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


  • Notes from Eritrea
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Notes from Eritrea
    04 May 2022
    BAR contributor Ann Garrison continues her reporting from the Horn of Africa. She is now in Eritrea.
  • U.S. Corporate Media Watch: An Interview with Richard Medhurst
    Roberto Sirvent, Richard Medhurst
    U.S. Corporate Media Watch: An Interview with Richard Medhurst
    04 May 2022
    In this feature, we interview Syrian-born journalist Richard Medhurst about state propaganda, the mainstream media, and U.S. imperialism.
  • BAR Book Forum: Interview with Adam Bledsoe and Willie Wright
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Interview with Adam Bledsoe and Willie Wright
    04 May 2022
    This week’s featured scholars are Adam Bledsoe and Willie Wright. Bledsoe is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota. Wright is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida.…
  • The Sports World’s Selective Moral Indignation
    Gus Griffin
    The Sports World’s Selective Moral Indignation
    03 May 2022
    Russian athletes have been banned from the Boston Marathon, Wimbledon tennis championships, and perhaps the next Olympic games. These punishments were not meted out to citizens of the U.S. and allied…
  • Venezuela Continues To Be the Model for True Democracy in the Americas
    Jacqueline Luqman
    Venezuela Continues To Be the Model for True Democracy in the Americas
    03 May 2022
    The 2002 attempted coup against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was undone because of popular action. The Bolivarian Republic recently held an international summit commemorating events which…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us