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


  • Freedom Rider: The Central Park Five and the Limits of Suffering
    Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The Central Park Five and the Limits of Suffering
    12 Jun 2019
    Corporate media green-light films that ratchet up an emotional response without motivating anyone to action.
  • The Torture of Assange Is Public Policy in U.S. Prisons
    Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
    The Torture of Assange Is Public Policy in U.S. Prisons
    12 Jun 2019
    The psychological torture imposed on Julian Assange is not unlike the decades of torture imposed upon  Black political prisoners in the US. 
  • UN Rapporteur on Torture Says Assange Could Die in Prison
    Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
    UN Rapporteur on Torture Says Assange Could Die in Prison
    12 Jun 2019
    Julian Assange has been moved to Belmarsh Prison hospital and the UN Rapporteur on Torture has warned that he could die there. 
  • Letters from Our Readers 
    Jahan Chowdhry, BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers 
    12 Jun 2019
    This week BAR readers discussed the Central Park Five, US support for jihadism, and Black Lives Matter.  Strong comments arrived for “
  • Some Critics Argue that the Internal Colony Theory is Outdated. Here’s Why They’re Wrong
    Patrick D. Anderson
    Some Critics Argue that the Internal Colony Theory is Outdated. Here’s Why They’re Wrong
    12 Jun 2019
    The internal neocolonialism thesis is not “race-centric” but anti-colonial, and explains Black elite behavior. 
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us