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


  • “Race Norming” and Medical Apartheid
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    “Race Norming” and Health Care Jim Crow
    29 Sep 2021
    Health care disparities are inevitable when notions of white superiority are guiding principles in every sector of society.
  • U.S. Congressional Support for More War spending and AUKUS Anti-China Pact Exposes Cynicism of Biden’s UN Speech Calling for More Diplomacy
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    U.S. Congressional Support for More War spending and AUKUS Anti-China Pact Exposes Cynicism of Biden’s UN Speech Calling for More Diplomacy
    29 Sep 2021
    Joe Biden spoke of peace and diplomacy at the U.N. but support for defense spending and war making are bipartisan imperatives that prevent the people's needs from being met.
  • ESSAY: The War Aims of World War I and World War II and Their Relations to the Darker Peoples of the World,  Merze Tate, 1943
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The War Aims of World War I and World War II and Their Relations to the Darker Peoples of the World, Merze Tate, 1943
    29 Sep 2021
    A 1943 Merze Tate essay provides a trenchant critique of the false hope of peace offered by the white west to “the darker peoples” of the world.
  • Raytheon’s Raven caws “War—Evermore!” Not wind beneath Negroz wings…
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Raytheon’s Raven caws “War—Evermore!” Not wind beneath Negroz wings…
    29 Sep 2021
  • Ethiopian Mystery: The Case of the 428 Disappearing Food Aid Trucks
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ethiopian Mystery: The Case of the 428 Disappearing Food Aid Trucks
    29 Sep 2021
    For nearly a year, warmonger and USAID administrator Samantha Power has been shrieking about famine in Ethiopia's Tigray, and demanding the humanitarian corridor that 428 massive food aid
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us