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

Play, Black Girl, play! (For the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music’s girls)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Mar 2026
🖨️ Print Article
Nina Simone

“The music is the magic through a raging storm …” 

— Abbey Lincoln

Play, Black Girl, play —
Play your piano, now
Come, now, let Sister-
Master show you how

Play, Black Girl, play —
Play your hot saxophone
On shoulders of giants
You don’t stand alone …


© 2026. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet, BAR's Poet-in-Residence, and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can vote for his work at GoFundMe and PayPal.

Music
Black children
culture
Oakland
Black Women

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


Related Stories

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Declaration of Independence (for Donald "Duck" Bailey)
15 July 2026
Drummer men, drummer men, fluid loose-limbed rhythm-masters, were you born free?Did you drum? Did you drum? Did you drum
Photo: Kevin W. Thorbourne
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)
08 September 2021
Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)  
BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
Marisa Fuentes
BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
06 May 2020
This is a book about the ideological construction of black women as “non-human” and exploitable for capitalist profit in the making of the New Sout

More Stories


  • El Jones
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Pro-Palestine and Anti-Zionist Speech Censored and Criminalized in Canada
    09 Feb 2024
    El Jones joins us from Canada to discuss the censorship and criminalization of pro-Palestinian and anti-zionist opinions and the challenges she and others faced having their…
  • Katal logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    New York City Council Brings Accountability to NYPD and City Jails
    09 Feb 2024
    We are joined by Melanie Dominguez, lead organizer for the Katal Center for Equity, Health and Justice in New York. She explains the importance of two new important pieces of legislation to the…
  • Joe Biden and Jim Clyburn
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Democrats and the Mediocre Black Misleaders
    07 Feb 2024
    The Democrats offer nothing but fake opposition and the duopoly is splitting. The chosen Black spokespeople are predictably hacks who get paid to spout meaningless drivel.
  • National Planning Conference
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    DECLARATION: A DECLARATION AGAINST IMPERIALISM, Adopted at the National Planning Conference PULL THE COVERS OFF IMPERIALISM PROJECT Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, 1975
    07 Feb 2024
    A 1975 “Declaration Against Imperialism” provides a blueprint for the anti-imperialist Black Studies of the future.
  • Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali and Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi.
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Red Sea Tensions Increase
    07 Feb 2024
    Tensions increase in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us