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


  • The Police “Just Launched a War”
    J. Lester Feder
    The Police “Just Launched a War”
    19 May 2021
    Do some, most or all US police departments have a pattern and practice of racial bias that makes them fundamentally unable to regulate themselves?
  • Alphaeus Hunton: The Unsung Valiant, by Dorothy Hunton
    Denise Lynn
    Alphaeus Hunton: The Unsung Valiant, by Dorothy Hunton
    19 May 2021
    Hunton’s devotion to peace and “mutual cooperation” came out of his understanding that “war and militarism were endemic” to capitalism.
  • Disinformation in Tigray: Manufacturing Consent For a Secessionist War
    New African Institute
    Disinformation in Tigray: Manufacturing Consent For a Secessionist War
    19 May 2021
    Corporate media in the imperial countries have spread disinformation on the real nature of the fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray state.
  • Palestine Coverage Presents False Equivalency Between Occupied and Occupier
    Gregory Shupak
    Israel/Palestine Coverage Presents False Equivalency Between Occupied and Occupier
    19 May 2021
    “As an occupying power, Israel does not have a legal right to claim self-defense against the people it occupies.”
  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 17, 2021
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of May 17, 2021
    18 May 2021
    Israel Deliberately Provoked Violence
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us