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

What Would the Ancestors Say?
Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
14 Nov 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

by Raymond Nat Turner

Baptist, baritone strains:

"I've been to the mountaintop,

But this is not the mountaintop”

 

What Would the Ancestors Say?

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

I know

I know

I know...

Harriet Tubman didn't slide

In and out of the slave south

Nineteen times, $40,000 reward

Hanging over her head like a

Scimitar, or Samurai sword;

Medgar didn't die in his driveway

Like a dog put down in the pound;

Malcolm didn't die on floor

Of the Audubon Ballroom;

King didn't die on chitlin' curcuit

Balcony of the Lorraine Motel;

Fred didn't die in his bed, under

Hooves of Chicago death squads

For tomfoolery---nappy-headed

Foolishness--- Negroz shrinking

To plantation Rip Van Winkles

Hung over on Ol' Massa's

Jim Jones Juice (January '09)

The eve of world revolution...

 

I know

I know

I know...

She would be leveling her pistol,

Leaving at least a half dozen dead

Negroz, after commanding "Forward,

Or die!"

 

I know

I know

I know...

He would be tongue-lashing

Negroz with his Harlem-tinged

Tough love: "You've been had,

You've been took, you've been

Hoodwinked, you've been bamboozled!"

 

I know

I know

I know...

He would be intoning in African,

Baptist, baritone strains:

"I've been to the mountaintop,

But this is not the mountaintop,

No, and I'm concerned that if you

Continue traversing this treacherous

Trail you're on, during the dark and

Difficult days ahead, not only will you

Not get to the mountaintop, you will

Find yourselves descending to depths

So low that it will require you taking an

Elevator up eighty-six floors; climbing

Forty flights of stairs to a sub cellar of

Sin, standing on a step ladder on your

Tiptoes, just to suck the Devil's dick---

 

No, I'm afraid I can't be your drum

Major on this one---

The drones must be stopped,

The satanic wars ceased, and

The barbaric killing of other peoples'

Babies ended---forever..."

Raymond Nat Turner (c) 2012 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


  • Trump Derangement Syndrome Returns
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Trump Derangement Syndrome Returns
    05 Apr 2023
    If democrats were smart, Donald Trump would be a disgraced former president, forgotten by all but his most ardent admirers. But they aren't smart and they may have given him a political resurrection.
  • ESSAY: New Creation or Familiar Death? An Open Letter to Black Students in the North: Vincent Harding, 1969
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: New Creation or Familiar Death? An Open Letter to Black Students in the North: Vincent Harding, 1969
    05 Apr 2023
    Vincent Harding’s reflections on the expansion of Black Studies in the 1960s offers an ominous warning on the hiring of Black faculty and administrators today.
  • Paul Rusesabagina is free after being kidnapped and taken to Rwanda in 2020. But Rwanda's president Kagame no doubt exacted a high price from the U.S. in exchange for his freedom and will resume pillaging Congo with no fear of interference.
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    US Uses Rusesabagina’s Release to Whitewash Its Decades of Support for the Kagame Regime
    05 Apr 2023
    Paul Rusesabagina is free after being kidnapped and taken to Rwanda in 2020. The US claims credit for pressuring Rwanda to release him, hoping to distract the world from its decades of support for…
  • U.S. Push to Strip China's Developing Country Status an Attack on Development Itself
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    U.S. Push to Strip China's Developing Country Status an Attack on Development Itself
    05 Apr 2023
    The U.S. attempt to diminish China's economic success is a bipartisan project, and a unanimous congressional vote to strip China of developing nation status is just the latest act in the…
  • Whoppers of Boss Tweet...
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Whoppers of Boss Tweet...
    05 Apr 2023
    Whoppers of Boss Tweet…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us