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

Ruchell Magee Must Be Set Free!
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
26 Jul 2023
🖨️ Print Article

Ruchell Magee Must Be Set Free! 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

If 1619 started it—ebony/ivory—

teenage attraction 

Jim Crow’s watch—upped the ante!

Deep South apartheid stench/Emmett

Till terror/Pitched battles on blood rivers…

What could the boy be but Black rapist?

 

Bullwhip warped minds of white men— 

What could this be but ‘Master’s’

midnight visits to slave quarters—Prying

apart Black thighs—overruling cries, pleas,  

Love?

What could the boy be but Black rapist?

 

Crackers coveted Choctaw land—

Black soil mattered…

More than visiting terror—or

Another muddy, mutilated body in Mississippi

or another Dixie river. Crackers coveting

Choctaw land put the boy in his plantation place… 

 

Crackers coveting Choctaw land gifted 8 Angola yrs,

Under horseback-ridin, shot-gun-totin, tobacco-spittin

gaze; Under King Cotton’s rule; Gifted target embroidered

Jacket— Gifted exile to: City of Angels/ruled by devils…

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

His numbers are no longer:

“6-3-4-5-7-8-9”

no longer:

“Beechwood 4-5-7-8-9” 

far too long his numbers been:

#A92051 #T115— 83—Caged since ’63—

60 yrs of vengeance-driven torture!

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

Visualize him home—sun splashing light comic 

book bright colors of L.A. murals!

Visualize him home, pulling three-deep lines snaked 

‘round crooked corners…holding youth centers, senior

centers, libraries, bookstores captive.

Visualize him home—space, light, air, freedom to stretch 

out in sensory overload!

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

No mo’ Golden State gulag/COVID 

concentration camp—

No mo’ Octogenarian barrister behind bars

law book-lifting—iron-pumping mind:

 

No mo’ memoranda, motion, writ and plea

No mo’ heroic, litigious—War of the Flea—

No mo’ symbol of strength/wisdom of tree—

People, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

Governor, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

People, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

 

© 2023. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. 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


  • Dhoruba bin-Wahad
    Guardian Foray: All That's Not Real Is Camouflage
    09 Sep 2026
    An Open Letter from the American "Left" allegedly on behalf of unnamed persons said to be Iranian political prisoners has provided cover for U.S. imperial aggression against Iran by refusing to…
  • Imani Nile
    Don't Bring None of Your Anti Anti-Imperialist Bullshit to Cuba
    09 Sep 2026
    Empire taught us what to believe about the Global South. It also taught us how to move through it, and being colonized here does not exempt us from carrying those beliefs with us.
  • Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    9/11 and the Great American Decline
    09 Sep 2026
    The Bush administration had long planned a global war for U.S. hegemony, and the attacks of September 11 provided the perfect pretext to put those plans into motion.
  • J.C. Hallman , Keaton Ross
    Who's Calling?
    09 Sep 2026
    Oklahoma prison inmates were making political calls for a conservative Super PAC during the primary.
  • Michael Steven Smith
    Meet the Radical Legal Collective That Won Justice for Fred Hampton and Continues Fighting to This Day
    09 Sep 2026
    Longtime attorney Flint Taylor’s new book tells the story of the People’s Law Collective, which grew out of the radical movements of the late 1960s.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us