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

The Tennessee Three speak in We
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
19 Apr 2023
🖨️ Print Article
The Tennessee Three speak in We
State Reps. Justin J. Pearson, Gloria Johnson and Justin Jones in Nashville, Tenn., on April 7. (Photo: George Walker IV / AP)

                                                                                         The Tennessee Three speak in We

                                                                                                  “Alabama got me so upset,

                                                                                           Tennessee made me lose my rest…”

                                                                                        —Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddamn”

 

I.

Cherokees "on the road again.” Violently herded West.

Ethnically-cleansed on crimson Trail of Tears.

Forcibly moved off Tennessee homeland to

Oklahoma—Where land acknowledgment ain’t enough…

II.

Lorraine Motel balcony; Audubon Ballroom;

Mississippi driveway; Chicago bedroom; UCLA

lunchroom polling places—Our leaders were voted out

of office with lead Ballots: swapping steel Lumumba for

malleable Mobutu!

We were left standing on Duopoly corners harmonizing

$campaign/$election songs: “Yes, we can!” and “I feel your

Pain.” Left praying to Pentagon parties of Long COVID

capitalism for depleted uranium, white phosphorus

prosperity

Lightfoot-Drone Rangers remained…Bassackwards Strong

arm Williams Thom-ass Clarence Tribesmen trained to lead

us in the treacherous 2/4 Dance—

Donkey dung-elephant excrement dance—Every 2-4 years

III.

The Tennessee Three speak in We—

from moribund bodies high on white powder in

Corporate crack pipes—

Apartheid state bodies of banana Republican rule

The Tennessee Three speak in We—

in NRA faces of gerrymanders coming

out of caves and fronting for Fat-cats—

Civil War hawks—quacking like lame ducks

The Tennessee Three speak in We—

to bought and bossed good ole boys—Volunteer

State puppets— Paymasters’ hands up nazi asses,

Moving 2nd Amendment/Maximum profit mouths

The Tennessee Three speak in We—

to dog whistling faces of foghorn framers—

Ventriloquists called confederates—Or,

their more modern names: Fascists!

The Tennessee Three speak in We—

to whipping post politicians, rebel-yelling in

cat o’ nine tails tongue—“Tantrum” tommyrot—

branding The Peoples’ Needs: “Wanting attention!”

The Tennessee Three speak in We—

facing starred-barred,

water-hosed, dog-bitten Dixie—Hurricanes of

hardship—Awash with Stax waves of solidarity

The Tennessee Three speak in We—

Standing and delivering! Amplifying voices of ones once

Celebrated !Essential” in nightly pot and pan banging and

clanging concerts

The Tennessee Three speak in We—

Standing and delivering! Amplifying voices of shoe leather,

street heat, pavement politicians, rising in rippling waves of

Maladjusted millions… flicker of what democracy looks like??

© 2023. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.



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.

Tennessee
Tennessee Three

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


Related Stories

John Parker
Supreme Court targets Voting Rights Act of 1965 – denying justice and peace
22 July 2026
The fight for the ballot has always been tied to a wider war against Black political power, against workers, against the people paying for empi
Wolfgang Bronner
Entertainment as Militarization: The Spectacle of the Super Bowl & WrestleMania in Nashville
06 May 2026
The spectacle of major sporting events does not simply distract from a city's crackdown on the working class.
Lindy Drolsum
Prison System in Tennessee: A Cycle of Racism and Control
11 March 2026
Tennessee's claim of being "tough on crime" means racialized policing and incarceration, and profit making off of marginalized people
Modern Day Reconstruction and Tennessee's Expulsion of Black Lawmakers
Jon Jeter
Modern Day Reconstruction and Tennessee's Expulsion of Black Lawmakers
19 April 2023
The temporary expulsion of two Black Tennessee legislators was a reminder of why even a tiny semblance of Black political independence is feare

More Stories


  • Lasting Legacy of Combahee River Collective Statement
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Lasting Legacy of Combahee River Collective Statement
    26 May 2020
    In 1977 a group of Black feminists issued a statement that “has been a kind of touchstone over the decades for women who are thinking about women’s issues through the intersectional lens of racism,
  • Another ALD, But Africa Still Not Free
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Another ALD, But Africa Still Not Free
    26 May 2020
    More than a half century after most African states gained nominal independence, the continent is still economically and politically dependent on “external actors,” said Ndubuisi Christ
  • Mumia: US Incapable of Protecting Its People
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Mumia: US Incapable of Protecting Its People
    26 May 2020
    The nation’s best known political prisoner asks, “Who really believes that the US government can, or will, vaccinate over 300 million people – a government that can’t find the people it promised to
  • Back Is Back Coalition’s “Ballot and the Bulllet” Electoral School
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Is Back Coalition’s “Ballot and the Bulllet” Electoral School
    26 May 2020
    Since the smashing of the Black Liberation Movement, “the electoral process has been monopolized by the petit-bourgeois sell-out sector,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the
  • Indict and Punish the Perpetrators of Covid Mass Death
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Indict and Punish the Perpetrators of Covid Mass Death
    21 May 2020
    Not just Trump, but the whole US ruling class must pay for the mass Covid death toll among Blacks, because only the ruling class has the power to systematically allocate life-death chances for
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us