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


  • Lumumba Assassination Changed Black American Politics
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Lumumba Assassination Changed Black American Politics
    19 Jan 2021
    A panel of academics and activists marked the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first elected prime minister, by agents of the US and Belgium.
  •  US Genocide Against Blacks, Now and in 1951
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    US Genocide Against Blacks, Now and in 1951
    19 Jan 2021
    The Black leftists that presented a petition to the United Nations, 70 years ago, charging the US with genocide against Black Americans, understood that “there is a linked fate between what’s happe
  •  US Imperialism Was in Disarray in 2020
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    US Imperialism Was in Disarray in 2020
    18 Jan 2021
    Black Alliance for Peace national organizer Ajamu Baraka told a year-end conference of the Black Is Back Coalition that “the US settler state is facing the most serious crisis of l
  • White Settler Uprising at the Capitol
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    White Settler Uprising at the Capitol
    14 Jan 2021
    Last week’s assault on the Capitol was essentially a race riot, the product of white racial grievance.
  • Max Blumenthal: Breach of Capitol Security Was Like a Military Operation
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Max Blumenthal: Breach of Capitol Security Was Like a Military Operation
    13 Jan 2021
    The Grayzone founder notes that “such a disproportionate percentage” of the Capitol building attackers were former military, former law enforcement, or current law enforcement that began rappelling
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us