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


  •  Democrats Remove Green Party from North Carolina Ballot
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Democrats Remove Green Party from North Carolina Ballot
    08 Jul 2022
    The Democratic Party succeeded in using voter intimidation and political pressure to remove the Green Party from ballot access in North Carolina. Tony Ndege is an organizer and co-Chair of the North…
  • Protesting for Jayland Walker
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Protesting for Jayland Walker
    06 Jul 2022
    The number of bullets used to kill Jayland Walker have sparked an outcry, but police kill one Black person every day in this country. If systemic change is not the demand all protest is for…
  • SPEECH: The Black Revolution is Part of World-wide Struggle, Malcolm X, 1964
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: The Black Revolution is Part of World-wide Struggle, Malcolm X, 1964
    06 Jul 2022
    Malcolm X reminds us of the deceit of liberals, the power of international thinking, and the coming of Black revolution.
  • Taiwan and the Making of an “Asian” NATO
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Taiwan and the Making of an “Asian” NATO
    06 Jul 2022
    The United States wants to turn Taiwan into an Asian Ukraine. The goal is to use it as a weapon against a China, a country that has been declared an adversary.
  • Slaveholders Who Signed the Declaration of Independence: Washington, Jefferson, and the People they Owned
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Slaveholders Who Signed the Declaration of Independence: Washington, Jefferson, and the People they Owned
    06 Jul 2022
    Black Agenda Report editors Margaret Kimberley and Ann Garrison discuss the personal and institutional hypocrisy which allowed those who said, "All men are created to equal," to be slaveholders.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us