unresolved. It is a moment when contradictory forces—undeveloped, fractured, fragmented—are at work but what might come out of their interaction is anything but certain. It is also a moment when multiple old and recent unresolved crises seem to be on the path towards a collision.” It is in this moment that knowledge, understanding, and power converge. It here is that the mere prohibitive structures, institutions, and systems that promote some forms of knowledge, and demonize others is an act of violence. What we suggest is a real attempt to decolonize not only the university and knowledge, we must decolonize, decolonization. Decolonization is not new, of course. In fact, its dominant conceptualization and current discourse is a product of African postcolonial experiments in the 1960s and 1970s. Where does this negative moment place us in the context of addressing current planetary crises, rooted in the aggressive proliferation of racial capitalist logic(s)? Where do we start an intentional and serious commitment to decolonize? Today we will explore the possibilities of an African future through decolonizing African Studies with Dr. Robtel Pailey. Robtel Pailey is a Liberian academic, activist and author with more than 15 years of combined personal/professional experiences in Africa, Europe and North America. She is also author of Gbagba and Jaadeh, critically acclaimed anti-corruption children's books. Robtel completed BA degrees in African Studies and English Literature at Howard University, a MSc in African Studies at the University of Oxford, and a doctorate in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London, as a Mo Ibrahim Foundation PhD Scholar. Robtel currently serves as Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford's Department of International Development (ODID), where she conducts research on race, citizenship, ‘South-South' migration and development cooperation in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Sterling A. Brown work amplifies and materialize the nature of the aesthetic connections that find continuity in contemporary black life. Brown opens, Southern Road with an epigraph of an old negro spiritual: ‘O de ole sheep dey knows de road, Young lambs gotta find de way.' It is with this, Sterling A Brown highlights the intentions of his work which is ‘to face two directions at simultaneously'. To look forward into the future while facing the past, the poems in Southern Road consider the relationship between the [past and present] and its relevance to Black people entering the European conceptualization of modernity (Gabbin, Sterling A Brown, Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition, 1985: 3. For Sterling A. Brown, diving into the depths of human experience and character necessitated a close look at language. In a 1978 interview Brown stated that, “The poets that struck me were those who were poets of the people and poets of direct—not florid…American speech.” The contribution that Brown offered is a clear understanding that what the ‘new' poets were doing with language was not new (30). Today Dr. Josh Myers will explore the work of Sterling A. Brown in a presentation titled, A Blue(s) (Note) for Sterling Brown. In addition to being a valued member of the AWNP collective and its affiliates, Dr. Josh Myers is currently an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. He currently serves on the board of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and the editorial board of The Compass: Journal of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, he works with the DC area collectives, Positive Black Folks in Action and the Nu Afrikan Cultural Vanguard. His research interests include Africana intellectual histories and traditions, Africana philosophy, critical university studies, and disciplinarity. His work has been published in The Journal of African American Studies, The Journal of Pan African Studies, The African Journal of Rhetoric, The Human Rights and Globalization Law Review, Liberator Magazine, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Knowledge, and Society, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Pambazuka, among other literary spaces. His book, “We are Worth Fighting For: The Howard University Protest of 1989” is forthcoming. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

Today, Africa World Now Project collectives' Tasneem Siddiqui and Keisha-Khan Perry sit down with Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and explore the contours, continuities, and evolutions in Africana radical sociopolitical thought. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Professor Taylor is author of, Haymarket Books 2016, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, where it examines the history and politics of Black America and the development of Black Lives Matter in response to police violence in the United States. Professor Taylor's most recent book, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, also with Haymarket Books (2017) won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction. Dr. Taylor's research examines race and public policy including American housing policies. Dr. Taylor's current work: Race For Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownersip (2019), explores U.S. federal government's promotion of single-family homeownership in Black communities after the urban rebellions of the 1960s. Taylor looks at how the federal government's turn to market-based solutions in its low-income housing programs in the 1970s impacted Black neighborhoods, Black women on welfare, and emergent discourses on an urban “underclass”. Professor Taylor is particularly interested in the role of private sector forces, typically hidden in the development and implementation of public policy, in the “urban crisis” of the 1970s. Professor Taylor's work has been supported, in part, by a multiyear Northwestern University Presidential Fellowship, the Ford Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation. Our show was executive produced by Keisha-Khan Perry and Tasneem Siddiqui and as always in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program! Race For Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownersip available: https://www.amazon.com/Race-Profit-Industry-Undermined-Homeownership/dp/1469653664/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=keeanga-yamahtta+taylor&qid=1555627062&s=gateway&sr=8-3

On Thursday March 14, Cyclone Idai made landfall on the coast of Mozambique at Beira. Since hitting the South-East African coast, directly impacting Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, Cyclone Idai brought massive destruction in the region—including numerous deaths, countless people displaced and rivers overflowing. The impact of the cyclone has brought the multi-leveled implications of climate change to the fore: In Mozambique, flood waters that have destroyed crops, homes, cultivated water-borne disease, in Zimbabwe, mud slides has permanently altered landscapes; in Malawi, more flood damage. According to William Minter in his article titled In the Wake of Cyclone Idai: The North has a Climate Debt to Pay , in Foreign Policy in Focus, “weeks after Cyclone Idai struck the coast of Mozambique, near Beira, the flood waters have receded to reveal a shattered landscape.Houses and roads were washed away; crops awaiting harvest were destroyed. Confirmed deaths are high across Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, with the total still growing. Emphasis has shifted from the rescue of survivors clinging to treetops and rooftops to organizing the delivery of provisions of food, secure housing, and medical care for hundreds of thousands left homeless. Even as local and international relief efforts ramp up their efforts, there is a need to also focus on broader global implications. The causal connection between climate change and extreme weather events, such as Cyclone Idai, is clear. The need for climate actions in both the global North and South are beyond dispute. These needs include making the response to crises sustainable, increasing resilience to the effects of climate change through adaptation, and rapidly accelerating action to cut greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels. The question, ironically is centered on whose responsibility should this be? At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the first global climate agreement affirmed that much of the burden should be shouldered by the nations in the Global north. The Summit agreement stated that: The Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Accordingly, the developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof.Today, providing a more in-depth, on-the-ground assessment of the effects of Cyclone Idai, specifically in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are: [a little editorial note…we will examine Malawi next week]: Estacio Valoi, an investigative journalist based in Mozambique and is part of Center for Investigative Journalism (CIJ); and Ruth Castel-Branco, a labor scholar-activist based at the University of the Witwatersrand, and an editor of Alternactiva—a Mozambican progressive media platform. Briggs Bomba, currently coordinates the Zimbabwe Alliance, a funding collaborative that works to promote a vibrant civil society and a successful democratic transformation in Zimbabwe. Anchored by TrustAfrica, it identifies, engages and supports local initiatives through grant making, capacity building, networking and mobilizing international solidarity. All three are in conversation with Africa World Now Project's Executive Producer, human rights activist, and international media journalist, Mwiza Munthali. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!

Dr. Todd Steven Burroughs asserts that, fantasy can be a form of social protest, but fantasy can also be a form of mental conquest. The imagination of the black mind has produced some the most advanced conceptualizations of justice, freedom, citizenship, and peace. The sovereignty of the black imagination has also been constantly under assault. It is the duty of those who create to educate their audience into the habits of thinking. According to David Scott in his interview with George Lamming, the sovereignty of the imagination has neither to do with the sequestering of creativity from, nor its absorption by, the world of affairs—this would be merely bad faith. Rather an authentic sovereignty of the imagination has to do with the active will to refuse submission to the customs that seek at every turn to inspire our self-contempt and our unthinking docility, and to command our understanding of, and our hopes for, what it might mean to live as a free community of valid persons”. The use of and control of popular cultural platforms are a documented method of social control and political consolidation. Today, Drs. Todd Steven Burroughs, Jared Ball, and Mark Bolden explore the continuities in popular culture, futurism in black literature, and the sociopolitical implications on the histories and futures of black think. Dr. Todd Steven Burroughs is an independent researcher and writer based in New-ark, New Jersey. He has taught at Howard and Morgan State University. A professional journalist since 1985, he has written for The Source, Colorlines, Black Issues Book Review and The Crisis magazines, web-based blackamerica.com and The Root.com, and newspapers such as The New York Amsterdam News, The Afro-American (New Jersey edition) and The Star-ledger. He is author of Marvel's Black Panther: A Comic Book Biography From Stan Lee to Ta-Nahisi Coates, as well as co-author of Civil Rights: Yesterday and Today with Herb Boyd, and A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X and Warrior Princess: A People's Biography of Ida B. Wells. He also curates a popular culture blog: drumsintheglobalvillage.com Dr. Jared Ball is a father and husband. After that, he is a Research Professor of Communication Studies in the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. and is the curator of imixwhatilike.org, an online hub of multimedia dedicated to the philosophies of emancipatory journalism and revolutionary beat reporting. He is author of I Mix What I Like: A Mixtape Manifesto and co-author of, A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable's Malcolm X. His work has been published in The Black Scholar, Radical Teacher, International Journal of Communication, The Journal of Pan-African Studies, Journal of Black Studies, The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, Journal of Pan African Studies. He is the creator and curator of the multimedia platform: www.imixwhatilike.org I mix what I like is Dr. Ball's homage to the great activist-theorist Steve Biko's I Write What I Like. Dr. Mark Bolden is an African sovereignty psychologist in private practice. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! For more: Visit imixwhatilike.org

Writing in his 2006 work titled, Yoruba Culture: A Philosophical Account, Dr. Kola Abimbola argues that Yoruba sociopolitical religious practices—( Òrìṣa tradition and culture) were expanded and intensified throughout the Americas due to the Transatlantic human trade which saw the enslaved millions of Africans. He writes: “Today, the Òrìṣa tradition and culture is practices by about 100 million people in Argentina, Australia, Benin Republic, Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Ghana, Haiti, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Sierra Leon, Spain, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, the UK, the US, Venezuela, and other places. In all of these places, Yorùbá religious practices play a significant role in, music, dance, the arts, and many facets of day-to-day living.” (24) Kola Abimbola goes on to suggest that while there is a significant amount of good material available on various aspects of Yorùbá and Òrìṣa culture in different parts of the world, no one has yet fully explained its philosophical underpinnings. What philosophical affinities do Candomblé and Batuque (Ba—Tooque) in Brazil, Santeria in Cuba, Vodun in Benin Republic, Vodou in Haiti, and Òrìṣa worship in Nigeria all share in common? (24) To date, many scholars have been content with explaining the details of the rituals, the arts, the music, and even the languages that all these different manifestations of Yorùbá culture share. But no good account of what unifies these traditions, that is, their philosophy, exists. Simply put, the philosophical and theological ideas that unify all these traditions under the rubric Yorùbá have not been adequately explained. (24) For Dr. Abimbola, the widespread inadequacy of the treatment of Yorùbá culture can be traced to three separate but interdependent erroneous assumptions implicit in the writing of some scholars. He captures these inadequacies, conceptually as: tribal fetishism, methodological straitjacketing; and hierarchical dogmatism. (24) Toady. We will hear a recent conversation I had Dr. Kola Abimbola on Ifa's Anceint Future…meditations on the deep tradition of African thought and its relationship to the physical and non-physical world… Dr. Kọ́lá Abímbọ́lá studied the Ifá Literary Corpus as an apprentice under Wándé Abímbọ́lá and Babalọ́lá Adébóyè Ifátóògùn. He received his PhD studies in Philosophy of Science under John Worrall at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a second PhD in the Law of Evidence and Criminal Justice under C. John Miller at the University of Birmingham. He has taught at Seattle University, Haverford College, Temple University, and at the University of Leicester (Lester) School of Law. He is currently an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Howard University in Washington DC. Kọ́lá is the Editor of Journal of Journal of Forensic Research and Criminology. He was President of the International Society for African Philosophy and Studies from 2006 to 2010, and a British Council Commonwealth Academic Scholar from 1989 to 1992. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Palestine, South Africa, and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples! Enjoy the program!

Today, we bring to you a recent wide-ranging conversation exploring the HBCUs as a response to and product of coloniality, sovereignty of the black imagination, the philosophical roots of Black Thought/Black Study, and the impetus of evolving black institutions (back) to becoming a maroon space with Corey Walker and Josh Myers. Dr. Corey Walker is a visiting professor at the University of Richmond. He collaborates with campus and community partners on research, teaching, and public programming on the University's recently acquired Wyatt Tee Walker collection. He is also Senior Fellow in Religious Freedom at the Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom Forum Institute in Washington, D.C. An accomplished academic leader, Walker served as vice president and dean of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University just prior to coming to the University of Richmond. Other leadership roles he has held include serving as founding dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, Business, and Education at Winston-Salem State University, chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University, and inaugural director of the Center for the Study of Local Knowledge at the University of Virginia. A dedicated teacher and scholar, Walker has served as a member of the faculty at the University of Virginia, Brown University, Winston-Salem State University, and Virginia Union University. He was also visiting professor at the Historisches Institut at Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena in Germany and non-resident fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Dr. Walker is author of the book "A Noble Fight: African American Freemasonry and the Struggle for Democracy in America," editor of the special issue of the journal Political Theology on the theme “Theology and Democratic Futures,” and associate editor of the award-winning SAGE "Encyclopedia of Identity." He has published over 50 articles, reviews, book chapters, and essays appearing in a wide range of scholarly journals. He co-directed and co-produced the documentary film "Fifeville" with acclaimed artist and filmmaker Kevin Jerome Everson. Walker's scholarship focuses on the complexities of religion, philosophy, history, memory, culture, and public life. In addition to being a valued member of the Africa World Now Project & AfricaNow! collective and its affiliates, Dr. Josh Myers is currently an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies in the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. In addition to serving on the board of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and the editorial board of The Compass: Journal of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, he works with the DC area collectives, Positive Black Folks in Action and the Nu Afrikan Cultural Vanguard. His research interests include Africana intellectual histories and traditions, Africana philosophy, critical university studies, and disciplinarity. His work has been published in The Journal of African American Studies, The Journal of Pan African Studies, The African Journal of Rhetoric, The Human Rights and Globalization Law Review, Liberator Magazine, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Knowledge, and Society, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Pambazuka, among other literary spaces. His book, “We are Worth Fighting For: The Howard University Protest of 1989” is forthcoming. Our show was produced today in solidarity with the Native/Indigenous, African, and Afro Descendant communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; and Ghana and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all peoples!