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


  • Stephen Millies
    Don’t Let Them Kill Cilia Flores!
    14 Oct 2026
    While Trump pardoned an actual drug lord president, he keeps a kidnapped Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, First Combatant Celia Flores, in a mold-infested Brooklyn jail on false…
  • Becca Renk Foster , John Perry
    “Tortured” or “torturer”? - Corporate media fail to ask the question
    14 Oct 2026
    Jeffrey Isaac Jarquin was deported from the U.S. by ICE and upon arrival in Managua was sent to prison by Nicaraguan authorities. Corporate media has decried the detention of a “torture victim” and “…
  • BAR Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Report October 9, 2026
    09 Oct 2026
    In this week’s segment, we discuss student protests by Black and brown youth in France against austerity measures and race-based inequality in the education system. But we begin with a discussion of…
  • Lula and Bolsonaro
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Lula vs. Bolsonaro in Brazil's Presidential Election
    09 Oct 2026
    Brazil's incumbent president Lula da Silva finished second behind Flavio Bolsonaro in the first round of the presidential election. Because neither man received at least 51% of the vote, a run-off…
  • Protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    French Youth Rise Up Against Racism, Austerity, and the Rising Right Wing
    09 Oct 2026
    Students in France are engaging in mass protests. Hundreds of them have been arrested and injured by police, and many schools are closed. Annick Metefia joins us from Paris. She is a member of the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us