The BPP’s revolutionary legacy offers many useful lessons in organizing work to create a just and emancipated world. But radical organizations and organizers should be wary of the BPP’s top-down leadership approach. Moreover, the party was ill-advised in believing that the lumpen, especially the criminal elements, could serve as a revolutionary force.

Despite the continuing oppression of 45 million Blacks, the United States will open one of the largest of such institutions in the country.

Whatever the outcome of the U.S. elections this year, Washington’s militarized imperialist policy towards Africa looks certain to remain unchanged. Matters are not helped by the fact that, unlike in the 1970s and 1980s, the Black leadership in America is not pushing for any policy change towards Africa.

President Obama in 2009 signed a proclamation establishing the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission. The commission was supposed to organize activities to mark the 100th anniversary, in 2011, of President Reagan’s birth. What about we people who are darker than blue? If a Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission is in order, what about a Black Music Month Commission?

The assassination of community activists fighting against mining interests in rural communities is becoming an extremely worrying trend in South Africa.