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


  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Ben Passmore’s Book, “Black Arms to Hold You Up”
    17 Dec 2025
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Ben Passmore. Passmore is the author of the ongoing comic book series Daygloayhole, as…
  • Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
    Your Anti-Communism Problem—and Mine
    17 Dec 2025
    ‘Anti-Communism Week’ is a legal blueprint for crushing dissent. By labeling social justice activism as terrorism and empowering a new national task force, the state is preparing for the most intense…
  • Jon Jeter
    Kenya’s President Attempts to Close Budget Gap by Selling Citizens’ Health Data to the U.S.
    17 Dec 2025
    Kenya is auctioning its sovereignty to foreign powers. The final item on the block is the genetic data of its own people.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    A People’s Orientation to the Praxis of People(s)-Centered Human Rights: Proposed Approach and Application
    17 Dec 2025
    The West's concept of human rights has always justified imperialism. The People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework offers a radical alternative—a practical tool for oppressed people to define their…
  • Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team
    BAP Backgrounder: U.S. Racist Immigration Policy Toward Haiti Reinforces Imperialism and Weakens Popular Sovereignty
    17 Dec 2025
    U.S. immigration policy is the domestic arm of its foreign policy. The attack on Haitian migrants is a direct consequence of Washington's ongoing war on Haiti's sovereignty, making their defense a…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us