Danny Glover

Danny Glover

Photo from Wikimedia Commons / Author of Photo: Rob DiCaterino from Clifton, NJ, USA

Overview

* Hollywood film star
* Longtime supporter of the Castro and Chavez regimes in Cuba and Venezuela, respectively
* Supporter of Not In Our Name, a Maoist-created antiwar movement
* Depicts America as “one of the main purveyors of violence in this world”
* Supporter of the anti-Semitic “Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions” (BDS) movement
* Supporter of the convicted cop-killer and Marxist icon, Mumia Abu Jamal
* Supporter of The Cuban Five
* Supporter of reparations for slavery


Radical Roots / Ties to the Black Panther Party

Danny Glover was born in San Francisco on July 22, 1946, to parents who were active members of the NAACP. He majored in economics at San Francisco State College (SFSC), where he was strongly influenced by the Marxist-Leninist professor Amiri Baraka, the black separatist professor Sonia Sanchez, and other radicals who either visited or taught there in the tumultuous 1960s. Moreover, Glover joined the campus’s Black Students Union (BSU), which in 1968-69 staged a five-month-long strike that ultimately pressured the school into establishing its first Ethnic Studies Department. In 2004, Glover would recount how he and his fellow BSU members had “worked in the [Black] Panthers‘ free-breakfast-for-children program,” “helped them [the Panthers] organize their newspaper,” and “embraced a lot of struggles globally,” including “the anti-Vietnam War movement” and the “liberation struggles going on in South Africa, the Portuguese colonies, and Zimbabwe.” Also during his young adulthood, Glover spent a year living in what he has described as a “political commune.”

The Vanguard Public Foundation

In 1972, Glover and entertainer Harry Belafonte together helped to established the Vanguard Public Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funded a variety of leftwing causes. Glover subsequently sat on the foundation’s board of directors.

Launching His Acting Career

In 1974, Glover began training at the American Conservatory Theater’s Black Actors Workshop.[1] He made his (uncredited) film debut five years later in Escape from Alcatraz and subsequently went on to become a major actor in the film industry, beginning with his 1984 appearance in Places in the Heart. For additional details of Glover’s acting career, click here.

Alleging That NYC Taxi Drivers Are Racially Biased

Throughout his years as an entertainer, Glover has been outspoken on matters of politics, social justice, and race. In November 1999, for instance, he filed a bias complaint alleging that New York City taxi drivers had repeatedly passed him by because he was black. But in fact, at least half of all NYC cabbies at that time were black themselves, and only a tiny minority were white.

Calling America “One of the Main Purveyors of Violence in This World”

Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Glover asserted that the U.S. was in no position to pass moral judgment on the perpetrators of those atrocities because “one of the main purveyors of violence in this world has been this country, whether it’s been against Nicaragua, Vietnam or wherever.”

Deriding Americans’ “Rabid Nationalism” Post-9/11

On another occasion post-9/11, Glover criticized Americans’ “rabid nationalism that has its own kind of potential of being maniacal, in some sense.”

Opposing the Death Penalty, Even for Bin Laden

Glover has long opposed capital punishment under any and all circumstances. When an audience member at a November 2001 anti-death-penalty forum at Princeton University asked the actor whether he would object to the U.S. executing Osama bin Laden, Glover replied: “When I say the death penalty is inhumane, I mean inhumane whether that person is in a bird cage [jail] or it’s bin Laden.”

Portraying President Bush As a Racist

At the same November 2001 anti-death-penalty forum at Princeton, Glover characterized President George W. Bush as a racist who was intent on reversing America’s post-1950s civil-rights advances. “We must stand vigilant against Bush in these times and work with the abolitionists,” the actor said.

In a 2003 interview, Glover flatly declared that Bush “is racist,” explaining: “As Texas’s governor, Bush led a penitentiary system that executed more people than all the other U.S. states together. And most of the people who died from [the] death penalty were Afro-Americans or Hispanics.”

Board Chair of the TransAfrica Forum

In 2001, Glover became board chairman of the TransAfrica Forum, a self-described “educational and organizing center that encourages progressive viewpoints in the United States foreign policy arena and advocates justice for the people of Africa and the African Diaspora.” Glover went on to hold this post until at least 2014.

Supporter of Not In Our Name (a Project of the Revolutionary Communist Party)

Beginning in 2002, Glover was a passionate supporter of Not In Our Name, a Revolutionary Communist Party initiative pledging “resistance to [America’s] endless war, detentions and roundups, [and] attacks on civil liberties.”

Opponent of the Iraq War

At a New York City anti-war rally in February 2003—with a U.S. invasion of Iraq becoming increasingly likely—Glover charged that the Bush administration was composed of “liars and murderers.”

In April 2003, Glover was one of 160 artists and performers who signed “To the Conscience of the World,” a public letter condemning the recent U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In 2006 Glover joined such notables as Ed Asner, Cynthia McKinney, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, and Lynn Woolsey in staging a “Troops Home Fast” hunger strike to protest the Iraq War. Organized by Gold Star Families for Peace founder Cindy Sheehan and endorsed by Code Pink for Peace, the strike was performed in a relay fashion—i.e., each participant fasted for a day, then “passed” the proverbial baton to someone else.

Glover Attends the World Social Forum

In January 2003, Glover attended the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, an annual anti-globalization event condemning the “domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism.”

Admirer of Fidel Castro & Jose Marti

Glover paid a number of friendly visits to Castro in Havana. In May 2002, the state-controlled Cuban newspaper Granma International said: “There’s an intense relationship between Danny Glover and Havana. It was love at first sight, and not only has it stood the test of his frequent visits, but it is growing deeper and deeper, through discoveries and affinities.”

In April 2003, Glover was one of 160 artists and performers who signed “To the Conscience of the World,” a public letter condemning America’s recent invasion of Iraq and supporting the right of Fidel Castro‘s communist dictatorship in Cuba to exercise “self-determination.”

Upon learning of Fidel Castro’s death in November 2016, Glover tweeted: “Fidel Castro was a great revolutionary. Learn more about his life & legacy.” He also tweeted: “Fidel Castro’s legacy is controversial, but deserving of much respect. He was an outspoken leader who stood up for independence and sovereignty of the people of Cuba.”

On January 11, 2017, the official website of the Communist Party of Cuba showed a photo of Glover laying flowers upon the graves of Fidel Castro and Jose Martí — a philosopher whose ideas served as an inspiration for Cuba’s Communist revolutionary government under Castro – and reported

“U.S. actor Danny Glover, who was recently awarded the Friendship Medal by Cuba’s Council of State, will meet with artists, writers and journalists from Santiago de Cuba before returning to Havana…. A great moment in his life, is how U.S. actor and activist Danny Glover described the tribute he paid to Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, and Cuba’s National Hero José Martí, at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetary located in [Santiago de Cuba], the last stop on his trip across several of the island’s provinces.

“After attending the solemn and respectful changing of the guard of honor, the activist and friend of Cuba, visibly moved, laid a floral wreath and observed a minute of silence before the plaque which holds Fidel’s ashes. Next, he placed a white rose at the [monument] where the remains of Cuba’s National Hero Jose have rested since June 30, 1951, and was provided with information on the lives and exploits of national heroes, martyrs and figures buried in the cemetery. Later, speaking before the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples provincial representative Juan Carlos Vaillant Despaigne, and the press, Glover described Martí as the most universal of all Cubans and Fidel as a great revolutionary. He also expressed his admiration for Che Guevara and Cuba’s internationalist efforts in Africa.”

Devoted Admirer of Hugo Chavez

Glover was also a longtime admirer of Venezuela’s Communist president, Hugo Chavez, whom he lauded as a “champion of democracy,” and with whom he had a relationship of deep mutual admiration:

  • On several occasions, Glover visited Chavez in Venezuela and made guest appearances on the latter’s television and radio talk show, Hello, President.
  • Glover served as a board member of Venezuela’s “TeleSUR” news network, a Chavez creation that sometimes collaborated with Al-Jazeera to disseminate anti-democratic messages across Latin America.
  • In January 2006, Glover was part of a delegation to Venezuela led by Harry Belafonte, who took the occasion to call President Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world” and to declare that millions of Americans supported the socialist revolution of Hugo Chavez. Others in the delegation included Cornel West and Dolores Huerta.
  • In September 2006, Glover and Chavez embraced one another while attending the CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program inauguration ceremony at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem, New York. (The program was designed to send inexpensive Venezuelan oil to poor families in New York.)
  • In 2007, Glover, Sean Penn, Harry Belafonte, and Kevin Spacey enjoyed a three-hour dinner with Chávez at the presidential palace in Caracas.
  • On May 19, 2007, the Orlando Sentinel reported: “President Hugo Chavez’s government has approved nearly $18 million to finance a film by Hollywood star Danny Glover, one of the Venezuelan leader’s closest celebrity supporters. Venezuela will tap proceeds from a recent bond sale with Argentina to finance Toussaint, a movie Glover plans to direct documenting the life of Haitian revolution leader Toussaint Louverture. The South American nation’s congress, which is fully controlled by Chavez allies, approved $17.8 million in credit Wednesday for the Ministry of Culture to make Venezuela a ‘partner’ in Glover’s film, according to a government document.” However, the film was never completed.
  • When Chavez died in March 2013, Glover issued a statement in tribute to his friend: “I join with millions … of freedom-loving people around the world, in hope for a rewarding future for the democratic and social development charter of the Bolivarian Revolution,” he said in a statement. “We all embraced Hugo Chávez as a social champion of democracy, material development, and spiritual wellbeing.”
  • In an August 2013 interview published in the Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion, Glover spoke candidly about his relationship with the late Hugo Chávez: “He was not only my friend, he was my brother. It’s difficult for a leader like him to exist in these times. His vision for humanity and the world can only be compared to that of leaders like Nelson Mandela. He was a great man and I cried when he died.”
  • During March 2014 festivities in Venezuela commemorating the first anniversary of Chavez’s death, Glover said to those in attendance: “I’m so proud to be here with you. As we commemorate and celebrate a true man of the people, Hugo Chavez, his memory lives with us through the work you do as citizens of this great nation, as you continue to realize his vision of a participatory democracy, one involving all citizens. It is a task that is very difficult, with many challenges, but he knows that you will continue the fight he gave his last breath for — a free, democratic, and self-determined Venezuela; a Venezuela that won’t allow its sovereignty to be undermined; a Venezuela that will also provide leadership in the region and the world; a Venezuela that will reimagine its relationships from nation to nation; a Venezuela that will stand up for peace and justice.”
  • At a 2014 screening (in Venezuela) of Oliver Stone’s hagiographic documentary Mi Amigo Hugo, Glover gave a rousing speech in support of that country’s “21st Century socialism.”

Admirer of the Marxist Historian Howard Zinn

Working alongside the Marxist historian Howard Zinn, Glover in 2005 played the role of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the stage production of Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States. He subsequently reprised that role in The People Speak, a 2009 television mini-series based on Zinn’s book.

Glover Tries to Assault a Paparazzo

Glover describes himself as someone who has “been an advocate for peace my whole life.” But in April 2006, while in London to promote an anti-death-penalty play titled The Exonerated, he attempted to assault a paparazzo in Hollywood.

Supporter of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

In 2007, Glover was a guest speaker at an event of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which promotes “economic equality” and an array of additional leftwing values.

Supporting John Edwards & Barack Obama for President (2008)

In May 2007, Glover endorsed John Edwards for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Following Edwards’ withdrawal from the race in January 2008, the actor switched his allegiance to Barack Obama. Moreover, he collaborated with Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher Jr., and Tom Hayden to establish Progressives for Obama—later known as Progressive America Rising.

Supporting Mumia Abu Jamal

In 2008 Glover signed a statement circulated by the Partisan Defense Committee calling for the release of the convicted cop-killer, former Black Panther, and leftist icon Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Glover’s Contempt for Israel

Portraying Israel as an “Apartheid regime,” Glover has been an outspoken supporter of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions movement. In 2009 he boycotted the Toronto Film Festival because its program honored the 100-year anniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv—a city that, according to Glover, was responsible for the “suffering of thousands of [Palestinian] former residents and descendants.”

For similar reasons, in May 2014 Glover called for a boycott of a scheduled screening in Tel-Aviv of a documentary about the American social-justice activist Grace Lee Boggs. “We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine,” said Glover, “and support their call for cultural and academic boycott of Israel.”

Climate Activism

Glover embraces the notion that the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with human industrial activity are responsible for global warming and a host of related climatic calamities. After a devastating earthquake struck Haiti in January 2009, the actor said in an interview: “What happened in Haiti could happen to anywhere in the Caribbean because all these island nations are in peril because of global warming. When we see what we did at the [United Nations] climate summit in Copenhagen [failing to arrive at an ‘environmental-protection’ deal that would transfer massive amounts of money from the U.S. to the Third World], this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?”

In May 2010, Glover told graduates at Utah State University that “global warming is real and … climate change is a human-rights issue as well as an environmental issue.”

Anti-Capitalist

In April 2010, Glover spoke at a North Carolina conference marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Other prominent speakers included Harry Belafonte, Julian Bond, Eric HolderJames Lawson, John Lewis, Bernice Johnson Reagon, and lifelong Communist Party USA activist Debbie Bell. In his remarks, Glover noted that SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had met their stiffest resistance from the political establishment when they “dared to challenge the very basis of capitalism, money.”

Supporter of the Cuban Five

In April 2011, Glover joined such luminaries as Ed Asner, Mike Farrell, Bonnie Raitt, Susan Sarandon, Pete Seeger, Martin Sheen, and Oliver Stone in signing a letter that praised former President Jimmy Carter for advocating that the so-called “Cuban Five” — former members of a KGB-trained, Castro-directed spy ring — should be released from the U.S. prisons where they were incarcerated. According to Glover and his fellow signatories, the Cuban Five had been imprisoned for “simply trying to protect their country from terrorism.” In a December 2011 article which he co-authored with the late Saul Landau, Glover likened the original trial of the Cuban Five to a hypothetical 1938 trial of Jews in Berlin.

In a September 2012 interview with the Cuban newspaper Escambray and Cubas’s Radio Sancti Spiritus, Glover voiced his admiration for the Cuban Revolution and for the Cuban Five — Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero, and René González — on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of their imprisonment in the United States. “The Cuban Five are heroic men, five heroic men who made enormous sacrifices to ensure that their country not be the subject of terrorist attacks,” said Glover. “They did a work, and in any other situation they would be men that would be awarded and considered heroes in this sense, and the trial that they received in a very hostile atmosphere in Florida was a tragedy and an act of injustice not only to the five men, but the Cuban people, and also those conscious people in America as well, and around the world who really want to have a war against terrorism…. I wanna do everything possible that I can do to bring light to their case and this situation.”

Regarding Gerardo Hernandez, Glover said in 2012: “That’s my brother, that’s my spiritual brother. He is someone that I admire enormously. The many times I’ve been able to visit him, in the conversations that we have he is a very caring man, he’s a very statesman, he is a statesman, and he’s someone that the Cuban people and the world should be proud of, and, when I accepted that responsibility, of having him as my spiritual brother, it is because I feel that I learned so much from him and that he’s also one of the greatest people I ever met.”

Added Glover in that same 2012 interview: “What I believe an important aspect of the Cuban Revolution, and the accomplishments of that revolution it is that despite all the obstacles, even with those obstacles, and their limitations as human beings, all the obstacles that chase them with the illegal embargo, all the hostility that surround that, there’s an extraordinary will to find truth and to reveal the new human being, the new man and a new woman. The Cuban people made extraordinary sacrifices for that, in that sense and so, I believe there’s never, there’s no possibility of wasting time, in supporting the Cuban Five, in supporting justice, or supporting what we think is right in the world.”

When visiting the Cuban Five in November 2015, Glover said: “When I joined the Committee for the Liberation of the Five, and saw how these men were aware of their responsibility to humanity, I saw in them the bridge to the world of justice and equality that we want to build.”

Opponent of the Second Amendment

In a January 2013 appearance at Texas A&M University, Glover characterized America as a “material[istic],” “militaristic,” “racist” society. At the same event, he stated that “the genesis of the right to bear arms” as guaranteed by the Second Amendment “comes from the right … for settlers to protect themselves from slave revolts and from uprisings by Native Americans. So, a revolt from people who were stolen from their lands, or revolts from people whose land was stolen from.” (As a Breitbart.com analysis subsequently made clear, Glover’s assertion was inaccurate and historically illiterate.)

Glover Advocates Paul Krugman for U.S. Treasury Secretary

In January 2013, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was preparing to step down from his post, Glover teamed up with MoveOn.org to exhort President Barack Obama to name Paul Krugman as Geithner’s replacement.

Honoring John Conyers

On January 7, 2015, Glover spoke at a Washington, D.C. event titled “John Conyers’ 50 Years of Service,” sponsored mainly by the Institute for Policy Studies. Other guests, speakers, and organizers associated with that event included Julian BondJohn CavanaghRobert CreamerAlan GraysonCharles RangelMarcus RaskinJan Schakowsky, union leader Irvin Jim (a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist), and a number of members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive CaucusRobert Borosage, for his part, sent a tribute to Conyers.

Honoring the Anti-Vietnam War Movement of 50 Years Earlier

In May 2015, Glover spoke at a conference observing the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s commencement. Honoring the purportedly valuable contributions of the radical antiwar movement, the event also featured such speakers as John Conyers, Ron Dellums, Phil Donahue, Daniel Ellsberg, Dolores HuertaBarbara Lee, and Patricia Schroeder.

Glover Likens Black Lives Matter Activists & Anti-Israel Arabs

In October 2015, Glover – along with Lauryn Hill, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, and Cornel West — appeared in a viral Internet video titled “When I See Them, I See Us,” created to analogize, and show an alliance between, Black Lives Matter activists and anti-Israel Arabs. As the Washington Post reported: “The video …  features dozens of #BlackLivesMatter and Palestinian activists delivering a joint message. ‘When I see them, I see us,’ the video’s narrators intone. Over the course of a couple of minutes, they unite their perceived struggles through photos, slogans and a shared story of state oppression. They talk of black youths killed by police and Palestinian children bombed by Israeli warplanes.”

Notably, the video paid homage to two violent female revolutionaries: the Black Liberation activist and convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur, who was the leading icon of the BLM movement, and the Palestinian Marxist terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who famously masterminded three 1969 terrorist bombings that resulted in the deaths of two Israeli university students. Also featured prominently in the video was the lifelong communist revolutionary Angela Davis.

Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF

Glover has long served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). “The international community must increase its commitment to fighting Afrophobia and discrimination against people of African descent,” he told a United Nations publication in 2016.

Supporting Bernie Sanders for President (2016)

In 2016, Glover fervently supported the presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders. On May 17, 2016, Glover introduced Sanders at a campaign event at the Cal-State Dominguez Hills campus that drew more than 8,000 supporters. Praising the senator for his “audacity to tell the truth,” Glover and urged those present to vote in the Democratic primary on June 7: “Every vote is a sign of the truth. Every vote is a commitment to the truth. And every vote is here to build a pulpit of real change.” Other notables who helped implore people to support Sanders included musician Dave Matthews, actress Shailene Woodley, professor Cornel West, and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard

On July 24, 2016 – a few days before that year’s Democratic National Convention — Glover joined Hollywood actresses Susan Sarandon and Shailene Woodley in promoting Sanders’ presidential campaign at a rally that drew more than 1,000 demonstrators in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Supporter of Colin Kaepernick

On December 13, 2017, Glover spoke at the Ripple of Hope Awards dinner in New York City, which was sponsored by the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation to honor the humanitarian work of activists Colin Kaepernick and Harry BelafonteSaid Glover of Kaepernick: “I admire him greatly. He’s in the tradition of Muhammad Ali and in the tradition of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and all of those athletes who stood up for justice.”

Close Friend of Rep. Barbara Lee

When Glover was the recipient of an NAACP Image Award in January 2018, Congresswoman Barbara Lee tweeted: “Congratulations to my dear friend Danny Glover on winning the NAACP Image Awards President’s Award tonight. Danny, your tireless advocacy for equality and social justice around the world is an inspiration. Can’t think of a more fitting recipient for this honor!”

Admirer of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

In March 2018, Glover, a board member of the Venezuelan state television channel Telesur, made a goodwill visit to Caracas, where he had a friendly meeting with President Nicolás Maduro and — notwithstanding Venezuela’s precipitous descent into a state of financial chaos and humanitarian crisis — praised Maduro’s socialist regime for “advancing humanity through education, health, and other aspects that honor human kind.” “It is a privilege to be here,” Glover said at the presidential palace on March 24, explaining that Venezuela’s socialist revolution was about “uplifting human beings” and creating a “collective humanity.”

Supporter of Reparations for Slavery

In testimony he delivered before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in June 2019, Glover, along with author Ta-Nehisi Coates, spoke in favor of H.R. 40, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee‘s House bill advocating: (a) the creation of a commission “to study the impact of slavery and continuing discrimination against African-Americans,” and (b) the establishment of “recommendations concerning any form of apology and compensation to begin the long delayed process of atonement for slavery.” Characterizing reparations payments as vital to the “reckoning of a crime against humanity that is foundational to the development of democracy and material well-being” of the United States, Glover said:

“A national reparations policy is a moral, democratic, and economic imperative…. Despite much progress over the centuries, this hearing is yet another important step in the long and heroic struggle of African-Americans to secure reparations for the damages inflicted by enslavement and post-emancipation and racial exclusionary policies…. We are also indebted to the work of Congressman John Conyers for shepherding this legislation…. A sustained, direct, effective policy, actions in full collaboration with African Americans and progressive citizens, allies, is the ultimate proof of the sincerity of our national commitment to repair the damages of the legally and often religiously sanctioned inhumanity of slavery, segregation, and current structural racism that limits full democratic participation and material advancement of African Americans and of our country’s progress as a beacon of justice and equality.”

Supporting the Preservation of a Mural Highlighting America’s Racist Past

In August 2019, Glover voiced his opposition to a recent unanimous decision by the San Francisco United School District (SFUSD) to cover up a 13-panel, 1,600-square-foot mural entitled “The Life of Washington” at George Washington High School in San Francisco, because of its “racist” and “harmful” imagery. Painted in 1936 by Victor Arnautoff, an artist who was a communist and a critic of the America’s Founding Fathers, the mural contained images of white pioneers standing over the body of a dead Native American, and another of slaves working at George Washington’s estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

But it was precisely because of scenes like those — which emphasized unsavory elements of America’s past and of Washington’s life — that Glover wished to preserve the mural as a “teaching tool.” Said the actor in a statement: “As a Washington High graduate, I’ve spent my entire life fighting for freedom and the right of artistic expression. Whether it was being in the forefront to bring about the first Black Studies Department in the country at San Francisco State or being involved in films like The Color Purple and most recently The Last Black Man in San Francisco, my record is clear and unambiguous. I am for freedom of expression and against artistic censorship. I view Arnautoff’s murals, as they were for me, a reminder of the horrors of human bondage and the mistreatment of native peoples, even by the father of our country. To destroy them or block them from view would be akin to book burning. We would be missing the opportunity for enhanced historic introspection this moment has provided us.”

Supporting Bernie Sanders for President (2020)

During the November 17, 2019 broadcast of MSNBC’s PoliticsNation, Glover articulated his support for Bernie Sanders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination:

“[A]ll these candidates are good candidates. We can certainly look at their records and them and understand they provide a great deal of knowledge and character in order to perform this work that has to be done. But there’s no one that can challenge, I believe, Donald Trump. And there’s no one who has been on the road and on the path that Bernie has been throughout his whole life as a citizen, or as a legislator, as someone who has been in front of the public. He’s been consistent with his messages his entire career. And, certainly, we have to take that into consideration. I was here with the Senator in 2016. And basically, people didn’t know who he was. You know, they hadn’t come to know and really follow his trajectory of his life and his work, as well. But now we’re here — right here in 2019, and it’s a different story. And certainly, momentum is building. He’s worked hard of the staff whether they make it in New Hampshire or in Iowa or be in South Carolina has been very strong.”

Supporter of Black Lives Matter

In a July 2020 interview with Variety magazine, Glover spoke in support of the Black Lives Matter movement while condemning American police officers as racists: “[T]he violence that we see — whether it’s the toxic places where they [black people] live; the inadequacy of health care for them; whether it’s the lack of affordable housing; the absence of jobs at living wages; all those things – that’s basically going unseen. We see the actual violence because the police is what it is. It’s the last line line of defense for white supremacy. That’s what the police represents. They don’t protect African Americans.  You can make an argument that the institutional violence has its roots in so many different ways. The violence that we see now that is acted out on the physical body of George Floyd [a black Minneapolis man who had died as a result of police brutality five weeks earlier] has been the kind of violence that is engrained within the American idea of its culture, in its own subtlety, since the first Africans were brought here. So it’s 400 years of violence. It’s not just now!”

Warm Relations with First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba

On September 19, 2023, Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. In the course of his speech, he spent considerable time condemning the United States and announcing that Cuba would seek re-election to the UN Human Rights Council.

Two days later, Díaz-Canel hosted “artists, intellectuals, philanthropists, businesspeople, and attorneys,” at Cuba’s permanent mission at the United Nations. Among those who attended these events were Ocean Foundation president Mark J. Spalding, Cuba Oceans Program director Valerie Miller, National Council of Churches interim president and general secretary Vashti Murphy McKenzie, and actor Danny Glover. Díaz-Canel subsequently used his Twitter account to personally thank Glover for his visit, writing: “The beloved Danny Glover, to whom we owe so much for his unconditional solidarity, couldn’t miss it.”

Glover’s Immense Wealth

Glover currently has an estimated net worth of $40 million.

Additional Information on Danny Glover

Glover is a strong backer of the socialist magazine Monthly Review, which he says “challenges us to think, inspires us to action, and makes us realize that the impossible is only difficult, not insurmountable.”

Over the years, Glover has made political campaign contributions to a number of Democratic political candidates, including Cynthia McKinney.

Footnotes:


  1. This exposed Glover to the works of the South African playwright Athol Fugard. Glover would later star in the 1982 Broadway production of Fugard’s Master Harold … and the Boys, which brought him critical acclaim.

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