Sat., September 18, 2021,
2 pm ET
From The New York Times,
August 18, 2021
Fiercely progressive and independent, [Glen Ford] was a persistent critic of the liberal establishment, especially Black leaders like Barack Obama.
Glen Ford, who over a 50-year career was a leading voice among progressive Black journalists and a constant scourge of the liberal establishment, especially Black politicians like Barack Obama, died on July 28 in Manhattan. He was 71.
Originally as a radio news reporter in Augusta, Ga., and later as a television and online correspondent, Mr. Ford offered his audience a progressive perspective across a wide array of issues, including welfare rights, foreign policy, and police misconduct.
He took particular aim at the nexus of the mainstream news media and what he called the Black “misleadership” class. He argued that right-wing corporate interests bestowed money on certain centrist Black politicians, like Mr. Obama, whom he called “not the lesser of evils, but the more effective evil”; those leaders, he argued, then drew the attention of corporate-run news organizations, in the process marginalizing the interests of working-class Black people.
“He was a great path blazer in terms of being an independent Black institution in the media focused on truth-telling,” the philosopher Cornel West, a close friend of Mr. Ford’s, said in an interview. “He had the courage to acknowledge the neglect, indeed the betrayal, of the Black political leadership that did not highlight the plight of the Black poor.”
Glen Ford’s new book, The Black Agenda, will be available later this month. Pre-order for 15% off now! Only $19.45.
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