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

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


  • UAW organizers
    Luis Feliz Leon
    Tennessee Volkswagen Workers Vote Union
    24 Apr 2024
    The vote by Volkswagon workers in Tenessee to unionize with the United Auto Workers union is a clear indication that it is possible to organize in the South.
  • Children near destroyed solar panels in Gaza
    Melissa Garriga
    Don’t Let Warmongers Greenwash their Ecocide this Earth Day
    24 Apr 2024
    The destruction of the environment and acceleration of the climate crisis happen silently under the veil of “national security,” despite the fact that the environmental toll of war is the most…
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio April 19, 2024
    19 Apr 2024
    This week we discuss the proliferation of lies about non-citizen voting and U.S. policy toward Niger. First, we talk to Danny Haiphong about U.S. policy toward China and what we can learn from…
  • Danny Haiphong
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    China's Example in the World
    19 Apr 2024
    We are joined by Danny Haiphong to discuss the current delegation to China that Margaret Kimberley has joined, U.S./China relations, and the importance of studying Chinese socialism.
  • Brennan Center
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Non-Citizen Voting: A Non-Existent Problem
    19 Apr 2024
    We're joined by Andrew Garber, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, to discuss the mythology surrounding non-citizen voting.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us