Heather Gray & Ernest Dunkley - Interviews on WRFG: Recent Episodes
Heather Gray
Interviews by Heather Gray & Ernest Dunkley - co-producers of Just Peace on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3FM - www.wrfg.org
‘Presente’! Bruce Dixon
By Heather Gray
If there was ever a preeminent activist, visionary organizer and journalist seeking justice and the truth about oppressive systems everywhere, it was most definitely Bruce Dixon who joined the ancestors on June 28, 2019. Through his work, he also provided the opportunity for others to have a voice. He was 68 years old.
Born of a working-class Black family on the southside of Chicago, Bruce immediately took to the streets as a young man in order to improve and advance opportunities for the Black community and against racist policies.
In the 1960’s he joined the Black Panther Party alongside Fred Hampton and was involved in organizing work in Chicago’s housing projects. Not surprisingly, he worked and organized diligently against the ¬notorious Daley machine (named for Mayor Richard J. Daley) and for Harold Washington who was to become the first Black mayor of Chicago in 1983.
Bruce moved to Atlanta in the early 2000s and yet again his organizing was transformative. He worked in Cynthia McKinney’s campaign for Congress in which he met activists galore. Then shortly after, Bruce, along with friends Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford, created an on-line journal called the ‘Black Commentator’ and in 2006 they developed the ‘Black Agenda Report’ which is a weekly journal of news, commentary and analysis from the black left published each week and is still on-going.
In 2009, Bruce joined the Green Party, not surprisingly, became a Green Party leader in Georgia.
Indeed, 'Presente!' Bruce, you will always be loved, honored and appreciated for your remarkable career and commitments, along with your energy and relentless devotion to truth telling and seeking justice in the United States and the world. You have been and will remain an inspiration for us all. I know you would expect nothing less! In fact, I know you would also give us the marching orders and we will follow your lead!
This May 2019 interview with Rashid Nuri, Atlanta's renowned organic urban farmer, is about his recently completed book about his life entitled 'Growing Out: Journey of a Food Revolutionary'. The interview took place on WRFG-Atlanta's (89.3FM) 'Just Peace' program produced by Heather Gray and Ernest Dunkley.
In the July 2018 interview below, Rashid expounds upon his assessment of J. William Engdahl's book "Seeds of Destruction" (2007).
As Rashid wisely stresses, our response has to be to grow our own food and/or to both support and purchase our food from local organic producers. He's right, of course!!!
Organic urban farmer Rashid Nuri explore the spiritual aspects of agriculture. He is the founder of the Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture in Atlanta.
Attorney J.L. Chestnut speaks to Black Farmers at the Federation of Southern Cooperatives Farmers Conference in Albany, Georgia in 1999. He was updating the group about the progress of the lawsuit negotiations.
(Recorded by Heather Gray)