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

 For Brother Bruce
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
03 Jul 2019
🖨️ Print Article
 For Brother Bruce
 For Brother Bruce

Here’s the FOIA requested,
Redacted part of the story they never tell
You. 

Baby Bruce was wandering
the Midwest with Dorothy and Toto—
Before they picked up the Tinman in 
Pittsburgh, the Scarecrow on Staten Island,
the Cowardly Lion in Los Angeles
Baby Bruce had a baby brain, a huge
heart and fully formed courage that
would be schooled and steeled at the 
point of production—
Molding a straight-up soldier on
The Long March; A rank-in-file, 
meet ‘em where they’re at,
shoe leather, serve the people, 
door-to-door knocking, 
troublemaking organizer;
Chitown stubborn kinda fella— 
stubborn as a Georgia mule—
Refusing to slip, on Iceberg Slim
posing as community organizer…

He had huge heart, big brain and 
courage. Barrel of his pen blazing—
welcoming me from the wilderness,
Cali isolation, to fight side by side
Against the masked man— The
Drone Ranger; when icons and 
Legends were losing their minds

and Slutty Professors dangled
on the dick of Deporter-in-Chief!

When Bruce’s 404 popped up on my phone
It was business—but personal—laughing, joking, 
we’d cover the waterfront with lunch bucket language…
I pray The Wizard put a Bruce Dixon Organizer’s App
 on my phone countering some spyware…

© 2019. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Bruce Dixon

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 Courage to Write the Truth: Where and When Bruce Dixon Enters History
Dr. Matthew Quest
The Courage to Write the Truth: Where and When Bruce Dixon Enters History
21 August 2019
Bruce entered history as the most distinguished critic of the Black political class during the Age of Obama.

More Stories


  • Freedom Rider: COVID-19 and Black Workers
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: COVID-19 and Black Workers
    01 Apr 2020
    The gross inequalities and declining standards of life in the US are magnified by the corona crisis, pushing already marginalized populations to the brink.
  • China and Cuba’s Medical Internationalism is a Shining Example of Global Solidarity
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    China and Cuba’s Medical Internationalism is a Shining Example of Global Solidarity
    01 Apr 2020
    China sends medical equipment abroad, Cuba sends doctors and cutting-edge drugs, but the US fails to provide its people, doctors and nurses with basic tools and protection.
  • Pentagon Orders All Installations to Stop Reporting COVID-19 Infections and Deaths 
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Pentagon Orders All Installations to Stop Reporting COVID-19 Infections and Deaths 
    01 Apr 2020
    This is going to become a problem for the Pentagon, whether it's on Navy destroyers, submarines, and aircraft carriers or the 800+ bases.
  • Flattening the curve on Capitalism?
    BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
    Flattening the curve on Capitalism?
    01 Apr 2020
    CEO from Boeing to CEO from Wells Fargo,  heard by the flies on walls at Mar-a-Lago: “It’s their health or our economy— we get to choose…”
  • COVID-19: The Capitalist Emperor Has no Clothes
    Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor
    COVID-19: The Capitalist Emperor Has no Clothes
    01 Apr 2020
    The systemic failure of the capitalist order triggered by the coronavirus has reinforced the growing awareness that extreme wealth inequality is a fundamental characteristic of the system.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us