Millennials Are Killing Capitalism

In this episode we interview Dr. Soyica Diggs Colbert about her recently published book, Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry . Most well known as the playwright behind A Raisin In The Sun , Hansberry was a journalist and editor for Paul Robeson's Freedom , which covered domestic and international politics and social movements from a Black Radical perspective in the 1950's. In the 50'...

In this episode we talk to Peter Cole, historian and author of Ben Fletcher, The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly .   Fletcher was among the most successful union organizers in the early 20th century, and a Black leader of the Local 8 union - a component of the Industrial Workers of the World - which organized on the docks in South Philadelphia beginning in 1913. Local 8 of the IWW's Marine Transp...

In this episode we talk to Dr. Rinaldo Walcott. Walcott is a Professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Walcott is also the author of many books, including Black Like Who? Writing Black Canada , Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora , and Black Studies , and the co-author of BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom . In this episode we p...

In this episode we interview Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army veteran Jalil Muntaqim. Muntaqim was political prisoner for nearly half a century due to his involvement in the liberation struggle. He was released from prison in October of 2019 after eleven parole denials. He is the author of We Are Our Own Liberators , which we discuss some in the episode, and Escaping The Prism… Fade t...

In this episode we interview Max Ajl, author of the new book A People's Green New Deal .   Max Ajl is an associated researcher with the Tunisian Observatory for Food Sovereignty and the Environment and a postdoctoral fellow with the Rural Sociology Group at Wageningen University. He has written for Monthly Review, Jacobin and Viewpoint. He has contributed to a number of journals, including the Jou...

In this episode we interview Rawan and Fathi, co-founders of decolonizepalestine.com . Rawan is the co-founder of decolonizepalestine.com . While studying political science, Middle Eastern studies and Arabic at university, Rawan organized for Students for Justice in Palestine and the Democratic Socialists of America before moving to Palestine and working for a feminist organization in Ramallah. Fa...

In this episode are joined by Dan Berger, Emily K. Hobson and Barbara Smith to discuss the recently published book Remaking Radicalism: A Grassroots Documentary Reader of the United States, 1973-2001 edited by Berger and Hobson.   Dan Berger is an associate professor of comparative ethnic studies at the University of Washington Bothell and the author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in t...

In this interview we talk to Joseph R. Fitzgerald, associate professor of history and political science at Cabrini University and author of The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation . Perhaps most known today as the subject of an iconic photo where she pushes away a bayonet and stares down the national guardsman whose wielding it, Gloria Richardson was a dynamic leader of the...

This is a dialogue between Hanif Abdurraqib and Fred Moten. Hanif Abdurraqib has been on the show twice before, but we really have not done a proper episode to honor his work. So we wanted to figure out a unique way to commemorate the release of A Little Devil In America: Notes In Praise of Black Performance . It dawned on us that a lot of Fred Moten's work was wrestling with many of the same ques...

In this episode we talk to Zoé Samudzi. Dr. Samudzi has a PhD in Medical Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco. Her dissertation was about German colonialism, the Herero/Nama genocide, and the afterlife of that genocidal structure in the present. Her writing has appeared in Art in America , The New Republic , The New Inquiry , Jewish Currents , and other outlets. She is co-aut...

In this episode we interview Hy Thurman, founding member of the Young Patriots, and the Rainbow Coalition.   Our conversation focuses on his recently published memoir Revolutionary Hillbilly: Notes From The Struggle On The Edge Of The Rainbow .   We begin the conversation discussing growing up in a family of poor white farm workers in Appalachia and the conditions in Tennessee that lead to his mig...

In this episode we interview Devyn Springer. This is the third episode we've recorded over the years with Springer, but the first since the summer of 2018.   Devyn Springer is a cultural worker, community organizer, and independent researcher. They are a member of the Walter Rodney Foundation and the host of the Groundings podcast. In this episode we revisit some of our discussion from 2017 on Wal...

In this episode we interview Justine Teba, Orien Longknife, and Demetrius Johnson from The Red Nation. Our discussion centers around the book The Red Deal: Indigenous Action To Save Our Earth, which is the first book release from the Red Media imprint on Common Notions. The Red Deal is a call for action beyond the scope of the US colonial state.  It's a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and...

This is part two one of a two-part conversation with Cira Pascual Marquina and Chris Gilbert, editors of the book Venezuela, The Present As Struggle: Voices From The Bolivarian Revolution. The book is a collection of interviews with Chavistas, communards, campesinos, and a variety of activists, organizers, intellectuals and workers from the grassroots in Venezuela.   Cira Pascual Marquina is Polit...

This is part one of a two-part conversation with Cira Pascual Marquina and Chris Gilbert, editors of the book Venezuela, The Present As Struggle: Voices From The Bolivarian Revolution. This book is a collection of interviews with Chavistas, communards, Campesinos, and a variety of activists, organizers, intellectuals and workers from the grassroots in Venezuela.   The book offers a view of both th...

Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of U n d o i n g B o r d e r I m p e r i a l i s m and B o r d e r & R u l e . She is trained in law, and is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women's Memorial March Committee.   In this episode we talk to her about her latest book B o r d e r &...

This is part 2 of our 2 part conversation with journalist, educator, author and activist Herb Boyd. In this part of the conversation we talk more about how Boyd and other politicized students used the 1967 Rebellion to launch Black Studies at Wayne State University, and develop it into a radical space for the political and cultural education of Black students living in Detroit and often working an...

This is part 1 of a 2 part conversation with journalist, educator, author, and activist Herb Boyd. Our conversation with Boyd centers around his book Black Detroit, with particular attention paid to the middle of the 20th Century, leading up to the development of The League of Revolutionary Black Workers.   In this part of the conversation Boyd talks about moving to Detroit, the strains of Black p...

400+1 is a Black, cooperative federation that exists to leverage vanguardism, destabilization, and Black and autonomous alternatives to build a world beyond survival. The federation is currently engaged in a protracted struggle against the state for Orisha Land, an autonomous zone in Texas. We talk to them about their organization, how it's structured, what political education looks like to them,...

In this episode we catch up with representatives from Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. They talk about the state of the prison abolition and prisoner support movements from their perspective. JLS describe an exodus of liberals from prisoner support movements with the election of Joe Biden. A dangerous trend given Joe Biden's track record as a key figure in the expansion of prison,  jails and police power...

Dr. Yannick Giovanni Marshall writes and teaches in Black Studies. His research focus is on police power, colonial policing in Nairobi, the white supremacist state, anti-colonial movements and movements against anti-Blackness.   He is currently an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Knox College and has taught courses on Black Lives Matter and Deconstructing the Police for several years.  H...

This is a special message and brief addendum to our conversation published earlier this week with Dr. Mamyrah Prosper. We had a great conversation with Mamyrah in which she gave a ton of history of US and European imperialism against Haiti. She also envisioned bolder and more direct forms of solidarity than our modern solidarity movements in the US currently deploy on a regular basis. However, aft...

In this episode we interview Dr. Mamyrah Prosper.   Mamyrah Prosper is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College and the International Coordinator with Community Movement Builders' Pan African Solidarity Network. Mamyrah discusses the current struggle in Haiti in connection with the long history of US and European imperialism after the Haitian Revolution. Specifically...

In this episode we speak to Kamau Franklin. Kamau is the founder of Community Movement Builders a grassroots organization dedicated to creating sustainable Black communities through organizing and cooperative development. Kamau has been a dedicated community organizer for over twenty-five years, first in New York City and now based in the south.  He has worked on various issues including community...

In this episode we interview Dr. Michael Sawyer. Sawyer is an assistant professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies in the Department of English at Colorado College. We spoke to him about his book, Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X which is part of the Black Critique Series on Pluto Press. Sawyer is also the author of An Africana Philosophy of Temporality.   Dr. Sawyer sh...