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: Cheryl R. Rodriguez, Dzodzi Tsikata, and Akosua Adomako Ampofo’s “Transatlantic Feminisms”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Cheryl R. Rodriguez, Dzodzi Tsikata, and Akosua Adomako Ampofo’s “Transatlantic Feminisms”
    28 Aug 2019
    It is critical for Black feminists to be passionately involved in creating a global community of voices.
  • Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End
    Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik
    Neoliberal Capitalism at a Dead End
    28 Aug 2019
    Donald Trump’s resort to protectionism is recognition of having reached this cul-de-sac. 
  • The Quiet Death of the “White Bernie Bro” Attack
    Carl Beijer
    The Quiet Death of the “White Bernie Bro” Attack
    28 Aug 2019
    A majority of Sanders supporters are non-white, in contrast to all the other top tier candidates, including Kamala Harris.
  • An Axis of Hope, Dignity and Defiance stands up to the Triumvirate of Evil
    Gerald A. Perreira
    An Axis of Hope, Dignity and Defiance stands up to the Triumvirate of Evil
    28 Aug 2019
    The #No More Trump campaign is a defiant appeal to stand with the people of Venezuela, to oppose Trump’s war of attrition against this heroic sovereign nation.
  • Perpetual Debt in the Silicon Savannah
    Kevin P. Donovan and Emma Park
    Perpetual Debt in the Silicon Savannah
    28 Aug 2019
    Kenya’s poor were among the first to benefit from digital lending apps; now they call it slavery.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us