The Black Agenda

by Glen Ford, Margaret Kimberley (Foreword)

Black politics are key to recognizing the most important social dynamics of the United States. Over the past forty years, no commentator has been as deeply insightful about the paradoxes and personalities of Black American public life as the journalist and radio host Glen Ford.

In this stunning overview, Ford draws from his work for Black Agenda Report, one of the most incisive and perceptive publications of the progressive left, to examine competing struggles for class power and identity in the Black movement. In a survey stretching from the violent gentrification of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, through the engineered bankruptcy of Detroit, to the “more effective evil” of the Obama presidency, Ford casts a caustic eye on the empty posturing and corruption of the Democratic Party. This, he insists, depends on a Black constituency for electoral success, while using a co-opted “Black misleadership class” to sell out working people’s interests.

Profiling along the way storied Black leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Brown (for whom Ford once worked), The Black Agenda looks, too, beyond American shores, at US intervention in Libya, the Congo and the Middle East, showing how these are imbricated with racism at home. Ford concludes with a discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement, setting out both its pitfalls and potentialities.

Genres: History

392 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

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Reviews

[Xia_Beah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is limited by the Black Agenda Report's format, that being of commentary and analysis, so readers searching for incisive research towards the political mechanisms fueling American military imperialism and corporatism domestically and abroad may only find helpful but reactionary pieces in the book. Otherwise, Mr. Ford does provide great context towards the unrealized but necessary exigencies of movement building and Black politics, those being (1) attention to and adherence to internationalism, especially American foreign policy, which Americans are woefully uninformed of; (2) the common tendencies of Black Americans to resort to electability politics and reputation control at the expense of preserving progressive and antiwar ideals, and freedom from the corporatism of the Democratic Party; (3) greater divorce from Unilateral support of pro-war, hypocritical, and corporate-deferrent members of the 'Black misleadership class'. For this insight, I'm grateful for Mr. Ford's book. May he rest in power.

[Gregory Stanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the perfect description of the past 22+ years in Black America. The Ups and Downs, the Ins and Outs. Ford identifies the essential picture of Obama, Biden, Hillary, and Trump. Picks apart the Congressional Black Caucus and downgrades Black Lives Matter. They all are shown to lack the correct orientation to achieve Black liberation. Other than his own publication he speaks of a few other organizations that still lead the pack towards Black liberation like the Black Alliance for Peace. Rest in Power.