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

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Twenty Years of Black Agenda Report
28 October 2026
Reaching a 20th anniversary for Black Agenda Report is indeed a milestone.
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

  • The Electoral College’s Racist Origins
    Wilfred Codrington III
    The Electoral College’s Racist Origins
    20 Nov 2019
    The nation’s oldest structural racial entitlement program is one of its most consequential: the Electoral College.
  • Letters from Our Readers 
    Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers 
    20 Nov 2019
    This week readers discuss Trump and Syria, Obama’s presidency, and the return of McCarthyism.  We share your letters for “
  • BAR Book Forum: Nicholas Jones’s “Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Nicholas Jones’s “Staging Habla de Negros: Radical Performances of the African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain”
    20 Nov 2019
    “Behaving, talking, and sounding too  black”—will never be separate from larger issues and questions of language and race. 
  • BAR Book Forum: Zachary Casey’s A Pedagogy of “Anticapitalist Antiracism”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Zachary Casey’s A Pedagogy of “Anticapitalist Antiracism”
    20 Nov 2019
    Many antiracist practices in schools are almost immediately coopted, privatized, and rendered ineffective.
  • After Morales Ousted in Coup, the Lithium Question Looms Large in Bolivia
    Vijay Prashad
    After Morales Ousted in Coup, the Lithium Question Looms Large in Bolivia
    20 Nov 2019
    The main target in Bolivia is the nation’s massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us