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
  • omnibus

Light Up In Harlem
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
29 Oct 2013
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

Commemorating

Beyond Vietnam,

Celebrating

Grassroots pregnant with

Struggle

 

Light up in Harlem

by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

(BAR 7th Anniversary Celebration)

“Over truth there is light” – Moroccan saying

 

Friday night and a

Light burns bright

Up here in Harlem—

Bright like LED smiles

Of Douglass, Delaney

Walker, Cornish and Ida B.

We’re that light tonight…

 

We’re that light tonight,

Illumination

Lineage of tens of

Of thousands of torchbearers

Dealing Defenders,

Dispatches, Eagles,

Afro-Americans,

Mysteries, North Stars,

Freedom Journals, New York

Globes, Boston Guardians and

Memphis Free Speech & Headlights

 

We’re that light tonight…

 

We’re that light tonight,

Back at Riverside

Commemorating

Beyond Vietnam,

Celebrating

Grassroots pregnant with

Struggle birthing the

March on Washington

We’re that light tonight…

 

We’re that light tonight,

Not neon soldiers

Of Fortune 500

Foundation followers

Mumbling mule madness

We’re that light tonight…

 

We’re that light tonight

Streaming from Philly,

Connecticut, Jersey,

Filtering in from

Atlanta, Massachusetts,

Parts west, popping corks

On Champagne and wines

Red and white, toasting

Truth telling, illuminating

The people, instead of

“Speaking truth to power,”

Under Bill Clinton’s

Desk, like chittlin-breath

Buffoons are prone to do…

We’re the light tonight!

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2013 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


  • x
    North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights
    Inequality in Kenya: View from Kibera
    02 Sep 2025
    Poverty i
  • x
    The Editors
    Black Agenda Report Will Return on September 10, 2025
    02 Sep 2025
    Black Agenda Report will return with our next issue on Wednesday, September 10. Please watch our new video, "Inequality in Kenya: View From Kibera," produced in collaboration with the North-South…
  • asdf
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Katrina Victims: Relocated or Forced into Exile?
    27 Aug 2025
    Black Agenda Report's late Executive Editor, Glen Ford, gave this interview a decade after Hurricane Katrina to explore how the narrative of "starting over" is being used to whitewash the forced…
  • Hurricane Katrina man on car
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Why We Remember Katrina
    27 Aug 2025
    Twenty years ago, the world witnessed more than the suffering of hurricane Katrina's victims. The United States was exposed as a failed state controlled by the cruelties of racialized capitalism.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: This is Criminal, Malik Rahim, New Orleans, September 1st, 2005
    27 Aug 2025
    “It’s not like New Orleans was caught off guard. This could have been prevented.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us