<p>In this web exclusive interview, Amy Goodman interviews Joanne Griffith, editor of the new book, <a href="http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100003110&amp;fa=description">Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America,</a> a new which was inspired by historic recordings preserved in the <a href="http://pacificaradioarchives.org/">Pacifica Radio Archives.</a> She also speaks with Archives director, Brian DeShazor.</p>
<p>The interview begins with an extended excerpt of an archived Fannie Lou Hamer interview. Hamer got involved in the civil rights movement when she volunteered to attempt to register to vote in 1962. By then, 45 years old and a mother, Hamer lost her job and continually risked her life because of her civil rights activism. In the recording, Hamer recounts her beating at the hands of two other black prisoners on the orders of her white jailers.</p>
<p>&quot;Redefining Black Power&quot; is newly published by City Lights books, and includes contributions from Civil Right-era activists such as <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/26/mlk_national_monument_inspires_calls_to">Vincent Harding,</a> who was a close associate and former speechwriter to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. Harding drafted King’s historic April 1967 antiwar speech, &quot;Beyond Vietnam.&quot; It also features contemporary scholars such as <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/13/on_eve_of_mlk_day_michelle">Michelle Alexander</a>.</p>