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


  • BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
    Marisa Fuentes
    BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
    06 May 2020
    This is a book about the ideological construction of black women as “non-human” and exploitable for capitalist profit in the making of the New South.
  • Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism 2020, Not Covid-19
    Lauren Smith
    Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism 2020, Not Covid-19
    06 May 2020
    What could possibly be a more effective way to seal borders, discourage protest, and position the United States into perfect alignment for WWIII?
  • COVID-19 and America - The Fire This Time
    Wilmer J. Leon III
    COVID-19 and America - The Fire This Time
    06 May 2020
    It is immoral if not criminal for the US to increase sanctions through its “maximum pressure campaigns” against Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and Palestine.  
  • Over 70 Percent of Jobless Americans Didn’t Receive March Unemployment Benefits 
    Igor Derysh 
    Over 70 Percent of Jobless Americans Didn’t Receive March Unemployment Benefits 
    06 May 2020
    The problem is even worse in Southeastern states like Florida, where fewer than 8% of applicants received benefits.
  • Tribute to My Beloved Sister Barbara Allimadi – Fighter for Justice in Uganda
    Milton G. Allimadi 
    Tribute to My Beloved Sister Barbara Allimadi – Fighter for Justice in Uganda
    06 May 2020
    We owe it to Barbara to march those extra miles and create a new Uganda.  “She was arrested multiple times for leading protests against the regime.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us