Episodes
Wednesday Dec 03, 2014
Fired Up, Powered Down: People Want Action, Leaders Can’t/Won’t Deliver - 12.03.14
Wednesday Dec 03, 2014
Wednesday Dec 03, 2014
Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the legendary minister-congressman who represented Harlem (and, by extension, Black America) from 1945 to 1971, would find America’s leadership in general, and its Black leadership in particular, woefully lacking in what he called “audacious power.” Yet it’s what’s necessary to heal America’s racism-sick society and rid it of the “cancer that is eating out the heart of democracy,” Powell warned.
Ongoing protests and still-simmering tensions over a grand jury’s decision not to indict former police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9 are popular demands for justice. At almost every level, up to and including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama, they instead are offered palliatives.
Leid Stories discusses why, when the people want action, leaders can’t or won’t deliver.