Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report

This is a 2014 episode with Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report, uploaded for the first time, that was rebroadcast for the March 17, 2016 episode of Freedom is a Constant Struggle.

[this bio is from 2014] Glen Ford, a veteran of more than 40 years in broadcast, print and Internet journalism, is a former Washington Bureau Chief and White House, Capitol Hill, and State Department correspondent.  He co-founded and hosted “America’s Black Forum,” the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on commercial television; launched and owned the radio syndications “Black World Report,” “Black Agenda Reports,” and “Rap It Up,” the first national hip hop music show. He has worked as a radio newsman in Washington, Baltimore, and Georgia, and produced over 1,000 radio and TV commercials.

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ida McCray, Keith Wattley and Terry Collins talk about Hugo Pinell

March 3, 2016 episode of Freedom is a Constant Struggle, with guests, Ida McCray, Keith Wattley and Terry Collins discussing the life of Hugo "Yogi Bear" Pinell.

Locked Far Too Long Behind the Walls (reprinted from 2010)

RELATED:  Kiilu Nyasha and Terry Collins remember Hugo ‘Yogi’ Pinell (August 2015)

(Artwork by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, 1859887, Clements Unit, 9601 Spur 591, Amarillo TX 79107; Featured at HugoPinell.com)



Locked Far Too Long Behind the Walls


by Kiilu Nyasha

(First published on September 26, 2010)

Trust no one in whom the desire to punish is strong. (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

I’ve been corresponding with prisoners since 1970, shortly after joining the Black Panther Party in 1969.  At that stage of the struggle, the Seventies, I was writing so many prisoners I had to keep files and carbon copies so as not to get mixed up with who said what.  There were fierce arguments being waged re individual leaders, strategies and tactics, and ideology.  I was also able to keep various political prisoners in touch with one another when they were transferred to different t gulags in separation. 

Recently, after a picture of “Pat” with Huey Newton and Charles Garry surfaced, one of the brothers I wrote and visited during the 70s saw it in another prisoner’s Bay View newspaper and sent me a kite via the SFBV.  His name is Arthur Anderson, aka, Andy or Frelimo. He was in the San Quentin AC on August 21, 1971 when George Jackson was killed.  It grieved me to learn he’s been down 47 years, and was just denied 3 more.  Here’s some of what he said:

And well for the last (30) some years I have been in war zones and I had to keep the oppressors knives out my back and to help protect some of these ndugos up in there who didn’t have the heart to protect themselves.  And so I got caught up…and when I was at Folsom and the Mex M. came to serve me… his ass got served. And that’s what I got the other 9 years to life for, they stretched me out on that one….To defend ones self when you’re being attacked and you’re given 9 years to life for assault… How do you justify keeping a human being locked up and away from society for 47 years?...And now for the past 17 years I have been involved with a program here and in another prison called convicts reaching out to people, CROP. (a mentoring program for youth)

When I told Yogi, (Hugo Pinell) that I heard from Frelimo, he said, “Of course I remember him and love him a lot…I’m so glad you’re in touch….I hope he is in good health and holding on strongly.  My best to him and his family and all other true loved ones.”