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


  •  Black Is Back Coalition: “Black Power Matters”
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Is Back Coalition: “Black Power Matters”
    16 Nov 2020
    “The struggle has to be more than simply a declaration of our significance as human beings, as in the term ‘Black Lives Matter,’” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Bac
  •  BLM National Leadership Focused on Money and Careers
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    BLM National Leadership Focused on Money and Careers
    16 Nov 2020
    Breya Johnson, co-chair of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) in Washington, DC, said her organization enjoys a “working relationship” with the local Black Lives Matter chapter, but
  • Black Voters: “Contrarian” Men and “Communal” Women
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Black Voters: “Contrarian” Men and “Communal” Women
    12 Nov 2020
    A significant portion of Black males are “contrarians” that take positions at odds with the general Black political consensus – while Black women tend to take the communal approach.
  • Freedom Rider: The Real Resistance Begins
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: The Real Resistance Begins
    11 Nov 2020
    “Kamala Auntie” and Joe from Scranton will do as little as possible so that “nothing will fundamentally change” that would halt endless wars and the Race to the Bottom. 
  • Joe Biden’s Victory is Still a Loss for Humanity
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Joe Biden’s Victory is Still a Loss for Humanity
    11 Nov 2020
    The Biden-Harris administration is good news for corporations, cops, war profiteers and banks too big to fail, but offers nothing to save the people and planet from multiple rises.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us