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

Poor Peoples’ March
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
22 Jun 2022
🖨️ Print Article
Poor Peoples’ March
Rev. Ralph Abernathy leads the Poor People's March from Resurrection City to the grounds of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, June 24, 1968.

                                                                                                                   Poor Peoples’ March

                                                                                                “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”  

                                                                                                                            —Aristotle

Rainbow drum majors

arrived down from broken

hearted Buffalo—up from

Uvalde—Down south; Out

south; Up south. Trekkers,

drivers, flyers, bus riders arrived.

Essential Workers—a few months

ago; for a minute—arrived from their

robotic jobs…Over-worked/underpaid.

Children from COVID-canceled families

Arrived. Food workers on blistered, swollen

feet and un-operated on knees arrived.

Toilers under poverty’s knee and low-wealth’s

swastika-tatted arm arrived.

Grassroots, salt of the earth, everyday people

arrived.

Hurt first/hurt worst Black, Brown, Indigenous

impacted people arrived.

Inflation-riddled poverty scholars from food

apartheid bantustans arrived.

Labor’s soldiers, siloed sea to shiny sea, arrived.

Standing shoulder to shoulder Juneteenth

on un-ceded Anacostan Ancestral land, galvanizing,

mobilizing—flashing glimpses of 30s/60s greatness

from Arab Spring, Occupy, George Floyd Summer,

Strike-tober reflections…

Carving cursive initials in granite of a 100 year-old

Healthcare for ALL fight…

© 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 and PayPal.

 

Poor People's Campaign
Poor People's March

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


Related Stories

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Resurrection City: The Dream…The Accomplishments, Jesse Jackson, 1968
18 February 2026
“The Poor People’s Campaign is the greatest single challenge ever unleashed upon our colonial system.”
The Poor People's Campaign and the Moral Dilemma of Liberalism
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
The Poor People's Campaign and the Moral Dilemma of Liberalism
04 May 2022
The demands for justice at home and abroad must not be sacrificed on the altar of what is called pragmatism.

More Stories


  • The Promise of Street Rebellions
    Russell Rickford
    The Promise of Street Rebellions
    03 Jun 2020
    The flames burned both for Floyd and for the vanishing dream of a moral economy.
  • We Can’t Breathe 
    Dante J. James
    We Can’t Breathe 
    03 Jun 2020
    Can and should America continue to breathe if it continues to suffocate African American people and our communities?
  • Policing in the US is Not About Enforcing Law. It’s About Enforcing White Supremacy
    Paul Butler
    Policing in the US is Not About Enforcing Law. It’s About Enforcing White Supremacy
    03 Jun 2020
    If we had something approaching equal justice, would we still even be the United States? “Mr. Floyd was not human to these officers.”
  • Why Hasn’t Amy Cooper Been Arrested? The Case of Pink Pussy Privilege 
    BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Robert Stubblefield
    Why Hasn’t Amy Cooper Been Arrested? The Case of Pink Pussy Privilege 
    03 Jun 2020
    While most advocates focus on police abuse of the black community, we must also hold accountable the people who call police and make false claims against black people.
  • Murder of Black Youth in Rio de Janeiro Shows Racist Nature of Policing in Brazil
    People Dispatch Staff
    Murder of Black Youth in Rio de Janeiro Shows Racist Nature of Policing in Brazil
    03 Jun 2020
    Pandemic or not, Brazilian police kill multiples of Black youth every day of the year. Fourteen year-old João Pedro Mattos Pinto joins the list of tens of thousands.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us