In Search of Black Power

Send us Fan Mail Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS) . The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail While The Wire is celebrated for its gritty realism however , it perpetuates an over-sensationalized, externally oriented, and ultimately limited view of Black life in Baltimore. It aestheticizes poverty and violence without sufficiently acknowledging the cultural, historical, and community-based dimensions of African American resilience and self-determination. By re-centering the...

Send us Fan Mail In the 90s and 2000s, a wave of academic texts emerged that challenge the dominate narrative of Black leadership and politics, claiming that the location of Black power in the Black church and “respectable” civil rights organizations limited Black politics. One of the most prominent of these texts is The Boundaries of Blackness, written by Cathy Cohen, which uses the example of th...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of In Search of Black Power , filmmaker and historian Xavier Frink dives into the roots of Black excellence and resistance by exploring 19th-century political and civic activity in Baltimore and beyond through his documentary Justice and Reconciliation: From Henry Highland Garnet to Harvey Johnson . This conversation and film are essential in understanding the stra...

Send us Fan Mail Baltimore’s Panthers complicate the easy narratives. They were neither reckless radicals nor romantic revolutionaries. They were pragmatic idealists, adapting to legal constraints, financial scarcity, and relentless surveillance while insisting that political struggle begin with feeding children and keeping neighbors housed.  Their story is a reminder that grassroots movements are...

Send us Fan Mail Trump's attacks on Venezuela are an attempt to terrorize attempts to resist white supremacy worldwide. In this episode, LBS political commentator Lawrence Grandpre and Director of Public Policy Dayvon Love discuss the history of Venezuela, deconstruct the mythology of the US striking Venezuela to fight a “dictatorship,” examine why we must look beyond oil as an explanation fo...

Send us Fan Mail This episode addresses how racism and white supremacy impact advocacy for juvenile justice reform in Maryland. Additionally this episode discusses some of the major policy reform that is on the table for Maryland General Assembly 2026. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beaut...

Send us Fan Mail A conversation hosted by Baltimore Racial Justice Action between LBS director of research Lawrence Grandpre and Baltimore Green Party chair Andy Ellis. We touch on DOGE, the link between South Africa and the United States on anti-Black visions of government, the political limitations of progressive/leftist notions of political corruption, and the implications of all of this on app...

Send us Fan Mail Leftist responses to the current moment range from rejecting engaging the state at all to grudgingly accepting centrist Democrats as a lesser evil. In an interview between LBS’s Dayvon Love and Lawrence Grandpre, Love urges the Left to intentionally chart a middle course. Using examples from concrete legislative victories in Maryland, he advocates for intentionally delivering on c...

Send us Fan Mail The Alliance of the Sahel states has sent shock waves through the western world, raising the possiblity of anti-imperialist Pan-African block. While this movement has exploded online through the focus on the charismatic Burkino Faso leader  Ibrahim Traoré, in this episode we seek to engage what is happening in the Sahel beyond just him. In this interview between LBS’s Dayvon Love...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, MJ and Rasheem explore the legacy and continued relevance of poor Black women's activism in Baltimore, focusing on housing justice and welfare rights. Drawing on Rhonda Y. Williams’ seminal article, “We’re Tired of Being Treated Like Dogs,” the hosts delve into the political lives of Black women who mobilized against institutional neglect and economic exploit...

Send us Fan Mail We welcome back S. Rasheem to In Search of Black Power! In this episode we are exposed to the concept of “Race Work”. In conversation with LBS Dir. of Research Lawrence Grandpre, Rasheem exposes us to critical figures in debates throughout the history of “Race Work”, including integration vs. nationalism & strategic navigation vs. confrontation with oppressive systems. Rasheem...

Send us Fan Mail This discussion addresses the intersection between radical politics and advancing an agenda of economic justice from a lens of Black Liberation. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS) . The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation...

Send us Fan Mail In the Black radical tradition, critiques of Nationalism as inherently violent have clashed with recognition of the importance of national liberation movements and the desire for self-determination of oppressed people. Ta-Nehisi Coats grapples with this in his book The Message, grappling with being raised in a Pan-Africanist household and have an emotional return to Africa with th...

Send us Fan Mail This year marks the 15-year anniversary of the first publication of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow.  The text was praised as challenging the post-racial ethos that rose after the election of Obama by presenting a compelling analysis of mass incarceration driven by anti-black racism creating a permanent under caste in American, akin to the Jim Crow system of the South....

Send us Fan Mail April 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of the #BaltimoreUprising, a series of protests sparked by Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore Police custody in 2015. Baltimore has long reflected America’s racial and political anxieties, making the Uprising a frequent subject of academic analysis. In this episode, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle’s Lawrence Grandpre and Dayvon Love critique tw...

Send us Fan Mail Despite media fearmongering about crime in cities, violent crimes like shootings and murders have declined nationwide in 2024. In Baltimore, murders have dropped even as police departments claim to be understaffed and demoralized, yet many still credit the police for the decline. Dayvon and Lawrence reveal that grassroots community organizations, not police or the nonprofit indust...

Send us Fan Mail In his book The Squad, journalist Ryan Grim provides an account of the experiences of “The Squad,” a group of progressive legislators elected to the House of Representatives, as they attempted to govern. Their journey—from election victories to struggles with Republicans and Democratic leadership—is widely praised for its detailed investigation of the electoral and political “insi...

Send us Fan Mail Over the past decade, reparations have shifted from a fringe issue championed by Black nationalists to a mainstream topic in Democratic and nonprofit circles. In Baltimore, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS) has advanced a reparations agenda rooted in Black community control, challenging assumptions of the broader movement. LBS Director of Research, Lawrence Grandpre, interview...

Send us Fan Mail In the conclusion of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle's Post-Election Analysis, we share a panel discussion hosted by Baltimore Racial Justice Action (BRJA), held the week after the election. Moderated by Julia Scott, the panel featured: Lawrence Grandpre, Director of Research at Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle Andy Ellis, Chairman of Baltimore for Democracy and 2026 Green Par...

Send us Fan Mail Trump has won the election—again. But why? Lawrence and Dayvon delve beyond the data, drawing on their on-the-ground experience to contextualize the results. They highlight the Democratic Party’s failures on issues like criminal justice, expungement, housing policy, and maternal health, connecting these shortcomings to voter frustration and the collapse in turnout that cost Kamala...

Send us Fan Mail Kamala Harris released her Black Male Opportunity agenda amid discussions about lower support from Black men compared to Black women, with even Barack Obama criticizing "the brothers." In this episode, we examine how Harris balances appealing to Black men while avoiding policies directly targeting them. We also critique her cannabis legalization strategy, which may hinde...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle Director of Research, Lawrence Grandpre, critiques the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) framework, showing how it centers Eurocentric norms of trauma—focusing on individual and family experiences—while neglecting African-centered views of cultural and political trauma. We discuss how institutional responses to ACEs in Black comm...

Send us Fan Mail Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score has become a global sensation, shaping mental health services and public conversations by centering trauma. Originally aimed at improving doctor-patient relationships, trauma-informed analysis has evolved into a political tool, with some advocating for its use in resource allocation to historically oppressed communities. But can...

Send us Fan Mail African-centered Rites of Passage is a cultural practice and intervention that uses traditional African culture to facilitate the transition of young people to adulthood. Andre "Akintola" Turner, with over 20 years of experience in education and public health, provides an in-depth analysis of this practice through the Baltimore Rites of Passage Initiative. As a Senior Pr...