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


  • Socialists of Color to the Front
    Eli Day
    Socialists of Color to the Front
    21 Aug 2019
    LeftRoots’ stated purpose: to strategize around “21st-century socialism” and then bring people together to help get there.
  • Black People in America Cannot Be Racist (As Much As They Might Like To Be)
    Rohn Kenyatta
    Black People in America Cannot Be Racist (As Much As They Might Like To Be)
    21 Aug 2019
    Black people in the US may not like white people, for good reason, but lack the power to construct an anti-white racism.  
  • Black Caucus in Thrall, or Fear, of Israel
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Black Caucus in Thrall, or Fear, of Israel
    20 Aug 2019
     “The Israelis may have finally stepped on the third rail of congressional relations, with their joint decision with President Trump to ban Omar and Tlaib.”
  • Black Agenda Radio for Week of August 19, 2019
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of August 19, 2019
    19 Aug 2019
    Black Is Back Coalition Holds National Conference in St. Louis
  • Jim Crow Still Lives in Hollywood
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Jim Crow Still Lives in Hollywood
    19 Aug 2019
    The US film industry is more open to Black themes and participation than in the past, but still has not answered the question of what kind of society it will project, said Maryann Erig
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us