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

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
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: “I, for one, know I’m a prisoner of War,” Herbert X. Blyden, 1973
    04 Aug 2026
    “I don't mean just in the struggles in these prisons. America is one whole concentration camp in and of itself.”
  • x
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Somalia: On the Front Lines with Somaliland
    04 Aug 2026
    "During the last week of July, I traveled to the front lines of Somalia’s unresolved border conflict with Somaliland, the Somali secessionist state now recognized by Israel but not by
  • x
    Anthony Rogers-Wright
    The Commodification of Social Justice: (Or, Saving the Data Center Subject from the Elite Capture of the Climate Industry)
    04 Aug 2026
    There is near unanimity of opinion against data centers in the U.S. But elitist and compromised environmental groups and the climate industry should not lead this fight. 
  • x
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    What’s with a Pomade Man’s testosterone obsession?
    04 Aug 2026
    "What’s with a Pomade Man’s testosterone obsession?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence
  • x
    Julia Wright
    A Tribute to Johanna Fernandez
    04 Aug 2026
    Johanna Fernandez left a powerful and revolutionary legacy through her scholarship and activism.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us