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


  • No To War, No To NATO North American Perspectives On Ukraine, Russia, And NATO
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    No To War, No To NATO North American Perspectives On Ukraine, Russia, And NATO
    14 Apr 2023
    Margaret Kimberley participated in a webinar hosted by World BEYOND War entitled, No to War, No to NATO: North American Perspectives on Ukraine, Russia, & NATO.
  • Black People Used to Attack Revolutionary Governments
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Black People Used to Attack Revolutionary Governments
    12 Apr 2023
    The question of how Black people fare in a particular country can be a legitimate issue or a ruse used in the furtherance of U.S. regime change plots. 
  • SPEECH: Forge Negro-Labor Unity for Peace and Jobs, Paul Robeson, 1950
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Forge Negro-Labor Unity for Peace and Jobs, Paul Robeson, 1950
    12 Apr 2023
    Paul Robeson’s 1950 speech to the delegates of the National Labor Conference for Negro Rights should remind us that there is no Black liberation struggle without the Black working masses.
  • US Still Imposing Illegal, Unilateral Economic Sanctions on Eritrea
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    US Still Imposing Illegal, Unilateral Economic Sanctions on Eritrea
    12 Apr 2023
    Yemane Ghebreab, advisor to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, explains how US economic sanctions impact the Eritrean people.
  • Blues for Boss Tweet
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Blues for Boss Tweet
    12 Apr 2023
                                                           …
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us