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


  •  Black Masses Not Yet Sold on Defunding the Police
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Masses Not Yet Sold on Defunding the Police
    08 Dec 2020
    Lawrence Grandpre, research director for the Baltimore-based activist organization “Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle,” agrees in principle with the demand for defunding police but d
  •  Reparations Not Yet a “Mainstream” Demand
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Reparations Not Yet a “Mainstream” Demand
    08 Dec 2020
    Reparations “hasn’t reached the point where there’s really a discussion among white politicians” on the merits of the issue, said Zuri Arman Kent-Smith, a writer and activist with
  •  Beware Biden-Harris Neoliberalism
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford , Rebecca Ann Wilcox
    Beware Biden-Harris Neoliberalism
    08 Dec 2020
    Corporate Democrats may be more dangerous than overt racists, because neoliberals “cloak themselves in the rhetoric of ‘racial uplift,’” said Rebecca Ann Wilcox, a community organi
  • BLM Chapters Demand “Accountability” from Trio that Cashed in on the Movement
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    BLM Chapters Demand “Accountability” from Trio that Cashed in on the Movement
    03 Dec 2020
    Ten chapters of the national Black Lives Matter organization are in open revolt against the individuals that have treated the mass movement as their personal vehicle for upward political, prof
  • Ethiopia: Civil War and Nation Building in the 21st Century
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ethiopia: Civil War and Nation Building in the 21st Century
    02 Dec 2020
    In light of the Ethiopian central government’s military clash with regional forces in Tigray province, Ann Garrison speaks with a member of the Oromo people, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us