Soon after Medicare, Medicaid, and the Hart-Celler Act, also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, became law, the federal government began to label certain geographic areas as Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs), which designated an inadequate number of physicians in relation to the population. HPSAs were generally populated with people who were low-income, elderly…
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The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate Louisiana’s congressional map creating two Black-majority districts continues to remind us of how much the U.S. has backpedaled away from the so-called racial “reckoning” of the summer of 2020. The Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais undermines another key plank of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, passed more than 60 years ago with the intent of…
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“With a single sheet of parchment and 56 signatures, America began the greatest political journey in human history,” declared Donald Trump, announcing the nation’s upcoming 250th anniversary. Under Trump’s direction, a sweeping federal initiative — branded as both America 250 and the “Freedom 250” campaign — has launched a full year of patriotic programming. The Salute to America 250 Task…
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2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the American Revolutionary War. While the national mythology behind the “America at 250” celebrations focuses on the 18th-century battle between Patriot and Loyalist elites, what does the story of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States look like through the eyes of enslaved people? In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa speaks with Professor Justene Hill Edwards, author of Unfree Markets: The Slaves’ Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina.
Guests:
Justene Hill Edwards is an associate professor of History in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. Her research explores the intersection of African American history, the history of slavery, and the history of American capitalism. She is the author of Unfree Markets: The Slaves’ Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina and Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank.
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War, a conflict that we typically frame as a struggle between the colonialists and the British. However, we rarely examine the age of revolution from the perspective of the enslaved and the enslaved has a voice in this matter, as we will see. Join us today as the University of Virginia Professor of History, Justine Hill Edwards, an author of Unfree Market: The Slave Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina. And Saviors and Trust. Professor, welcome to Rattling the Bars
When state violence and systemic denial of full citizenship by the state makes true belonging impossible for Black people, Black anarchists have envisioned and fought for a free life beyond the state. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, author William C. Anderson explores the rich, radical tradition of Black anarchism and its connection to prison abolitionist movements.
Guests:
William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, AL. His work has appeared in outlets ranging from The Guardian, MTV, Truthout, British Journal of Photography, to Pitchfork. He is the author of The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, and co-author of As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation. He’s also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast.
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to Rattling Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. When you hear the term “anarchy” and “anarchist,” what comes to mind? Joining me today is William C. Anderson, author of The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, and a columnist for Prism News where he writes the series Another Way Out. Welcome, William. Welcome to Rattling the Bars.
William C. Anderson:
Hey, thanks for having me on.
Mansa Musa:
First start out, could you introduce yourself to our audience and share how some of your background?
William C. Anderson:
Yeah. So my name’s William C. Anderson. I’m a writer, an activist, do some organizing here and there, and a person who’s just generally committed to struggle. I
Born into slavery and forged in the fire of the 19th-century labor movement, Lucy Parsons became one of the most dangerous women in America. In this Women’s History Month special, Rattling the Bars host Mansa Musa and guest William C. Anderson honor Parsons, the “Goddess of Anarchy,” and trace her journey from former slave to militant activist on the front lines of the class war.
Guests:
William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, AL. His work has appeared in outlets ranging from The Guardian, MTV, Truthout, British Journal of Photography, to Pitchfork. He is the author of The Nation on No Map: Black Anarchism and Abolition, and co-author of As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation. He’s also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast.
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
William C. Anderson:
Yeah. Lucy Parsons is an extremely inspiring figure for me personally. She was a radical anarchist who made waves as a labor organizer and she was also an outspoken militant. She was very much ahead of her time for a person during the era in which she lived. And this is a formerly enslaved Black woman who was speaking with an unfettered, unrestrained radicalism. And she didn’t live with a lot of openness around her race and her personal history, but she had a very interesting life. She married one of the victims of the infamous haymarket affair where there were seven anarchists who were