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

Poor Peoples’ March
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
22 Jun 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Poor Peoples’ March
Rev. Ralph Abernathy leads the Poor People's March from Resurrection City to the grounds of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, June 24, 1968.

                                                                                                                   Poor Peoples’ March

                                                                                                “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”  

                                                                                                                            —Aristotle

Rainbow drum majors

arrived down from broken

hearted Buffalo—up from

Uvalde—Down south; Out

south; Up south. Trekkers,

drivers, flyers, bus riders arrived.

Essential Workers—a few months

ago; for a minute—arrived from their

robotic jobs…Over-worked/underpaid.

Children from COVID-canceled families

Arrived. Food workers on blistered, swollen

feet and un-operated on knees arrived.

Toilers under poverty’s knee and low-wealth’s

swastika-tatted arm arrived.

Grassroots, salt of the earth, everyday people

arrived.

Hurt first/hurt worst Black, Brown, Indigenous

impacted people arrived.

Inflation-riddled poverty scholars from food

apartheid bantustans arrived.

Labor’s soldiers, siloed sea to shiny sea, arrived.

Standing shoulder to shoulder Juneteenth

on un-ceded Anacostan Ancestral land, galvanizing,

mobilizing—flashing glimpses of 30s/60s greatness

from Arab Spring, Occupy, George Floyd Summer,

Strike-tober reflections…

Carving cursive initials in granite of a 100 year-old

Healthcare for ALL fight…

© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe and PayPal.

 

Poor People's Campaign
Poor People's March

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


Related Stories

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Resurrection City: The Dream…The Accomplishments, Jesse Jackson, 1968
18 February 2026
“The Poor People’s Campaign is the greatest single challenge ever unleashed upon our colonial system.”
The Poor People's Campaign and the Moral Dilemma of Liberalism
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
The Poor People's Campaign and the Moral Dilemma of Liberalism
04 May 2022
The demands for justice at home and abroad must not be sacrificed on the altar of what is called pragmatism.

More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio April 15, 2022
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio April 15, 2022
    15 Apr 2022
    The Ujima People's Progress Party Conference, Eritrea continues its fight for sovereignty, and the book Manufacturing Hate: How Africa was Demonized in Western Media.
  • Ujima People's Progress Party Conference
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Ujima People's Progress Party Conference
    15 Apr 2022
    Gus Griffin, a member of Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team and the Membership Committee of the Ujima People’s Progress Party, discusses their upcoming statewide conference taking place in Landover…
  • Eritrea Continues Its Fight for Sovereignty
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Eritrea Continues Its Fight for Sovereignty
    15 Apr 2022
    Elias Amare is an editor and journalist at Horn of Africa TV. US policy towards Eritrea has always been hostile. Recent events have been no different as the US continues to target that nation with…
  • Manufacturing Hate: How Africa was Demonized in Western Media
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Manufacturing Hate: How Africa was Demonized in Western Media
    15 Apr 2022
    Milton Allimadi is publisher of Black Star News, an adjunct professor of history at John Jay College, and an adjunct professor in the graduate school of journalism at Columbia University. He is…
  • Liberal Russophobia and War Propaganda
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Liberal Russophobia and War Propaganda
    13 Apr 2022
    U.S. liberals are the worst perpetrators of Russophobic behavior. They are most likely to follow the dictates of corporate media and the democratic party and proudly take part in discriminatory acts…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us