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


  • Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    For the Crisis in Perú to End, Castillo Must be Reinstated
    02 Aug 2023
    The people of Peru continue to demand the end of the coup government and the return of their elected president to office.
  • Umar A Farooq
    Judge Orders Release of Three 'Newburgh Four', Says FBI 'invented conspiracy'
    02 Aug 2023
    The U.S. embarked on a spree of entrapments in the post-9/11 years. Informants were used against gullible and vulnerable people, most of them Black, in order to secure spurious convictions and…
  • Cira Pascual Marquina
    On the Long Path to Reparations: A Conversation with Jesús ‘Chucho’ García
    02 Aug 2023
    Jesús “Chucho” García is an intellectual and activist, and the author of several books, including Afrovenezolanidad e inclusión en el Proceso Bolivariano [Afro-Venezuelanness and Inclusion…
  • Black Agenda Radio July 28, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio July 28, 2023
    28 Jul 2023
    Exposing and opposing U.S. unilateral economic coercive measures and fighting for justice at home, Glen Ford's analysis of the bipartisan war on Venezuela, and closing the Rikers Island jail and…
  • Solidarity with Venezuela, and Getting Justice in the U.S.
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Solidarity with Venezuela, and Getting Justice in the U.S.
    28 Jul 2023
    I was invited to join a delegation in Venezuela with the International People’s Tribunal on U.S.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us