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

Redouble our efforts…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
22 Apr 2014
🖨️ Print Article

by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

When our giants go down, our spines must straighten up and create new beginnings.

 

Redouble our efforts…

(For Robert Knight, Chokwe, Amiri,

And others known and less known…)

by BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner

 

When our Knights are captured 

Or fall on battlefields, as they 

Surely must, and we lose their

Brilliant lights and we are

Scrambling to pry pens,

Swords, spears, bread and

Roses from stainless steel 

Grips of their icy hands—

Scrambling to hoist our 

Fallen banners, temporarily

Mired in mud and blood, 

Even higher, scrambling 

To staunch rivulets of

Brine from our sweetly

Shattered hearts…

 

When our giants — in 

All sizes — go down, 

Our spines straighten

Honoring, immortalizing,

Their legends, burnished 

Names, by divvying up

Cosmic, ancient, work

Creating them in the 

Beginning…

 

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at upsurgejazz.com.

 

Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved

 

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • CEPR
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Why Black Wealth Took a Nosedive
    23 Oct 2026
    The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) recently reported on Federal Reserve data indicating that Black people in the U.S. have lost 25% of their wealth between 2022 and 2025. Whites,…
  • france
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    French Protests Against Neoliberal Austerity, Colonialism, and White Supremacy
    23 Oct 2026
    Bouna Mbaye is an activist, writer, and a member of the Pan-African League-Umoja, the Pan-African Brigade for Palestine, and the US Out of Africa Network. He joins us from Paris to discuss the…
  • Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    Trayvon and White Madness
    21 Oct 2026
    As Black Agenda Report is poised to celebrate its 20th anniversary, we reprint Glen Ford's commentary on the killing of Trayvon Martin and the impunity provided to his killer in a criminal justice…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Democratic Party Still Hates the Left
    21 Oct 2026
    The Democratic Party is terrified of even small liberal reforms and will not abide left leaning democrats thwarting their plans for austerity and neoliberal orthodoxy.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Calypso as Comment, Gordon Rohlehr, 1979
    21 Oct 2026
    “So the calypso ceases to be entertainment on a trivial level and becomes a vehicle whereby the society is going back and searching for its soul.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us