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


  •  Christian Theology Still Useful to Black Movement
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Christian Theology Still Useful to Black Movement
    15 Feb 2021
    A progressive, liberationist theology can be useful to movements against both domestic politic repression and US imperial wars, said Dr Vincent Lloyd, professor of theology and Afr
  •  Anti-Police Activists are Doing Post-Slavery “Wake Work”
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Anti-Police Activists are Doing Post-Slavery “Wake Work”
    15 Feb 2021
    Today’s Black Americans are living in “the wake” of centuries of slavery, said Dr Corey Miles, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Morgan State University.
  • Neoliberals Seek to Establish Their Own Brand of Fascism
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Neoliberals Seek to Establish Their Own Brand of Fascism
    15 Feb 2021
    The US State “is using the so-called insurrection at the Capitol…to impose an ideological conformity that supports and sustains the neoliberal project” at home and abroad, said Ajamu Baraka
  • The Kidnapping Club
    David Rosen
    The Kidnapping Club
    10 Feb 2021
    Northern free Blacks as well as self-liberated former slaves lived in fear of being kidnapped by organized slave catchers in New York City.
  • The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
    Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
    The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
    10 Feb 2021
    The United States is a decadent, declining empire stumbling blindly into an agonizing death spiral.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us