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

Play, Black Girl, play! (For the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music’s girls)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Mar 2026
🖨️ Print Article
Nina Simone

“The music is the magic through a raging storm …” 

— Abbey Lincoln

Play, Black Girl, play —
Play your piano, now
Come, now, let Sister-
Master show you how

Play, Black Girl, play —
Play your hot saxophone
On shoulders of giants
You don’t stand alone …


© 2026. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

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.

Music
Black children
culture
Oakland
Black Women

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Declaration of Independence (for Donald "Duck" Bailey)
15 July 2026
Drummer men, drummer men, fluid loose-limbed rhythm-masters, were you born free?Did you drum? Did you drum? Did you drum
Photo: Kevin W. Thorbourne
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)
08 September 2021
Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)  
BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
Marisa Fuentes
BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
06 May 2020
This is a book about the ideological construction of black women as “non-human” and exploitable for capitalist profit in the making of the New Sout

More Stories


  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    STATEMENT: Question of Western Sahara, Tinguiri Mansour Omar, 1979
    29 Jul 2026
    “It is perfectly clear that the war of aggression waged by Morocco against the [Western] Saharan people is a purely colonial war.”
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Trash Panda Politics Guides the Black Misleadership Class’s Electoral Dumpster Dive
    29 Jul 2026
    The Congressional Black Caucus electoral strategy has turned the 2026 midterm elections into a dumpster dive for corporate interests and Zionist approval.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    U.S. Support of Israel is Absolutely an Issue of Affordability and Economic Populism…So Why Won’t the Democrats Discuss it as Such?
    29 Jul 2026
    The Democratic Party's continued support for Israel's genocide is not just a moral and political liability but also an economic one which impacts its voters, yet the party refuses to frame it as such.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    hand ‘em another $350 billion to fight Communism?
    29 Jul 2026
    "hand ‘em another $350 billion to fight Communism?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Mark P. Fancher
    The Foolish, Futile Struggle to be Both African and American Will be Televised
    29 Jul 2026
    Corporate media require American identity politics which contradict African authenticity.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us