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


  • black bourgeoisie
    Raymond Nat Turner , BAR poet-in-residence
    My Wise Country Cousin On de Blak Boozewahzee
    08 Mar 2018
    Dey cum buck dancin’, ‘bout ebry 2 ta 4 years, Afta dat, is dey ‘bout scarce as Lepercon ears? Is dese spooks ‘bout korrup as de day is long—
  • Lessons, Successes and Failures of the West Virginia Teacher Strike
    Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    Lessons, Successes, Failures of the West Virginia Teachers Strike
    08 Mar 2018
    The 9 day West Virginia school strike was a long time coming, and contains a number of useful, if not new lessons.
  • The Healthcare Bait-and-Switch: From the Clintons to Obama and Back Again
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    The Healthcare Bait-and-Switch: From the Clintons to Obama and Back Again
    08 Mar 2018
    “Cory Booker and others are joining the pro-single payer bandwagon to weaken it from the inside.”
  • A Black Radical Defense of the Second Amendment
    Patrick D. Anderson
    A Black Radical Defense of the Second Amendment
    07 Mar 2018
    “Black communities have differentiated individual firearm ownership from structured self-defense organizations.”
  • Freedom Rider: Black Panther Movie: A Black Face in a High Place
    Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Black Panther Movie: A Black Face in a High Place
    07 Mar 2018
    “Questioners are ‘hoteps’ who are too woke to have fun.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us