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


  • indpendence day antigua and barbuda
    Alvette Ellorton Jeffers
    A Knowing Deception: The Eve of Antigua and Barbuda Independence
    01 Nov 2018
    People who were born a few months before 1967 and those born in 1981 have never experienced white political rule in Antigua or Barbuda.
  • how stupid do they think we are
    Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    How Thirsty and Stupid Do Stacey Abrams, Lucy McBath, and Most Progressive Democrat Congressional Candidates Think We Are?
    01 Nov 2018
    How Stupid Do Stacey Abrams and Lucy McBath Think We Are?
  • Fascism is Real, But the “Resistance” is Mostly Fake
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Fascism is Real, But the “Resistance” is Mostly Fake
    31 Oct 2018
    Fascism is always a danger under capitalism, with its frequent crises and endemic white supremacy, but the phony “resistance” is only concerned about electing Democrats.
  • Bernie and Barbara: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
    Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
    Bernie and Barbara: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
    31 Oct 2018
    How can Bernie Sanders or Barbara Lee keep any of their social democratic promises while scapegoating Russia?
  • Freedom Rider: American Terror Is Not New
    Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: American Terror Is Not New
    30 Oct 2018
    The casual, endemic and racist violence that characterizes American behavior at home and abroad cannot be laid at the doorstep of the current buffoon in the White House.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us