Today we played excerpts of some of our best Voices radio shows of the past year. Here’s the list. In between the excerpts, Eric discussed the Strategy Center’s new campaign, Fight for the Soul of the Cities, and asked listeners to sign up to participate in mass rallies for the campaign in the upcoming months in Los Angeles. 36 listeners either called in live to the studio, signed up on the email list at www.VoicesFromFrontlines.com, or liked the radio show’s Facebook page: “Eric Mann Speaks.” Please sign up and like us on FB!

Excerpt 1. Mumia Abu-Jamal

In this excerpt Mumia and I discuss the concept of Menticide—wiping out a people’s historical memory in order to disempower them, to demobilize them. In this case, we discuss how the knowledge of movement leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Malcolm X has has not been transmitted to a new generation of black youth, or youth of any race for that matter.

Excerpt 2. Diane Fujino

In this excerpt, Diane Fujino,   Associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara discusses her recent book, Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life. She describes the political influences that turned Aoki into a revolutionary nationalist who joined the Black Panther Party at the very beginning. She describes how he was shaped by the Japanese internment camps, growing up in Black working class neighborhoods of Oakland, and in his early 20s by his work with socialists of the Old Left, before he joined up with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in college.

Excerpt 3. LisaGay Hamilton

In this excerpt, actor and activist LisaGay Hamilton talks about the political influences on her life that evolved into her left, antiracist politics. And she discusses the difficulties of getting work in Hollywood, let alone getting acting roles that are politically progressive and meaningful, when you are an actor who is black, a woman, AND have left politics.

Excerpt 4. Aris Anagnos

In this excerpt, Aris Anagnos, the Greek and Los Angeles leftist and a major supporter of revolutionary movements around the world, discusses the growing crisis of European capitalism and what form that crisis has taken in Greece and why Greece and the Greek people have been scapegoated.

Excerpt 5. Alex Sanchez

In this excerpt Alex discusses the life and political influences that took him from being a working class El Salvadoran immigrant and former gang member to become an internationally known peace maker and executive director of the L.A. organization Hommies Unidos.
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