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


  •  BAR Book Forum: Allan E.S. Lumba’s Book, “Monetary Authorities”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Allan E.S. Lumba’s Book, “Monetary Authorities”
    10 May 2023
    This week’s featured author is Allan E.S. Lumba.
  • Human Rights Watch and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Confirm What Masses Have Condemned: Peruvian State Carried Out Extrajudicial Killings and Other Abuses
    Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Human Rights Watch and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Confirm What Masses Have Condemned: Peruvian State Carried Out Extrajudicial Killings and Other Abuses
    10 May 2023
    Human Rights Watch and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirm what was already clear to BAR's reporter and others on the ground in Peru. The coup government has…
  • Exclusive: How Haiti’s Assassination Plot Unraveled, Minute by Minute and Text by Text
    David Adams , Jake Johnston
    Exclusive: How Haiti’s Assassination Plot Unraveled, Minute by Minute and Text by Text
    10 May 2023
    Messages and texts from those suspected of the plot to assassinate Haitian president Jovenel Moise make for fascinating reading. One of them communicated with Ariel Henry, who was named Prime…
  • ‘Anti-Black’ Claim Raised About Cuba As Solidarity Activists Stopped at U.S. Border & Black Socialists Arraigned in United States for Collaborating with Russia
    Julie Varughese
    ‘Anti-Black’ Claim Raised About Cuba As Solidarity Activists Stopped at U.S. Border & Black Socialists Arraigned in United States for Collaborating with Russia
    10 May 2023
    Claims of anti-Black racism in revolutionary countries should be treated with great skepticism. This trope is used as a tool to target countries for regime change plots and other attacks. While in…
  • Witnessing Afro Cubans and Social Change
    Austin Cole
    Witnessing Afro Cubans and Social Change
    10 May 2023
    There cannot be any discussion of Cuban politics that does not include perspectives from the African descended population. There is much to learn from people who are living in a revolutionary process…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us