An Interview w/ Amiri Baraka & Breaking 
the Silence

• Silver City
• Albuquerque
• Los Alamos
• Santa Fe
• Taos

An Interview with Amiri Baraka	&	Breaking the Silence What Was, What Is, What Will Be

This week we present two programs from independent media producers addressing two areas in the spectrum of Black culture - An Interview with Amiri Baraka from Independent Voices of Raleigh, NC and Breaking the Silence - What Was, What Is, What Will Be from The Black Church Initiative of the Religious Council for Reproductive Choice.  Believe me, you won't be seeing these programs on network television.

Baraka recounts his early influences in revolutionary perspectives during his visits to Cuba and meeting Fidel & Che Guevara and speaks further of the need to build solidarity between blacks and Hispanics.  Breaking the Silence documents the 10th Summit on Sexuality and the movement in the Black Church to openly address a range of issues including teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, sexual orientation, and reproductive choice.

A longtime fixture in alternative culture, Baraka's activism dates back to the late 50s as he describes in this interview.  He founded Harlem's Black Arts Movement in the early 60s and two of his early works, Blues People - a controversial analysis of the cultural impact of black music - and and the Obie winning Dutchman, placed him in the forefront of contemporary literature.  He has now authored over 40 works of essays, poetry, drama, music history and social criticism.

Baraka is a long time resident of Newark, NJ where his son held a city council seat.  He was appointed as the poet laureate of NJ.  But a subsequent reading of Somebody Blew Up America triggered an outcry against him and a demand - which Baraka denied - for his resignation as poet laureate.  The NJ legislature then abolished the position and withheld the $10,000.00 stipend that was due to Baraka.

DON'T miss Amiri Baraka's reading of his incendiary work

Somebody Blew Up America.  Another live reading is here.

Breaking the Silence - What Was, What Is, What Will Be is coverage of the 10th Summit on Sexuality in the Black Church in 2006.  The summit has been presented annually by the Black Church Initiative of the Religious Council for Reproductive Choice to document, discuss, and correct the gulf between church traditions and the challenging sexual issues faced by their congregations.

In an environment of increasing pressures on government institutions by Christian Fundamentalist churches and groups seeking to erode the constitutional separation of Church and State - most viscerally in attempts to undermine Roe v Wade at the state and federal levels - the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has brought together well established and broadly supported churches to voice their support for women's right to choose and to provide information and education for sexual matters.

The Black Church Initiative is one of the many elements of the coalition and focuses particularly on bringing these issues to full discussion by black clergy and congregations.  A broader issue underlying the challenge they face is the Faith Based Initiative implemented by the Bush regime which not only violates constitutional principles regarding the separation of Church and State but uses government funding to reward fundamentalists and others that support the Bush and Republican agenda while penalizing pro choice elements.  

This agenda extends to foreign policy as well where the Bush Regime refuses to fund or support programs for reproductive choice, contraception, sex education or AIDS prevention and treatment in developing countries receiving financial aid or via international organizations.  This coercive withholding of funding for these programs further intimidates deveoping countries from asserting their vital interests and exercising their rights of sovereignty in other areas.

Click here to watch or here to listen to the program.