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
  • bandar togel
  • maincuan
  • neko77
  • omnibus
  • raja slot
  • situs bandar togel
  • slot gacor
  • slot qris
  • slot zeus
  • slot777
  • slot88
  • stm88
  • stm88
  • winsgoal

What Would the Ancestors Say?
Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
14 Nov 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

by Raymond Nat Turner

Baptist, baritone strains:

"I've been to the mountaintop,

But this is not the mountaintop”

 

What Would the Ancestors Say?

by Raymond Nat Turner

 

I know

I know

I know...

Harriet Tubman didn't slide

In and out of the slave south

Nineteen times, $40,000 reward

Hanging over her head like a

Scimitar, or Samurai sword;

Medgar didn't die in his driveway

Like a dog put down in the pound;

Malcolm didn't die on floor

Of the Audubon Ballroom;

King didn't die on chitlin' curcuit

Balcony of the Lorraine Motel;

Fred didn't die in his bed, under

Hooves of Chicago death squads

For tomfoolery---nappy-headed

Foolishness--- Negroz shrinking

To plantation Rip Van Winkles

Hung over on Ol' Massa's

Jim Jones Juice (January '09)

The eve of world revolution...

 

I know

I know

I know...

She would be leveling her pistol,

Leaving at least a half dozen dead

Negroz, after commanding "Forward,

Or die!"

 

I know

I know

I know...

He would be tongue-lashing

Negroz with his Harlem-tinged

Tough love: "You've been had,

You've been took, you've been

Hoodwinked, you've been bamboozled!"

 

I know

I know

I know...

He would be intoning in African,

Baptist, baritone strains:

"I've been to the mountaintop,

But this is not the mountaintop,

No, and I'm concerned that if you

Continue traversing this treacherous

Trail you're on, during the dark and

Difficult days ahead, not only will you

Not get to the mountaintop, you will

Find yourselves descending to depths

So low that it will require you taking an

Elevator up eighty-six floors; climbing

Forty flights of stairs to a sub cellar of

Sin, standing on a step ladder on your

Tiptoes, just to suck the Devil's dick---

 

No, I'm afraid I can't be your drum

Major on this one---

The drones must be stopped,

The satanic wars ceased, and

The barbaric killing of other peoples'

Babies ended---forever..."

Raymond Nat Turner (c) 2012 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


  • BAR Book Forum: Edward Onaci’s “Free the Land”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Edward Onaci’s “Free the Land”
    01 Jul 2020
    The desire for US citizenship was never the sole consideration of African and African-descended people.
  • My Student Comes Home from Prison
    Chris Hedges
    My Student Comes Home from Prison
    01 Jul 2020
    In 1990, Lawrence Bell was 14, orphaned and living in an abandoned house when three Camden cops pressured him to sign a confession of murder.
  • Interrogating Systemic Racism and the White Academic Field
    Nelson Maldonado-Torres 
    Interrogating Systemic Racism and the White Academic Field
    01 Jul 2020
    The US university is marked by the dominance of intellectual white liberalism in tension and complicity with conservative nationalism and neoliberalism.
  • A Southern Vanguard, The Lost History of Communism Below the Mason-Dixon Line
    Robert Greene II 
    A Southern Vanguard, The Lost History of Communism Below the Mason-Dixon Line
    01 Jul 2020
    Alabama Communists helped lay the foundation for the organized civil rights movement that emerged in the late 1940s and early ’50s.
  • The Struggle to Abolish the Police is Not New
    Garrett Felber
    The Struggle to Abolish the Police is Not New
    01 Jul 2020
    Prison and police abolition were key to the thinking of many midcentury civil rights activists.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us