by Raymond Nat Turner
The “Leo” of this poem is the legendary Black longshore union activist Leo Robinson, who died this past January. “The deep, dark chocolate brown, booming / Baritone brother sportin’ black, Lenin-like / Greek Fisherman’s cap / comin’ Coltranish…
A Lil’ Bit ‘Bout Leo’s Legacy…
by Raymond Nat Turner
I.
1984:
“ Hey-hey, ho-ho—apartheid has got to go!”
“ Hey-hey, ho-ho—apartheid has got to go!”
“ Hey-hey, ho-ho—apartheid has got to go!”
“ Hey-hey, ho-ho—apartheid has got to go!”
Crescendo chants arising from
Python-like picket lines, slowly
Circling shadows of South African
Pirate ship, Nedlloyd-Kimberly—
Leper loaded with loot off pearls of
Sweat, vampire apartheid violently
Sucked from Black African hides…
Eleven days sitting, quarantined, its
Booty untouched by Longshoremen’s
Mighty hands, or huge white horses—
I, like Reagan, “do not recall,” who
Called the picket, who organized the
Action, I remember one speaker only:
The deep, dark chocolate brown, booming
Baritone brother sportin’ black, Lenin-like,
Greek Fisherman’s cap, comin’ Coltranish,
Connecting dots, incendiary sharps and flats,
Mesmerizing, clarifying, Frederick Douglass,
Agitator tongues; no halting hemming and hawing,
Bureaucratic, clap-trap; just good old-fashioned
Gut-bucket Blues; no toned-down, detente trade
Unionism; just cut to the chase, cornbread and
Collard greens, proletarian prose; no milquetoast
Mumbo-jumbo; just straight-ahead, swinging
Soapbox, standing on shoulders of 1934 strikers—
Bloody Thursday Martyrs—whose crimson silhouettes
Still streak sidewalks of gentrified San Francisco…
The deep, dark chocolate brown, booming
Baritone brother sportin’ black, Lenin-like,
Greek Fisherman’s cap, comin’ Coltranish—
Natural notes eloquently crossing Black
Baptist preacher, Harry Bridges, Ella Baker,
Geraldine Johnson mojo with Mars-sized,
Working-class coat of arms he wore proudly
Like a big fire engine red badge of honor…
II.
I do recall how right speech, right on speech of
The deep, dark chocolate brown, booming
Baritone brother sportin’ black, Lenin-like,
Greek Fisherman’s cap, comin’ Coltranish,
Stoked my gut and left me standing thirteen
Inches taller as a Black man, working-class
Man, daydreaming of meeting and be mentored
By this Black militant workingman and learning
About labor at his feet, as he surely learned as a
Young, second generation, Longshoreman…
Acting out my dream, I bought a Greek Fisherman’s cap—
It had to be the cap— the history, the analysis in the cap?
I imagined I looked like him, sounded like him and walked
Through my work a day world like he walked through the
Reagan ‘80s, apartheid years of “constructive engagement,”
Capitalist offensive crushing communist and workers movements
III.
2004
Never would I dare dream mentorship dreams
Would come flying standby, two decades later…
Retired Longshoreman, Leo Robinson—as retired
As Big Ben, or Old Faithful— eased his big white
Diesel pickup below the legendary marquee of
Oakland’s old Grand Lake Theater, right on
Time from his refuge in Raymond at the side
Of Ms Johnnie, his soul mate of many moons…
A fresh, young, historic thing calling itself the
Million Workers March, hurtled in to Leo’s orbit
Like Halley’s Comet, coming every seventy-six
Years, and firing up the ol’ working-class warrior
Like a potbelly stove in a Wisconsin winter …
This fresh, young, historic thing calling itself
The Million Workers March came spreading
Demands as contagious and timely as the flu:
“Slash the military budget”
“National living wage”
“Hands off Social Security”
“Stop Dismantling Public Education”
Demands the Dems, the tops, TUBs, AKA
Trade Union Bureaucrats, were dodging like
Dracula dodges crosses, and iron stakes, dodging
Using their same old songs, “Please, Please, No
October Surprise!” and “It’s The Right Thing,
But The Wrong Time, Brothers & Sisters…”
Sweetened with strings for dumping rank-and-file
dollars down dark Democratic Party holes of imperialist
Politician Kerry’s In exchange for February 30th promises, promises...
Instead of taking the T-shirts sage advice and begin:
Mobilizing in our own name
The Million Worker March
The Lincoln Memorial October 17 2004
This fresh, young, historic thing calling itself the
Million Workers March came with demands on the
The Retiree formerly known as Leo Robinson: time,
Like meeting more than four corners, 400 North Point,
Money: the Retiree put up $50,000 of his own
To take the rank and file’s demands to D.C.
Demands on the Retiree’s third eye envisioning
Brown, beige, tan and ivory hands gripping one
Another’s wrists in unity, morphing into a militant,
Moving circle understood by even Kindergartners—
Leo’s logo on navy blue and ash grey T-shirts
Leo laughed at my crazy calls, punctuated by
Embellishments on my joke that Colin Powell,
Or Condi Rice, had contacted me asking that I
Ask Leo to call off the Million Workers March,
And Under-Secretary of Labor in Liberia would
Be Leo’s—post-election!
Crunch, crunch, crunch of my driveway’s gravel
Beneath the pickup’s tires signaled the end of our
Weekly jam session conversation during our ride
From Million Workers March meetings— return tray
Tables to their locked position, seat backs to upright
Positions —prepare to jam for another hour, or more…
Leo’s interests, like U.S. imperialism, spanned the globe,
Breadth of knowledge, youthful curiosity and that wise
Warrior twinkle in his eye when workers were getting it
On good somewhere, separated him from lords of capital,
Separated him from many rank and file revolutionaries
His grit and guts made him different
With his same wise warrior twinkle, seven years later,
He welcomed Occupy as the “new kid on the block”
Recognizing its short-lived two months puts us all
Two months closer to “…the final conflict…”
IV.
We’ve known Leo for a long, long time, those who know, know
Longer than any of us recall, Leo’s lives earlier were spent
Working on railroads spiriting enslaved Africans to freedom
He was one who kept Nat’s secret those 1831 Virginia nights,
He helped at Harper’s Ferry under Captain Brown’s command
Grieving, mourning, maybe we can bring ourselves to beg
Our evil enemy, Monsanto, to clone a hundred thousand
Leo Robinson leaders and ship them to every port, dock
Waterfront in the U.S.;
Splice his genes with Egyptian canal workers, Nigerian, Iraqi and
Venezuelan oil workers, Joe Hill and Mother Jones; and dust Leo’s
DNA in every working-class baby bottle in the U.S?
Monsanto’s Mengele-Frankenstein shit won’t be necessary—
For Leo lives whenever, wherever some worker risks his
Or her life to pull one of their brothers or sisters to safety,
Leo lives in every navy blue or ash T-shirt with brown, beige,
Tan, ivory, hands circled in solidarity,
In every fiery speech during San Francisco strikes and
Port Of Oakland shutdown, in fights for health care, cradle
To grave, in housing, library, post office and school struggles
He lives good fights against fracking and the Occupy Movement…
Leo lives wherever rank and file working-class folks
Dig deep in shallow pockets to weaponize their wallets
Leo lives wherever the “voiceless” are booming in
Concrete stratagems in the currency of courage and clarity
Leo lives in London marches against war on Iran
In Greek anti-austerity marches
Wherever the ranks are rising up against top-down
Corporate unionism, rising ‘gainst lil’ buddies, Jr.
Partners who golf and vacation with the bosses,
Leo’s Shreveport sound is embedded in the bathrooms,
Woodwork and hallways of the hiring hall he’s haunted
Since ‘63— you’ve been warned…
Leo lives with Palestinian children resisting
Apartheid captors, when their jobs should be day-
Dreaming with dolls and chasing down soccer balls,
Leo lives in the Boycott Divestment and Sanction movement
He lives, for there are other leper ships to be left unloaded…
Other fiery, militant speeches to be made,
Other younger men and women to mentor…
“ Hey-hey, ho-ho—apartheid has got to go!”
“ Hey-hey, ho-ho—apartheid has got to go!”
“ Hey-hey, ho-ho—apartheid has got to go!”
“ Hey-hey, ho-ho—apartheid has got to go!”
Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.
Raymond Nat Turner © 2013 All Rights Reserved