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


  • The Rot of LA’s Neoliberal Democratic Party Politics
    Quetzal Cáceres
    The Rot of LA’s Neoliberal Democratic Party Politics
    26 Oct 2022
    The recording of racist remarks by Los Angeles politicians is the tip of a neo-liberal iceberg of political corruption, and the Black political class are of no use to their constituents.
  • An Inversion of Truth: the TPLF and its Commitment to Peace
    Dr. Fikrejesus Amahazion
    An Inversion of Truth: the TPLF and its Commitment to Peace
    26 Oct 2022
    The conflict between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF has been marked by a well coordinated disinformation campaign. The effectiveness of that campaign should not forgotten, even as the parties…
  • AFRICOM Watch Bulletin #42
    US Out of Africa Network
    AFRICOM Watch Bulletin #42
    26 Oct 2022
    The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin #42 focuses on the role of AFRICOM in creating coups across the continent and speaks with Ameth Lô, who is a member of the Group for Research and…
  • Nuclear High Noon in Europe
    Scott Ritter
    Nuclear High Noon in Europe
    26 Oct 2022
    Now is the time for Biden to clarify U.S. nuclear doctrine. But he remains silent.
  • West Must Stop Blocking Ukraine-Russia Negotiations
    Vijay Prashad
    West Must Stop Blocking Ukraine-Russia Negotiations
    26 Oct 2022
    The refusal to initiate talks is prolonging a war that is ugly and unnecessary​​​​​​​.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us