Branded by the State: Coming of Age in the Era of Mass Incarceration: Part 1
Release Date: 03/11/2026
Connection between Belfast and Palestine
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Fra Hughes, a Belfast-born activist and author of Kidnapped on the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza 2026, grew up during the Troubles in 1960s–70s North Belfast—a world of armed British soldiers on the streets, sectarian division, and, as a teenager, a near-abduction by loyalist paramilitaries, the Shankill Butchers. His political awakening came through the 1981 hunger strikes and Bobby Sands' election, the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, and later Israel's 2008–09 Operation Cast Lead and the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid, which killed nine activists including Furkan Dogan. The Marmara attack...
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Kidnapped on the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Fra Hughes, a Belfast-born activist and author of Kidnapped on the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza 2026, secured a place on the 2026 Global Sumud Flotilla after an earlier attempt in 2025 ended when his boat's engine failed near Crete. He sailed for 50 days—from 5 April to 24 May 2026—aboard the yacht Diablo with an international crew that included a former RAF fighter pilot turned captain. About 600 miles from Gaza, Israeli forces began intercepting dozens of boats. Hughes broadcast a Mayday before soldiers boarded at gunpoint, zip-tied him, and transferred detainees to a warship. There,...
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Taking up the spear with Joe Pillay
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Taking Up the Spear is the firsthand account of Shadrack Maphumulo, an ordinary South African who becomes a freedom fighter against apartheid. The narrative traces his life from a rural Zulu childhood, shaped by stories of the Bambatha Rebellion, to his early working years in Durban where he faces systemic racism, slave wages, and the humiliating pass laws. His entrepreneurial dreams—first a taxi, then a shop—are systematically crushed by a white supremacist government that reserves prosperity for whites, forcing him to realize that individual effort cannot overcome the oppressive system....
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Organizing against the right with Bill Fletcher Jr.
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Firoze Manji talks to Bill Fletcher Jr about his ideas for organizing against the right. What are the weaknesses of the left? What lessons are there from organizing in the labour movement? What are the possibilities of creating a mass movement against the right? Bill Fletcher Jr has been an activist since his teen years. Upon graduating from college he went to work as a welder in a shipyard, thereby entering the labor movement. Over the years he has been active in workplace and community struggles as well as electoral campaigns. He has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as...
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Who is "Africa" in Global Negotiations?
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
Firoze Manji, publisher of Daraja Press and Adjunct Professor in the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, argues that asking how Africa can stop being an "afterthought" in global negotiations is the wrong question. Africa is already central—a theater of competition between superpowers. The real issue is internal: which Africa? Three billionaires hold more wealth than half the continent, and 75% of elite wealth sits offshore. Drawing on Fanon, Manji shows post-colonial elites have simply replaced the colonial settler, recreating the Manichean divide. Giving this "Africa" more...
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Beyond the Neocolonial
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
In an era defined by neocolonial capitalism, resurgent fascism, and the horrifying spectacle of genocide, the need for a new emancipatory politics has never been more urgent. Our guest today, Professor Michael Neocosmos, confronts this global crisis head-on in his groundbreaking new work, Beyond the Neocolonial: Africa and the Dialectics of Human Emancipation. Refusing the comfortable confines of liberal critique, Neocosmos issues a radical challenge: to think freedom, we must break with the very "state modes of thought" that imprison us. Drawing inspiration from ancient Egypt,...
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Lines of Fire: Poetry of the Afro-Asian Writers Movement
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
What if the poetry that inspired revolutions, that gave voice to the colonized and the exiled, that was watched by the CIA and funded by the Kremlin, had been almost entirely forgotten? This podcast is a journey into that hidden history. In the wake of the historic Bandung Conference, a revolutionary literary movement was born. Poets from across Africa and Asia—from Palestine to South Africa, from Vietnam to Algeria—came together with a shared purpose: to forge a cultural weapon against colonialism, racism, and imperialism. They created two journals, Lotus and The Call, and...
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The Path to Abolition: Coming of Age in the Era of Mass Incarceration Part Three
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
In the final part, James describes the long legal battle for his freedom and his eventual release. Following three traumatic parole denials, his luck began to turn in 2001 when a Supreme Court ruling allowed him to appeal his deportation order. Despite the anxiety of 9/11 occurring while he was still incarcerated, he successfully won a 212C waiver hearing in 2002, effectively stopping his deportation. In 2003, after nearly a decade behind bars, he was transferred to Arthur Kill, where he finally encountered a parole board that recognized his humanity rather than just his crime. James concludes...
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Mentorship and the Political Mind: Coming of Age in the Era of Mass Incarceration: Part 2
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
This second part of a three-part podcast focuses on James's time at Coxsackie (the "Cat") and Greene Correctional Facility, where he began to "decolonize his mind" through the guidance of mentors. At Coxsackie, he met an elder named Pops, a former Black Panther who introduced him to revolutionary thinkers like George Jackson, Frantz Fanon, and Amílcar Cabral. Pops taught him the vital philosophy of "doing time" rather than letting "time do you," encouraging him to use his incarceration as an opportunity to build his mind and body. This period marked James's first "doctorate," as he...
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Branded by the State: Coming of Age in the Era of Mass Incarceration: Part 1
DARAJA PRESS PODCASTS
In the first part of the interview, Dr. Kirk J. James discusses his arrest in 1994 as an 18-year-old college freshman with no prior record. He explains that his book title, 94A6325, represents his transition from a human being into "state property": 94 is the year of his arrest, A refers to the maximum security processing track, and 6325 identifies him as the 6,325th person processed that year at the Downstate Correctional Facility. James describes the era of the 1990s as a "carceral genocide," noting that the prison population in New York exploded from 200,000 in the 1970s to over 2 million...
info_outlineIn the first part of the interview, Dr. Kirk J. James discusses his arrest in 1994 as an 18-year-old college freshman with no prior record. He explains that his book title, 94A6325, represents his transition from a human being into "state property": 94 is the year of his arrest, A refers to the maximum security processing track, and 6325 identifies him as the 6,325th person processed that year at the Downstate Correctional Facility. James describes the era of the 1990s as a "carceral genocide," noting that the prison population in New York exploded from 200,000 in the 1970s to over 2 million by the 1990s, driven by policies like the Rockefeller drug laws and "super predator" rhetoric. He details how he was entrapped by undercover police over several months and eventually sent to Riker's Island, a place he describes as a violent and overcrowded "ocean of destruction" where he felt a total loss of humanity. Facing the prospect of 45 years to life, he eventually accepted a plea deal of seven years to life just to survive the immediate violence of the system.