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


  • Recommended Reading from Mumia
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Recommended Reading from Mumia
    31 Jul 2018
    The nation’s best known political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal, has high praise for historian Robin D.G.
  • U.S.-Backed Islamic Jihadists Hide Behind White Helmets
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    U.S.-Backed Islamic Jihadists Hide Behind White Helmets
    31 Jul 2018
    The so-called “White Helmets” have “committed a huge number of crimes against the Syrian people,” said Vanessa Beeleywho, along with Eva Bartlett, exposed the purported humanitaria
  • Trump’s Military Threats in Latin America
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Trump’s Military Threats in Latin America
    31 Jul 2018
    The U.S. has tried to undermine the socialist government in Venezuela ever since it was elected to office in 1998. But Donald Trump threatens to overthrow the left by force.
  • Real Organizing
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Real Organizing is Hard Work
    31 Jul 2018
    The insurgent Ocasio-Cortez campaign upset a New York City Democratic machine congressman by registering 120,000 phone calls to voters.
  • Organizing 201: Ocasio-Cortez Campaign Lays Organizing Benchmark -- 120,000 Phone Calls
    Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    Organizing 201: Ocasio-Cortez Campaign Lays Organizing Benchmark -- 120,000 Phone Calls
    26 Jul 2018
    This is Bruce Dixon from Black Agenda Report with the latest in our series about organizing, which for reference sake we’ll call the 200 series.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us