The recent massacre of nine people in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina by a white supremacist highlights the racist culture that is particularly prevalent in the South and has amplified the call for removal of symbols such as the Confederate flag. The attack demonstrates that institutionalized racism is not isolated to the police and judicial system, it is pervasive in the educational system, government and in our neighborhoods. And it is not limited to the United States but extends around the world, particularly where the US Empire and other colonists have interfered. Kymone Freeman, an activist and artist, and Reverend Graylan Hagler of the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC join us to discuss the state of racism in the US and around the world today.
Listen here:
Racism: From South Carolina to the Dominicana and Beyond with Kymone Freeman and Rev. Graylan Hagler by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud
Relevant articles, books and websites:
South Carolina and Its Confederate Flag by Kevin Alexander Gray
Guests:
Kymone Freeman (guerrilla artist) is the director of the National Black LUV Festival recognized as a Washington, D.C. Mayor’s Art Award Finalist for Excellence in Service to the Arts in 2006 and received a Mayoral Proclamation in 2007. est. 1997 NBLF has since become the largest annual AIDS mobilization in WDC. Freeman has appeared along side Mark Twain and Harriet Tubman in newspapers and subway cars throughout WDC metro area as a Clinical AIDS Vaccine Trial Participant and NIH “Everyday Heroes” Ad Campaign Model to bring attention to this pandemic. Freeman is a founding board member for Words Beats & Life, a Hip Hop Non-Profit and co-founder of Bum Rush the Boards the largest annual youth chess competition in WDC. He is the subject of one chapter of the book Beat of A Different Drum: The Untold Stories of African Americans Forging Their Own Paths in Work and Life (Hyperion). He has authored a collection of poetry entitled Blood.Sweat.Tears.
His dedication to art and activism lead him to accept the position of NYC spokesperson and official poet of the anti-war independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader during his campaign in ’04. A scholarship received from American Friends Service Committee to spend the summer in Nairobi, Kenya for an international leadership conference resulted in him returning to the states as a playwright. He received the 22nd Annual Larry Neal Award for Drama for the successful play Prison Poetry that has appeared at the Historic Lincoln Theatre and Source Theatre during the Hip Hop Theatre Festival, THEARC Theatre, Oak Hill Juvenile Detention Facility and several college campuses where his work has been included in the Black History curriculum of Maryland’s Easternshore. He has conducted production workshops at the National Black Theatre Festival and Institute of Policy Studies.
His second stageplay was commissioned by Jive Recording Artist Raheem DeVaughn entitled the Love Experience. He has studied under the legendary independent filmmakers Haile Gerima, Raoul Peck and Sam Greenlee. Freeman’s second screenplay Nineveh: a conflict over water a futuristic drama that paints a post-oil depleted world has been produced as a short film and is pursuing a feature length release.
He is currently Program Director of We ACT Radio 1480 AM DC’s new progressive radio station.
Rev. Graylan Hagler is a pastor and activist. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Hagler received a Bachelor’s Degree in Religion from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1976. Three years later, he received his Masters of Divinity degree from the Chicago Theological Seminary. On 3 February 1980, Hagler was ordained in the United Church of Christ and was recognized with full standing in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) the following year. The Rev. Mr. Hagler is the Senior Minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, Washington, D.C., and the Immediate Past National President of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice(MRSEJ).
In 1980, he founded a congregation in Roxbury, Massachusetts and in 1991 ran for mayor of that city and lost. During his 12 years as a pastor in Boston Reverend Hagler’s work was one of empowerment and opposition to the forms of racism that gripped the city in the 1980s. He campaigned to protect citizens from unconstitutional and illegal police practices and to safeguard democratic participation in the selection and election of black political leadership. He also led the Free South Africa Movement to force divestiture of dollars from the support of the Apartheid system.
In 1992, Reverend Hagler moved to Washington, D.C., where today he is the Senior Minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ and continues to preach and organize. He has fought the proliferation of liquor stores in the black community and has insisted on community participation in development issues. In 1993 he opposed theExxon Corporation’s plans to build a ‘super gas station’ in the neighborhood where his church is located. In 2003, Reverend Hagler broke ground on that same Exxon site after acquiring the property. Instead of a ‘super station,’ 69 units of subsidized apartments for senior citizens opened in February 2005. Reverend Hagler worked to preserve the only publicly funded hospital in the District of Columbia, organized a successful effort to oppose the death penalty from being instituted by the United States Congress on the district, and continues the fight against public school vouchers, which he sees as a plan to divert funds from public education to private schools.
Reverend Hagler served on the Steering and Administrative Committee of United for Peace and Justice, a national coalition working to oppose aspects of U.S. foreign policy that the group believes contribute to war and aggression. Reverend Hagler is the former Development Director of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) which helps people become homeowners. Reverend Hagler has also served as chaplain to UNITE HERE Local 25, the labor union representing hotel workers in the Washington Metropolitan Area.
He is the Executive Director of Faith Strategies, an organization of clergy he founded in 2012. Faith Strategies organizes efforts to better the lot of working people, protects human and civil rights and develop strategies for movements to embrace the faith community.
Rev. Hagler has advocated to change the name of the Washington Redskins, arguing that the current name is racist. He believes in the dignity and worth of all people, the worth of workers, empower movements and people so that liberation is realized.