Join us on Sojourner Truth Tuesday through Friday, 7 to 8 a.m. Exclusively on Pacifica Radio and its affiliate networks!

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Today on "Sojourner Truth," an update on the presidential election post Iowa. All eyes are on New Hampshire. Our guest is South Carolina political activist Kevin Alexander Gray.

As we kick off our Black History Month coverage, we look back at the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the leadership of Mississippi sharecropper Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer, and the price Black people paid for the right to vote. Our guest is civil rights icon Courtland Cox.

Also, we remember 2010's SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference.

Join us on Sojourner Truth Tuesday through Friday, 7 to 8 a.m. Exclusively on Pacifica Radio and its affiliate networks!

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

The Iowa caucus results are in. There is a dead heat between Bernie and Hillary, and now Bernie is calling for a raw vote count. Ted Cruz put away Donald Trump. Conservative Marco Rubio emerged a strong third in the GOP caucus, positioning himself as the GOP establishment candidate with the likelihood of big money pouring in. Our panelists are Dr. Gerald Horne, Jackie Goldberg, and on the ground in Iowa, KPFK program director Alan Minsky.

And controversy at the prestigious Georgetown Law School: Georgetown Law Center has forbidden a group of students from campaigning for Bernie Sanders on campus. By extension, that ban would include any candidate in the presidential race. Our guest is Marieke Tuthill Beck-Coon, senior program officer with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Join us on Sojourner Truth Tuesday through Friday, 7 to 8 a.m. Exclusively on Pacifica Radio and its affiliate networks!

Friday, January 29, 2016

On our weekly roundtable, we continue our coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign with a discussion on the Democratic candidates' town hall and Bernie's visit with President Obama. What can we expect out of Iowa, as well as well as the post-Iowa campaign? Plus, the youth vote: who is paying attention, and what could be the impact? the the significance of Bernie Sanders' surge, the chase after the Black vote, and what is fueling Donald Trump's rise. Are election year politics undermining movements for change on the street?

The peace talks brokered by the U.S. and the U.N. to end war in Syria have begun in Geneva, but without the opposition, who remain holed up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. What is the opposition up to? Do any of the players truly want peace in Syria? Also, how much of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the world involves pushing for regime change? Is the context of U.S. interest in the conflicts in the Ukraine and Syria regime change or spreading democracy? And: what about regime change in Russia?

Our guests are Jackie Goldberg, former member of the California State Assembly, Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles School Board; Dr. Gerald Horne, writer and professor of History and African-American Studies; Tom Hayden, political activist and founder of the Peace and Justice Resource Center; and Laura Carlsen, Mexico City-based writer and political analyst.

Margaret Prescod discusses the last night of Martin Luther King’s life and "The Mountaintop," a play opening in Los Angeles this week. Last year at Kent State University, the play was controversially cast with a white actor in the role of Dr. King. She talks with Roger Guenveur Smith, the director of “The Mountaintop,” about his LA adaption and the play’s importance in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Join us on Sojourner Truth Tuesday through Friday, 7 to 8 a.m. Exclusively on Pacifica Radio and its affiliate networks!

Thursday, January 28, 2016

A plant in Oregon is creating millions of gallons of highly volatile biofuel, which have protesters outraged. What are the threats to people and the environment? Our guest is environmental and social justice advocate Chris Zinda.

And the fourth oldest university in the Americas was Codrington College in the Caribbean island of Barbados. Many decades after the University of the West Indies was first established in the island nation of Jamaica, it has now grown to include campuses on several islands.

And we discuss the last night of Martin Luther King’s life and a play “The Mountaintop,” which opens in Los Angeles this week. Last year at Kent State University, the play was controversially cast with a white actor in the role of Dr. King. We talk with Roger Guenveur Smith, the director of “The Mountaintop,” about his LA adaption and the play’s importance in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Join us on Sojourner Truth Tuesday through Friday, 7 to 8 a.m. Exclusively on Pacifica Radio and its affiliate networks!

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

President Obama makes a move against solitary confinement in US prisons. A federal judge will hold a hearing today on whether to grant a final approval of a case, which will end indeterminate solitary confinement throughout California prisons. Our guest is Rachel Meeropol, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Syrian peace talks have been delayed until Friday over disagreement over who represents the opposition to the Assad regime. Plus, breaking news: an Islamic State bombing in the city of Homs in Syria has killed at least 24 people. For an update on Syria, on political alliances in the region, and the role of the US in the Syrian conflict and in the region, we speak with Robert Parry, an award-winning investigative journalist and editor of ConsortiumNews.com.

Also, an update on the Porter Ranch gas leak, referred to the largest environmental disaster in the US since the BP oil spill in 2010. We speak in studio with Alexandra Nagy, a SoCal organizer at the LA branch of Food & Water Watch.

Plus, our "Weekly Earth Minute."

On our weekly roundtable, we kick off our 2016 campaign coverage with a discussion on the presidential race, the Democratic candidates debate, the significance of Bernie Sanders' surge, the chase after the Black vote, and what is fueling Donald Trump's rise.

World leaders are now meeting in Davos, Switzerland to address the "Fourth Industrial Revolution." What is the state of the economy in the U.S., and why is it not more central to the presidential campaigns thus far?

What about the "gig economy"? Will nations, including Western countries like the United States, have to move to some form of income guarantee?

How does the global economic picture look? What has been the worldwide impact on the drop in oil prices?

Our guests are Jackie Goldberg, former member of the California State Assembly, Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles School Board; Dr. Gerald Horne, writer and professor of History and African-American Studies; and Laura Carlsen, Mexico City-based writer and political analyst.

As world leaders gather in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the future of us all, research has revealed that just 62 people now own the same wealth as half the world’s population, and that the world has become more unequal. Oil prices have dropped and the Chinese economy has contracted; what is the impact on the world economy? And what does President Obama’s proposal for wage insurance mean for America? Our guest is economist and journalist Mark Weisbrot.

Grassroots organizations in Haiti have started a Resistance for Existence Movement and they are asking for international solidarity as protests against Haiti’s fraudulent Presidential election continue. Protesters are facing violence. Our guests are Haitian American Franz Jerome and journalist and Haiti expert Kevin Pina.

S. Pearl Sharp gives her commentary on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.

For our “Weekly Earth Watch," we speak with Hawaii based Dr. Hector Valenzuela about his struggle against GMO crops.

Wednesday we spend the hour with Black documentary filmmakers Joyce Guy and Dawn Kirk-Alexander and we hear sound from a brand new film about poet Sonia Sanchez.

In a show co-hosted by S Pearl Sharp who brought us “Sojourner goes to the Movies”, we focus on BAD-West, the Black Association of Documentary film-makers, bring out the voices of those all too often silenced and underserved.

The VW scandal continues to evolve. VW actively deceived its customers and care regulators all over the world. Ralph Nader is our guest. He is a consumer advocate and author of “Return to Sender: Unanswered Letters to the President, 2001-2015.”

Yesterday was a big day at the UN with speeches by President Obama, Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, Rouhani of Iran and Raul Castro, Prime Minister of Cuba. Dr. Gerald Horne discusses the highlights and the mixed messages.

And on his recent trip to the U.S., the Pope met with victims of sex abuse by priests in the Catholic Church. He also announced that Bishops and others who, rather than hold the priests to account, basically covered up their crimes and they will be held to account. Our guest is Peter Isley, a founding member of Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests known as SNAP.