Summary: <h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(46,46,46); background-color: rgb(255,255,255);"><span style="color: rgb(51,51,51); font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: large; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19.8px;">This is Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. Your hosts are Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, here they are with a weekly hour of African American political thought and action.</span></h3><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(46,46,46); background-color: rgb(255,255,255);"> <br> <br> </h3><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(46,46,46); background-color: rgb(255,255,255);">Rights Lawyers Target Arkansas Debtors Prison</h3><br> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; color: rgb(46,46,46); font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255,255,255);">The district court in Sherwood, Arkansas, is in gross violation of a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it is unconstitutional to imprison people for debt, according to a class action suit filed by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Arkansas ACLU. Much like the pattern of abuse documented by the U.S. Justice Department in Ferguson, Missouri, Sherwood derives as much as 12 percent of its revenues from “imposing mounting fines or fees tied to very low level offenses,” said Lawyers Committee president <span style="font-weight: 700;">Kristen Clarke</span>. One of Clarke’s clients wound up spending 25 days in jail and owing nearly $3,000 to the courts because she bounced a $28.93 check. “Our hope is that we can bring national attention to this problem, and that we might inspire action by the Congress to breathe life back into this Supreme Court ruling,” said Clarke.</p><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(46,46,46); background-color: rgb(255,255,255);">Reformers Hope Private Prison Phase-Out Will Spread</h3><br> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; color: rgb(46,46,46); font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255,255,255);">The Obama administration’s announcement that it will phase out contracting with private prisons in the federal system is “a real notable moment,” said <span style="font-weight: 700;">Marc Mauer</span>, executive director of The Sentencing Project, in Washington. “It’s yet another indication that the growing critique and challenge to mass incarceration is really gaining ground,” said Mauer. The vast bulk of the nation’s 2.4 million inmates are held in local and state institutions, and most immigrants under detention are not affected by the executive order. However, Mauer is “hopeful” that there will be a “spillover effect.”</p><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(46,46,46); background-color: rgb(255,255,255);">Mumia: Trump or Clinton – Choose Your Poison</h3><br> <p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; color: rgb(46,46,46); font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; background-color: rgb(255,255,255);">The nation faces “incredibly grim” choices for president, according to America’s best known political prisoner. <span style="font-weight: 700;">Mumia Abu Jamal</span> said Donald Trump is “an overt racist” while Hillary Clinton is a neoliberal that “supported one of the most poisonous public policies in decades: the prison industrial complex.” Neoliberalism, he said, is </p>
