front row at Aretha's funeral
Star-struck, in childlike
awe of celestial
Voices, silver tongues;
I spent seven hours
glued to the screen—
back in the Baptist Church,
Celebrating, honoring the
humanitarian, North Star
Shero—genius in her field!
What a day, imbibing
Mighty Black Music!
Joyful noise, Lake Michigan-
sized magnet, gathering forces
elbow to elbow—
Enemies, Orange Age
Allies on the clock…
Basking in reflected light,
Assassins, informants, jailers,
Mouthpieces, mass murderers,
super predators, slutty professors
came riding, riding, riding, riding
bare-back, backwards on a
Donkey to The D.
Riding in corporate coats
of many logos—then
Limboing their way
Center stage, tracking
donkey dung down the
red carpet; playing
our emotions, our
Souls, our strength—
our Achilles’ heel
like plastic kazoos:
resurrecting the
Democratic Party…
© 2018. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Our poet in residence, Raymond Nat Turner is an acclaimed performing artist. Find much more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.
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…
The U.S. is a purveyor of global violence, as illustrated by the intensifying militarism in the Caribbean and targeting of Venezuela. The struggle to establish a Zone of Peace directly challenges…
Mayor Bowser going along to get along with Donald Trump is unsurprising to anyone who has followed her political career. She is the Black misleader par excellence.
