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


  • USAID Helps Colombia Mine Owners Prey on Blacks and Indigenous
    Victoria McKenzie and Steven Cohen
    USAID Helps Colombia Mine Owners Prey on Blacks and Indigenous
    18 Jul 2018
    “If I say I’m black, I’m black.”
  • Black Agenda Radio, week of July 16, 2018
    Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio, week of July 16, 2018
    17 Jul 2018
    Efia Nwangaza: South Carolina inmates suffer inhuman conditions; Dr.
  • Simmering Rebellion in South Carolina Prisons
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Simmering Rebellion in South Carolina Prisons
    16 Jul 2018
    Despite a corporate media blackout on conditions behind prison walls, inmates find ways to protest the year-long lockdown that was punctuated, in April, by a rebellion that left seven dead, said
  • Monteiro: Trump Most Pro-Peace President Since JFK
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Monteiro: Trump Most Pro-Peace President Since JFK
    16 Jul 2018
    Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in defiance of “the military-industrial complex,” the “deep state” and the corporate media, is more evidence that his is the most “pro-peace presidency” s
  • Haiti Prime Minister and Cabinet Gone, President is Next
    Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
    Haiti Prime Minister and Cabinet Gone, President is Next
    16 Jul 2018
    Massive riots against huge hikes in fuel prices brought down the government of Prime Minister Guy Lafontant.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us