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

if it takes 100 years
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
06 Dec 2017
🖨️ Print Article
if it takes 100 years

I am the North Star—
Hope; Never wavering, organizing,
burning thorough bars, walls, wire—
I am consciousness of all
creatures, crystalline water,
clean, sweet air, black soil
From forgotten reservations

I am non-GMO, organic apples,
pears, lettuce, tomatoes, spinach
Springing from beads of sweat
mixed with midnight oil—
I am not the latest sneakers, phones
from Black Friday Madness,
Celebrity Worship or
Dumbed-down gossip ‘bout ‘stars’

I am coagulated blood
of gunned down doctors wafting from
Women’s reproductive rights—
Flowering from fertilizer of guilt
I am freedom, loving
Whomever I choose…

I am single-payer
Healthcare rising from Big Pharma
body-slams/lies of lobotomized politicians;
I am affordable housing
clubbed from corrugated cardboard sleep;
I am free education—
Peace studies writhing free of
handcuffs, cutting off circulation…
I am smoldering ashes of a
burned down Black Baptist Church
Repudiating ‘race’ with pain

I am revolution—
Socialism passing freely, back and forth
between metal detectors/bomb-sniffing dogs—
Arriving just moments ago:
…Having been here forever…

Raymond Nat Turner © 2017 All Rights Reserved
Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed poet and performing artist. Find much more of his work at http"//upsurgejazz.com.

poetry

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Djibo Sobukwe
    Five Reasons Black/ African People Should Be in Solidarity with Venezuela
    17 Dec 2025
    Venezuela's revolution is a project of Afro-descendant empowerment and a force against imperialism that has long exploited the African diaspora and the Global South.
  • C.J. Atkins
    ‘We should determine our own future’: Interview with Sudanese Communist Party
    17 Dec 2025
    Foreign powers are responsible for Sudan's destruction. Real peace can only come when the right of self-determination for the Sudanese people is respected.
  • Prince Kapone
    Southern Spear: The American Pole and the Recolonization of the Hemisphere
    17 Dec 2025
    Operation Southern Spear is not a drug war—it is the first open military strike of a new U.S. doctrine: puncture the Caribbean, penetrate the continent, and weld the Americas into a captive bloc of…
  • Zophia Edwards , Corey Gilkes , Tamanisha John
    Imperialism by Invitation: Murder, Mafioso Politics and Caribbean-Venezuelan Futurity
    17 Dec 2025
    Amidst US bombs and lies about Venezuelan drug trafficking as a pretext for regime change, the subordinated position of Caribbean states’ economies plays a role in U.S. aggression.
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio December 12, 2025
    12 Dec 2025
    In this week’s segment, we listen to a press conference in support of the sovereign rights of Venezuela and of the rights of those who support the Venezuelan people to travel to that country. But…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us