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

If I had a hammer…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
12 Oct 2017
🖨️ Print Article
If I had a hammer....
If I had a hammer…

My Dad drew blueprints,
Built cabinets, designed
ultra-modern kitchens, offices:
Master of tile, electrical, plumbing,
painting—imagining, mixing
Colors he dreamed up

Finish carpenter, cabinetmaker, contractor
Hanging doors, ripping two by fours—
Bad Hombre never showed
up in Beverly Hills,
With one hammer or saw.

He traveled with trim hammers,
framing hammers, ball peens,
22oz hammers, 32oz hammers, mallets—
Even sledge hammers for persuading
framed walls and beams

Similarly with several saws:
Table saw, circular saws, coping saw,
bandsaw, miter saw, jigsaw, rip saw—
17 saws for different jobs…

Movement building’s no different…
One tool—method of struggle—
Won’t work on every job. And,
Violence versus nonviolence is
an old splitting tool in 1% toolboxes

Prayer, comradely criticism
and self-criticism with
klansmen and nazis,
Pummeling one with pipes,
Earn return trips to the toolbox

Freedom songs, solidarity statements,
Polemics, picket lines, boycotts, mass meetings,
Mass marches, mass rallies, teach-ins,
Sit-ins, die-ins, sabotage, negotiations…
Must all be in our toolboxes

When SWAT invaded Central Avenue
before the sun rose—
to kill my Cousin and 16 Panther comrades—
Remington, Thompson,
Smith & Wesson spoke
Eloquently for five hours—
gathering, Awakening, witnesses
Saving 17 lives where
Gandhi and King were muted…

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved

Our own Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. Find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.

poetry

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


Related Stories

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Army of Artists (For My Friend Horace Silver)
17 December 2025
Harmony of a hug,Rhythm of a rose,Melody in the mirror
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
MrJoeSam’s Text Messages
12 June 2024
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR’s poet-in-residence, pays homage to San Francisco’s shipyard artist JoeSam who died peacefully on June 1, 2024, surroun
Raymond Nat Turner
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Dis-honest Broker
01 May 2024
"Dis-honest Broker" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence, recently performed at UpSurge!
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Raymond Nat Turner at the UpSurge Jazz Celebration
03 April 2024
 
Image of Refaat Alareer sitting in a crowd of graduates
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: If I Must Die, Refaat Alareer, 2023
13 December 2023
Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, a martyr of zionist state genocidal violence, has left us with a tale of resistance and hope.
Reese Piece…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Reese Piece…
15 April 2021
Salute to City of Angels’ son! He wrote, he wrote, he wrote And he wrote… Ramparts, The Progressive, The
First 100 Daze: A ‘new’ dance craze
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
First 100 Daze: A ‘new’ dance craze
27 January 2021
Everybody’s wild ‘bout this ‘new’ dance craze— this lewd, crude dance called “The 1st 100 Daze…”
mashing the state— Kristallnacht-style
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
mashing the state— Kristallnacht-style
20 January 2021
Kristallnacht came casting lead ballots, overthrowing Black elected officials and Massacring those that VOTED for them— 
This is what hypocrisy looks like…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
This is what hypocrisy looks like…
13 January 2021
“It's like writing history with lightning.“ — Woodrow Wilson on Birth of A Nation
Think…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Think…
06 January 2021
Think of peoples having the most tanks, the most drones, the most missiles, bombs, aircraft carriers, 

More Stories


  • Poster of Al Fatah through the streets of Algiers. Palestine Poster Project
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    MESSAGE: The Palestine National Liberation Movement AL-FATEH to Africa
    06 Dec 2023
    Al-Fateh’s communique at the 1969 Festival of Pan-African Culture offered a brilliant analysis of the overlapping histories of European colonialism and white supremacy in Africa and Palestine.
  • More than 6 million Congolese now shelter in IDP camps.
    Maurice Carney
    D.R. Congo’s Challenges: Elections, Rwanda’s War of Aggression and Critical Minerals for Green Transition
    06 Dec 2023
    The ongoing crisis is a result of converging forces determined to pursue their own interests by controlling the affairs within the Congo and subjecting the masses to inhumane conditions.
  • Kenya Parliament
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: National identity and Foreign Domination, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, 1982
    06 Dec 2023
    Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o reminds us that the primary contradiction in Africa is imperialism and its meek comprador bourgeoisie enforcers.
  • Symone Sanders
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Black Media Misleaders Do the Democrats' Dirty Work
    29 Nov 2023
    Over a year in advance, the Black Misleadership Class has kicked their efforts to corral Black people into the Democratic party, despite the Dems’ apathy toward Black politics or the concerns of…
  • Protester holding up sign saying "Don't censor Palestine"
    Thad Baltimore
    Uncovering Media Misinformation About The Gaza Genocide
    29 Nov 2023
    The US empire is continuing its psychological warfare campaign by conducting a mass mobilization of resources and waging a propaganda offensive to protect its interests in the Middle East.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us