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Send us Fan Mail Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson claims Democrats lose because they allow their left base to block progress with red tape and “woke” regulations and "identity politics", angering average Americans who just want housing and cool stuff built. The Bernie left and the neoliberal centrist are battling for control of the party, but many on both sides now claim "Abundance". In this episode, we break down left and centrist notions of "Abundance" and explain how both confuse Black power for "identity politics”, blaming Black voters for Dem's failures. We conclude by showing how Black Abundance is key to Black voter turnout and Dem victory long-term. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail We show African-centered concepts used by on the ground violence prevention workers that are grounded in a Black Studies tradition and show how theorists like Steven Pinker, who have ties to Jeffrey Epstein, present racist theories on violence that impact violence prevention work. We conclude by presenting Cheikh Anta Diop’s Southern Cradle theory as an alternative place to center violence prevention work.  Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail Throughout history women have made remarkable and lasting contributions to Black advancement. They have played instrumental roles in advocacy, policy development, community engagement, and the overall advancement of racial uplift. However, a glaring gap exists in the literature and discourse surrounding these women pioneers. In this two part series of ISoBP we hope to contribute to decreasing that gap. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail Throughout history women have made remarkable and lasting contributions to Black advancement. They have played instrumental roles in advocacy, policy development, community engagement, and the overall advancement of racial uplift. However, a glaring gap exists in the literature and discourse surrounding these women pioneers. In this two part series of ISOBP we hope to contribute to decreasing that gap. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail While The Wire is celebrated for its gritty realism however , it perpetuates an over-sensationalized, externally oriented, and ultimately limited view of Black life in Baltimore. It aestheticizes poverty and violence without sufficiently acknowledging the cultural, historical, and community-based dimensions of African American resilience and self-determination. By re-centering the narrative around Black subjectivity and agency, rather than dysfunction and surveillance this episode of ISoBP not only critiques The Wire's limitations but also points toward richer, more humane forms of storytelling. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail In the 90s and 2000s, a wave of academic texts emerged that challenge the dominate narrative of Black leadership and politics, claiming that the location of Black power in the Black church and “respectable” civil rights organizations limited Black politics. One of the most prominent of these texts is The Boundaries of Blackness, written by Cathy Cohen, which uses the example of the limited response to AIDS by Black civil society in the 80s/90s to argue that Black politics marginalized those most impacted by AIDS because the groups most impacted, drug users and those beyond heteronormativity, exceed the bounds of respectable Blackness.  In this episode, we review this text, arguing that in its desire to challenge the limits of Black leadership, the text tells an overly critical tale of the Black community as innately locked into respectability. The text reads the Black used of genocide as a frame to understand AIDS as reflective of an inability to center non-respectable drug users and same gender loving individuals. This obscures the value of the genocide concept from a Black communities perspective in providing a comprehensive frame which includes serving those impacted by AIDS, as well addressing the role drugs /addiction played in destabilizing the Black community and larger systems of oppression.  By largely preferring a politics of centering the marginalized over a frame of community mobilizing against genocide, the author centers a politics of representation which ultimately requires recognition from white power to be successful. By largely dismissing African centered and Afrocentric politics, the text fails to see the indigenous public health, drug use, and gender sexuality variant idea with Black/ African centered communities that could have been alternative frameworks for representation for marginalized identities, like the work of Mutulu Shakur at Lincoln Detox. It also obscures the role of white supremacy and “injecting oppression” play in forcing so-called “respectability strategies” in the Black community.  While challenging existing Black political leadership, the text fails to challenge the larger dynamic of elite interest convergence black folks must depend on for change, leading to a diversification of the elite power brokers but failing to challenging the fundamental disempowerment of black communities. Finally, the text has been misinterpreted by some to argue the Black community is too innately conservative to be trusted with resources and power, thus being wielded as a tool against the Black community political power building. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of In Search of Black Power, filmmaker and historian Xavier Frink dives into the roots of Black excellence and resistance by exploring 19th-century political and civic activity in Baltimore and beyond through his documentary Justice and Reconciliation: From Henry Highland Garnet to Harvey Johnson. This conversation and film are essential in understanding the strategies our ancestors used during the 19th century and also giving us a blueprint for today. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail Baltimore’s Panthers complicate the easy narratives. They were neither reckless radicals nor romantic revolutionaries. They were pragmatic idealists, adapting to legal constraints, financial scarcity, and relentless surveillance while insisting that political struggle begin with feeding children and keeping neighbors housed.  Their story is a reminder that grassroots movements are most vulnerable where they are most necessary and that the state’s gaze has often been sharpest when Black communities attempt to govern themselves. For organizers today, working without the insulation of wealth or patronage, Baltimore’s Panthers offer both a model and a warning: that meaningful change is built locally, sustained collectively, and contested at every step. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail Trump's attacks on Venezuela are an attempt to terrorize attempts to resist white supremacy worldwide. In this episode, LBS political commentator Lawrence Grandpre and Director of Public Policy Dayvon Love discuss the history of Venezuela, deconstruct the mythology of the US striking Venezuela to fight a “dictatorship,” examine why we must look beyond oil as an explanation for this violence, and how we must resist attempts for Democrats to triangulate the center on questions of military funding in the aftermath of this violence.  Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail This episode addresses how racism and white supremacy impact advocacy for juvenile justice reform in Maryland. Additionally this episode discusses some of the major policy reform that is on the table for Maryland General Assembly 2026. Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail A conversation hosted by Baltimore Racial Justice Action between LBS director of research Lawrence Grandpre and Baltimore Green Party chair Andy Ellis. We touch on DOGE, the link between South Africa and the United States on anti-Black visions of government, the political limitations of progressive/leftist notions of political corruption, and the implications of all of this on approaches to reparations and 3rd party politics.  Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail Leftist responses to the current moment range from rejecting engaging the state at all to grudgingly accepting centrist Democrats as a lesser evil. In an interview between LBS’s Dayvon Love and Lawrence Grandpre, Love urges the Left to intentionally chart a middle course. Using examples from concrete legislative victories in Maryland, he advocates for intentionally delivering on concert improvements to quality of life for Black masses as a way to build a base for more progressive reforms, while continually expanding the political terrain by pushing radical demands. Rather than this being a typical reformist path, Dayvon concludes by explaining the role of strategic engagement with 3rd party politics can have the put pressure on Democrats to deliver or face real material consequences, using Andy Ellis’s potential Green Party run for governor in Maryland in 2026 as an example.  Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail The Alliance of the Sahel states has sent shock waves through the western world, raising the possiblity of anti-imperialist Pan-African block. While this movement has exploded online through the focus on the charismatic Burkino Faso leader  Ibrahim Traoré, in this episode we seek to engage what is happening in the Sahel beyond just him. In this interview between LBS’s Dayvon Love and Lawrence Grandpre, we discuss the history of the Sahel and how these states rose up and joined in alliance in the face of the failures of Western troops to ensure security, in addition to anger at Western economic domination. We look at how the focus on Traore has obscured the important work happening in Niger and Mali. Finally, we focus on how Pan-Afrikanist in the west must materially support concrete Pan-Afrikan state building functions like water and energy and not get stuck in romantic hero worship of Traoré.  Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, MJ and Rasheem explore the legacy and continued relevance of poor Black women's activism in Baltimore, focusing on housing justice and welfare rights. Drawing on Rhonda Y. Williams’ seminal article, “We’re Tired of Being Treated Like Dogs,” the hosts delve into the political lives of Black women who mobilized against institutional neglect and economic exploitation from the 1960s to the present. The conversation centers on the historical and grassroots efforts of Black women like Margaret McCarty and Rev. Annie Chambers, who turned personal struggle into collective resistance. Organizations like U-JOIN (Union for Jobs or Income Now) and Mother Rescuers from Poverty emerged from East Baltimore’s neighborhoods and housing complexes such as Murphy Homes, O’Donnell Heights, and Gilmore Homes—communities marked by poverty but rich in organizing tradition. Rasheem details how federal surveillance, welfare fraud prosecutions, and slumlord neglect were met with tenant strikes, welfare marches, and legislative advocacy. Leaders challenged both structural racism and class exploitation, drawing on a Black Radical Tradition that was grassroots-based, anti-capitalist, and unapologetically of the people. Key locations such as North Gay Street and Pennsylvania Avenue serve as landmarks of resistance, while institutions like the Soul School became spaces of political education. The episode also touches on national allies like CORE and speakers such as Stokely Carmichael and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who amplified the local struggle on a national stage. MJ and Rasheem conclude by reflecting on what today’s organizers can learn from this era: the power of coalition-building, the necessity of political independence, and the importance of reclaiming radical traditions that center the voices of poor Black women in the fight for housing, dignity, and justice. Main Themes: Housing activism as a form of defense of home and self The central role of Black women in welfare rights organizing Tension between Black capitalism and Black radical politics Political consciousness and grassroots leadership among poor communities Lessons for contemporary housing and labor justice movements in Baltimore Support the show In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast.  This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS). The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)