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 Rise of the Private Police
    Amelia Pollard
    The Rise of the Private Police
    10 Mar 2021
    South Africa is leading the way into the horror of policing for profit. 
  • The Attack That Never Happened: Cuba and the US Fantasy of Sonic Attacks
    Rosa Miriam Elizalde
    The Attack That Never Happened: Cuba and the US Fantasy of Sonic Attacks
    10 Mar 2021
    Renowned Cuban journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde discusses the long-lasting impact of the US allegation that “sonic attacks” were carried out against US embassy staff.
  • The Black Struggle and the Future of Humankind
    Philippe Gendrault
    The Black Struggle and the Future of Humankind
    10 Mar 2021
    Exploited within the belly of the beast, the struggle for Black emancipation cannot avoid its global ramifications when it comes to ending the hegemon’s domestic violence and global destructiveness
  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 8, 2021
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 8, 2021
    09 Mar 2021
    Free All Political, Elderly and Covid-Infected Prisoners, Say Mumia Supporters
  •  US is Enemy of Haitian Democracy
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    US is Enemy of Haitian Democracy
    09 Mar 2021
    “The US is responsible for the complete destabilization of Haitian democracy and the complete loss of Haitian sovereignty,” said Dr Jemima Pierre, an anthropologist in the African
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us