Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Light Up In Harlem
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
29 Oct 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

Commemorating

Beyond Vietnam,

Celebrating

Grassroots pregnant with

Struggle

 

Light up in Harlem

by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

(BAR 7th Anniversary Celebration)

“Over truth there is light” – Moroccan saying

 

Friday night and a

Light burns bright

Up here in Harlem—

Bright like LED smiles

Of Douglass, Delaney

Walker, Cornish and Ida B.

We’re that light tonight…

 

We’re that light tonight,

Illumination

Lineage of tens of

Of thousands of torchbearers

Dealing Defenders,

Dispatches, Eagles,

Afro-Americans,

Mysteries, North Stars,

Freedom Journals, New York

Globes, Boston Guardians and

Memphis Free Speech & Headlights

 

We’re that light tonight…

 

We’re that light tonight,

Back at Riverside

Commemorating

Beyond Vietnam,

Celebrating

Grassroots pregnant with

Struggle birthing the

March on Washington

We’re that light tonight…

 

We’re that light tonight,

Not neon soldiers

Of Fortune 500

Foundation followers

Mumbling mule madness

We’re that light tonight…

 

We’re that light tonight

Streaming from Philly,

Connecticut, Jersey,

Filtering in from

Atlanta, Massachusetts,

Parts west, popping corks

On Champagne and wines

Red and white, toasting

Truth telling, illuminating

The people, instead of

“Speaking truth to power,”

Under Bill Clinton’s

Desk, like chittlin-breath

Buffoons are prone to do…

We’re the light tonight!

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2013 All Rights Reserved

 

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio April 11, 2025
    11 Apr 2025
    In this week’s segment, we hear about a new effort to have an independent, socialist candidate on the ballot in New York City’s upcoming mayoral race. But first, we speak to an academic about the…
  • Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Palestine Solidarity Under Attack: A Conversation with Helyeh Doutaghi
    11 Apr 2025
    Our guest is Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi. She was Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy Project at Yale University Law School until she was targeted by Zionist groups dedicated to silencing anyone…
  • The Break
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Break NYC and the Need for a Socialist, Independent Mayoral Candidate in New York City
    11 Apr 2025
    A new organization, The Break NYC, has recently formed and is dedicated to finding and endorsing an independent leftist committed to staying in the race and appearing on the ballot. Two members of…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Cory Booker, Confused Liberals, Obama's Reappearance, and the Dangers of a Fake Movement
    09 Apr 2025
    Any “movement” that leads protest back to the Democratic Party is, by definition, dangerous. Criticism of Donald Trump cannot be a defining feature of change. 
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: White Supremacy in U.S. History, Theodore W. Allen April 28, 1973
    09 Apr 2025
    “The principal aspect of United States capitalist society is not merely bourgeois domination but bourgeois white supremacist domination.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us