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


  • ESSAY: Labor, Neoliberalism, and the 2004 Coup in Haiti, Jeb Sprague, 2008
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Labor, Neoliberalism, and the 2004 Coup in Haiti, Jeb Sprague, 2008
    07 Dec 2022
    What role did labor play in the 2004 coup in Haiti? A 2008 essay illuminates the convergence of labor politics, neoliberal policy, and imperial malfeasance.
  • Unbelievable
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Unbelievable
    07 Dec 2022
    Unbelievable
  • The Crisis of Western Imperialism and the Imperative of War and Repression
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    The Crisis of Western Imperialism and the Imperative of War and Repression
    07 Dec 2022
    The world as we know it must change. Humanity cannot survive under imperialist and capitalist structures.
  •  BAR Book Forum: Stacy J. Lettman’s Book, “The Slave Sublime”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Stacy J. Lettman’s Book, “The Slave Sublime”
    07 Dec 2022
    This week’s featured author is Stacy J. Lettman. Lettman is an Assistant Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University. Her book is The Slave Sublime The Language of Violence in Caribbean…
  •  BAR Book Forum: Jean-Thomas Tremblay’s Book, “Breathing Aesthetics”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Jean-Thomas Tremblay’s Book, “Breathing Aesthetics”
    07 Dec 2022
    This week’s featured author is Jean-Thomas Tremblay. Tremblay is Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of Humanities at York University. Their book is Breathing Aesthetics.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us