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


  • Afro-Colombians Credit UN Durban Declaration in Fight for Land Rights
    Black Communities’ Process in Colombia
    Afro-Colombians Credit UN Durban Declaration in Fight for Land Rights
    12 Sep 2018
    In principle, the government of Colombia recognized Black people’s right to collective ownership of land back in 1993, but these rights have not been fully achieved, in practice.
  • Black Agenda Radio, Week of September 10, 2018
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio, Week of September 10, 2018
    11 Sep 2018
  • Ramona Africa Needs Your Help
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Ramona Africa Needs Your Help
    10 Sep 2018
    Longtime MOVE Family spokesperson Ramona Africa’s health took a turn for the worse, necessitating an emergency appeal for assistance.
  • Chicago Cop Murder Trial Begins
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Chicago Cop Murder Trial Begins
    10 Sep 2018
    “The one truth” in former cop Jason Van Dyke’s not guilty plea in the 2014 killing of Laquan McDonald “is when he says, ‘I was doing as I was trained by the Chicago Police Department,” said author
  • U.S. Corporate Media Lies for a Living
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    U.S. Corporate Media Lies for a Living
    10 Sep 2018
    Facebook has still not given any coherent explanation for briefly removing the page of Venezuelanalysis.com, the daily English-language political analysis publication, said reporter Jeanett
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us