Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin.

This is the audio version of each episode of The Empire Files hosted on Telesaur English.

You can watch every episode at the Empirefiles.tv.

This month, as America pays homage to African Americans who have changed the course of history,

the establishment shows us a revised

version of black history that omits a critical piece, the black radical political tradition.

The mainstream narrative erases the attack on black liberation movements in the 60s and 70s,

where the horrors of Cointelpro effectively neutralized and destroyed prominent black radical

leaders and organizations. The black radical tradition is a collective of ideologies for liberation,

from pan-Africanism to black Marxism, that sees issues like police brutality and inequality

is systemic injustices perpetuated by class warfare,

and is rooted in internationalism and anti-imperialism.

To honor Black History Month, we want to highlight a few of the many voices that are keeping this political tradition alive.

On January 10th of this year, hundreds of people from all over the country converged in Philadelphia to show this fire is still burning, despite all the attempts to extinguish it.

Hosted by the Philadelphia-based Black Radical Organizing Collective, held at Temple University, the Black Radical Tradition in our Time Conference provided a platform

for organizers young and old, from Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter, to generate discussion

and action and challenging white supremacy and capitalism in anticipating the next stage

of the Black Liberation Movement.

Keynote of the conference, Dr. Angela Davis, renowned author and scholar rooted in this tradition,

reminds us of those who paved the way.

So what does radical mean?

Aside from taking things at the root, it means opposition to racism in the tradition of Ida B. Well.

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