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
Join political activist and Black Agenda Report’s contributing editor Ajamu Baraka and members of the Communist Party Marxist-Kenya on a trip to Kibera, Africa’s largest slum.
"Ethnic cleansing called Katrina" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
Jaribu Hill, Executive Director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights, recounts the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and the efforts to organize on behalf of the people.
"Racism showed its ass in the days after August 29, 2005."
The official response to Katrina was a catastrophic failure of the state. The real story of survival was written by a coalition of the discarded—ex-offenders and Black churches—who built their own…
