Black Radical Tradition

Rising Temperatures And The Rising Need For A Black Radical Lens

June 5, 2025 Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Black Radical Tradition, Capitalism, climate crisis, Racial disparities

This past weekend, over 500 Black folk and their comrades descended upon Indianapolis, Indiana, for the Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC). The goal, in part, of the Second NBROC, in the words of the conference’s organizers, was to “create a space to discuss, debate, train, assess, and create a collective way forward for Black/African/New Afrikan organizations and organizers who believe that our struggle is paramount to our survival.” On the question of the survival of Black/African people the world over, climate change (or as we refer to it, the racial capitalocene ) represents a profound and salient challenge formed and sustained by root causes -white “supremacy” ideology, colonization, and patriarchy (which is to say racial capitalism) - we as Black, African, and all oppressed people have been struggling against for multiple millenniums.

Black Politics And Mutual Comradeship: A Manifesto

May 10, 2025 Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Black Radical Tradition, Ca[italism, Imperialism, Racism, Solidarity

Now is the time of monsters. From ongoing genocide in Gaza and Sudan, the foreign-backed forever war in Congo, and Western occupation and recolonization of Haiti to capitalist greed and state violence against immigrants, unhoused folks, and racialized people in the context of the fires ravaging the Los Angeles area, it’s difficult to feel optimistic about the state of politics in 2025. This feeling of dread can be only partially attributed to the Trump regime, given that these catastrophes started, intensified, or ossified under Joseph R. Biden. As the U.S. government continues to make a mockery of democracy and justice by, for example, putting a bounty on the head of the democratically elected president of Venezuela while threatening sanctions on the International Criminal Court for issuing righteous arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals, it can seem naïve to believe that if we organize and fight, we will indeed win.

The Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference

April 16, 2025 NBROC Coordinating Committee, Black Agenda Report. Organize! Black History, Black Liberation, Black Radical Tradition, Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC)

In March 1972, on the heels of the Black Freedom Movement, nearly ten thousand Black people, including organizers, activists, politicians, and artists, convened in Gary, Indiana, for the National Black Political Convention (NBPC). Similar to today, they faced the failure of the two-party duopoly, rising inflation, growing economic crisis, an unpopular imperialist war, counterattacks on our movements, and a pressing need for political clarity. Among the NBPC's goals was to build an independent Black Agenda. While they achieved this goal by producing a National Black Agenda, class and ideological factions ultimately weakened the ability to organize around it.

Malcolm X Presente!

February 23, 2025 Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. Educate! bell hooks, Black Radical Tradition, History, Malcolm X

On a cold New York afternoon in Harlem February 21, 1965, “Don’t Do it,” were the last words that the world heard from the voice of El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X, before the assassins opened fire with a barrage of bullets that would take Malcolm away from us physically. So we come every year to commemorate February 21, the day Malcolm was added to the long list of the great African anti-colonial fighters our struggle produced in the ongoing battle against the slavers and colonizers that spilled out of Europe in 1492 to stain human history with their unprecedented savagery.

Mourning Mutulu Shakur And The Black Radical Tradition

July 13, 2023 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Black Liberation, Black Radical Tradition, Mutulu Shakur, Young Lords

Inspired by the Cuban Revolution and the Black Panthers, a clique of poor and working class Puerto Ricans founded the liberation organization, the Young Lords, in Chicago in 1968 and opened its New York chapter a year later. The activists got down to business immediately, creating a free, daily breakfast program for children and testing them for lead poisoning, organizing clothing banks and street patrols to monitor police abuse, and launching inmates’ rights and school reform efforts. In October of 1969, the militants protested abysmal living conditions in East Harlem and the South Bronx by forming a human chain to block traffic at 125th Street and 2nd Avenue, and lining up rows of garbage cans at the entrance to the Triborough Bridge.

Africans In The United States Are A Colonized People

May 3, 2023 Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black Radical Tradition, COINTELPRO, colonization, Fascism

In the colonial context, the colonized have no rights that the colonizer ever really needed to recognize. Therefore, any social space that Africans in the U.S. experienced were won through resistance. The historic fight for African self-determination and liberation from the anti-human colonial/capitalist system has been an uninterrupted feature of what we claim as the “Black Radical Tradition.” An unapologetic opposition to the U.S. colonial/capitalist project and U.S. imperialism centers the Black radical tradition, along with internationalism and a commitment to socialist transformation. It is this tradition of principled, militant resistance that has been a constant source of concern and, consequently, systematic repression of Black/African radicalism by the U.S. colonial/imperialist state.

Youth Organizers Unite Marginalized Communities To Stop Atlanta’s Cop City

April 2, 2023 Ngakiya Camara, Truthout. Organize! #StopCopCity, Atlanta, Black Radical Tradition, Cop City, Georgia, White People, Youth Activism

A crowd of youth organizers have mastered this call and response chant, a unanimous voice talking back to a potential Cop City. Nearing the end of Defend the Atlanta Forest’s Week of Action, the energy from the In Defense of Black Lives rally held at the Atlanta Police Foundation Headquarters is palpable. There is laughter, chanting, a fire of hope that electrifies the air — folks have just finished roasting the heavily militarized police, who eye the crowd through the slits of their helmets. The solidarity between these kids is their biggest threat. Black youth organizers were at the center of this rally that was organized by the Stop Cop City Coalition, In Defense of Black Lives Atlanta (IDBL), which is a coalition movement based in Atlanta that works to defend Black life and to defund the Atlanta Police Department.

Black August Builds On Our Black Radical Traditions

August 12, 2022 Charles Brooks, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black August, Black Radical Tradition, History

The 31 days of August hold a particular and special meaning you will not find in the celebrations that come with Juneteenth, Black History Month or Kwanzaa. For 43 years now since 1979, Black August commemorates and highlights political prisoners and their crucial role in the Black liberation/freedom struggle. Black August is directly tied to the Black prison movement that started in the San Quentin prison and through relentless organizing spread to other prisons as well as to the streets. The story of Black August begins immediately behind the prison walls after Jonathan and George Jackson were killed in August 1970, and 1971 respectively, as well as W.L. Nolan (killed January 1970), James McClain, William Christmas (killed with George) and Khatari Gaulden (killed August 1st, 1978).

Glen Ford And The Black Radical Critical Tradition

August 7, 2021 Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black Radical Tradition, Collective Liberation, Glen Ford, Media

It's easy to run with the herd, especially when it can bring possible career advancements and even significant monetary gain. That is why, for so many, making decisions to find a way into the mix, to play the game in order to advance one’s individual objectives, does not present any internal moral debate. It is just common sense. But for the oppressed and their radical intellectuals and activists, accommodationism is not an option without surrendering one’s soul. Glen Ford and many of our generation refused to do that. Glen made the decision to devote himself to being a truth teller on the side of the people back in the 1970s, at a historic moment when it was very easy to be an opportunist.

The Second Sight Of W.E.B. Du Bois

June 5, 2018 Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com Educate! Black Radical Tradition, History, Left Politics

W.E.B. Du Bois, more than any intellectual this nation produced in the first half of the 20th century, explained America to itself. He did this not only through what he called the “color line” but by exposing the intertwining of empire, capitalism and white supremacy. He deftly fused academic disciplines. He possessed unwavering integrity, a deep commitment to the truth, and the courage to speak it. That he was brilliant and a radical was bad enough. That he was brilliant, radical and black terrified the ruling elites. He was swiftly blacklisted, denied the professorships and public platforms that went to those who were more obsequious and compliant.