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

 For Brother Bruce
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
03 Jul 2019
🖨️ Print Article
 For Brother Bruce
 For Brother Bruce

Here’s the FOIA requested,
Redacted part of the story they never tell
You. 

Baby Bruce was wandering
the Midwest with Dorothy and Toto—
Before they picked up the Tinman in 
Pittsburgh, the Scarecrow on Staten Island,
the Cowardly Lion in Los Angeles
Baby Bruce had a baby brain, a huge
heart and fully formed courage that
would be schooled and steeled at the 
point of production—
Molding a straight-up soldier on
The Long March; A rank-in-file, 
meet ‘em where they’re at,
shoe leather, serve the people, 
door-to-door knocking, 
troublemaking organizer;
Chitown stubborn kinda fella— 
stubborn as a Georgia mule—
Refusing to slip, on Iceberg Slim
posing as community organizer…

He had huge heart, big brain and 
courage. Barrel of his pen blazing—
welcoming me from the wilderness,
Cali isolation, to fight side by side
Against the masked man— The
Drone Ranger; when icons and 
Legends were losing their minds

and Slutty Professors dangled
on the dick of Deporter-in-Chief!

When Bruce’s 404 popped up on my phone
It was business—but personal—laughing, joking, 
we’d cover the waterfront with lunch bucket language…
I pray The Wizard put a Bruce Dixon Organizer’s App
 on my phone countering some spyware…

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Bruce Dixon

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


Related Stories

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Twenty Years of Black Agenda Report
28 October 2026
Reaching a 20th anniversary for Black Agenda Report is indeed a milestone.
The Courage to Write the Truth: Where and When Bruce Dixon Enters History
Dr. Matthew Quest
The Courage to Write the Truth: Where and When Bruce Dixon Enters History
21 August 2019
Bruce entered history as the most distinguished critic of the Black political class during the Age of Obama.

More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: Amandla Thomas-Johnson’s “Becoming Kwame Ture”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Amandla Thomas-Johnson’s “Becoming Kwame Ture”
    07 Apr 2021
    The Stokely Carmichael of the 60s continued to politically and ideologically evolve while in Africa where he adopts the names of his political mentors Sekou Toure and Kwame Nkrumah. 
  • Fanon Can’t Save You Now
    Todd Cronan
    Fanon Can’t Save You Now
    07 Apr 2021
    The great revolutionary foresaw the need to “rapidly switch from a national consciousness to a social and political consciousness” committed to the “distribution of wealth and social relations
  • Remembering Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald
    Mack 
    Remembering Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald
    07 Apr 2021
      Having endured 50 years of incarceration, Fitzgerald was California’s longest-serving former Black Panther.
  • Reporting on Anti-Asian Violence Sets Black People Up to be Harmed
    Thad Baltimore
    Reporting on Anti-Asian Violence Sets Black People Up to be Harmed
    07 Apr 2021
    The media focus on Black-Asian “tensions” promoted the misleading idea that Black people are the main perpetrators of anti-Asian attacks.
  • The Global Anti-Eritrea-Ethiopia Agenda
    Amanuel Biedemariam 
    The Global Anti-Eritrea-Ethiopia Agenda
    07 Apr 2021
    It is not up to the US to demand or dictate that Eritrea withdraw from Ethiopia -- it is Ethiopia’s and only Ethiopia’s call to make.  
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us