MARGARET KIMBERLEY—It is important to remember what Conyers tried to achieve the year after Barack Obama sided with right-wing Ukrainians and brought down the elected president of that nation. The Conyers amendment passed unanimously in the House but was killed because the administration was well aware of the Azov Battalion’s role and approved of it. The policy of using Ukraine against Russia was settled and any effort to remove a central component of its military was off the table.
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NICK BARRICKMAN—Shakur’s murder was one of several high profile deaths of hip hop artists that took place within the span of 12 months. Multiplatinum New York-based rapper Christopher Wallace, known as the Notorious B.I.G., was killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997.
The circumstances surrounding the two unsolved murders of artists who were at the height of their respective musical careers have led to much speculation. The pair have been appraised as perhaps the most influential rappers in the history of the genre. In 2019, Shakur was the first solo rap act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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AJAMU BARAKA—But Glen made a conscious decision to take, as Kwame Nkrumah framed it, a “revolutionary path.” That path is always more difficult, for not many take it. As a result, the path is quite narrow, no more than a trail through the forest of normalized reaction projected to the masses as supposed “common sense.” When one takes that path, very few accolades nor real economic stability, retirement funds or clear paths forward are available.
It might end with one laying in a hospital bed for two weeks, while furiously pounding out two issues of Black Agenda Report, suspecting they may be the last few you will have a hand in shaping and passing quietly on the morning the next issue was due to come out.
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We were eventually introduced to Glen in person at the 2010 Left Forum conference. From that first meeting, we would occasionally catch up with him when we visited New York City. Glen would take the train over from New Jersey and meet us at a downtown bar and we would spend a few hours talking politics and laughing at Glen’s stories of life in the military and in the media.
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We have just been informed that our brother Glen Ford, founding editor of Black Agenda Report, has passed. As one who profoundly admired Glen for his extraordinary lucidity and revolutionary integrity, I can only say that I am simply devastated by this terrible news. I never had the pleasure of meeting him in person, but the knowledge he was there, with his equally formidable colleagues at BAR, fighting the good fight with exemplary dedication, served as a constant source of inspiration. Despite being one of America’s leading public intellectuals, he was not a household name, an injustice, no doubt, but his work will surely be remembered and utilised by future generations of true revolutionists for many years to come. Hasta la victoria siempre, Glen!
