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


  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio January 26, 2024
    26 Jan 2024
    In this week’s segment we discuss Kenyans protesting their government’s participation in an impending occupation of Haiti, and why Flint, Michigan still has contaminated water and no justice for its…
  • Anthony Monteiro
    Black Agenda Radio
    Black Politics and Pennsylvania in the 2024 Election Cycle - Part 1
    26 Jan 2024
    Dr. Anthony Monteiro is a Duboisian scholar and founder of the Saturday Free School for Philosophy and Black Liberation. He joins us from Philadelphia to talk about Black politics in Pennsylvania and…
  • Communist Party of Kenya
    Black Agenda Radio
    Kenyans Protest Their Government's Participation in the Latest Haiti Occupation
    26 Jan 2024
    Booker Ngesa Omole is the National Vice-Chairperson and National Organizing Secretary of the Communist Party of Kenya, and a member of its National Central Committee. He joins us from Nairobi to…
  • Status Coup Flint
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Flint, Michigan Water Crisis Continues Without Repair or Justice
    26 Jan 2024
    Jordan Chariton is the founder of Status Coup news.
  • Detroit Muslim Protest - Fox 2 News
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Muslim and Arab-American Voters Show Black People How to Exercise Political Power
    24 Jan 2024
    Black voters feel trapped in the duopoly but other groups are giving a master class in political courage. The Abandon Biden campaign shows the way.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us