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

short school struggle poem
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
02 Mar 2022
🖨️ Print Article
short school struggle poem

                                                                                 short school struggle poem…

                                                        “In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice.
                                                                            Then he made school boards.”
                                                                                       —Mark Twain

Ignoring hot tears in tones of cracking voices
Ignoring Town Black and Brown children
parents— Ignoring ravenous bodies of heroic hunger-
striking
Teachers…
Real estate-powered, battery-operated, school board
members
Voted in wee hours to close several precious schools:
capitalism’s eating children/schools/hunger strikers…

Bought and bossed board members gifted Town
Children class struggle college educations—gifted them
mass
matriculation in George Floyd Summer School for an
Arab Spring Semester—promising to last a lifetime…

© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Former forklift driver/warehouse worker/janitor, Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet;
BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC.
You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-town-criers-big-tooth-fund
PayPal: paypal.me/towncrierRNT

San Francisco
Public Schools

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


More Stories


  • Friends of the Congo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Maurice Carney Analyzes the Crisis in the Congo
    31 Jan 2025
    Maurice Carney is the Executive Director of Friends of the Congo. He joins us to discuss the ongoing humanitarian and political crisis in eastern Congo, where the Rwandan government continues its…
  • Jordan Neely protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Never Forget Jordan Neely
    31 Jan 2025
    Tag, a Spirit of Mandela coordinating committee member, joins us to talk about their upcoming community forum at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn on Saturday, February 1st. This is the first in a…
  • Jamarl Thomas
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Death of DEI with Jamarl Thomas
    31 Jan 2025
    Margaret Kimberley was recently a guest on Jamarl Thomas's YouTube podcast. She discussed her latest Black Agenda Report article on “The Death of DEI.” The issues surrounding DEI are contradictory.…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Death of DEI
    29 Jan 2025
    Black people must be discerning about racist attacks on DEI programs while also acknowledging that “diversity” can be a con that damages Black politics, just as it was meant to do.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    POEM: Note to All Nazis, Fascists and Klansmen, Langston Hughes, 1943
    29 Jan 2025
    Langston Hughes’s 1943 poem against fascism is precise, droll, and eternal.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us