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

Summer of Soul/Summer of Struggle…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
25 Aug 2021
🖨️ Print Article
Summer of Soul/Summer of Struggle…
Summer of Soul/Summer of Struggle…

BAR's poet in residence pays tribute to fallen Black Panther Party comrades.

Chalk silhouettes, bullet-violated bodies of

Bunchy and John—UCLA, cold Campbell Hall

floor—Punctuated January ’69…like a loud

Prelude to December’s death squad symphonies:

Silencing Chicago songs of spring; Meeting riffs of

Resistance during L. A.’s 5 hour breech birth of SWAT

Sing their names! Sing their names! Names

floating from wings of history’s stage—Names

Never too far from tips, riffs, runs of flattened

tongues of our true singers, shouters, belters…

Magic, Sly, High Priestess African rainbows

in everyday people gospel-blues-soul-funk-jazz—

in Great Black Music—Mississippi to South Africa…

Enveloping, wrapping world peoples in its broad,

Black, sweltering sonic arms—Pre-Bitch-ho/Hope-change

desert storm of white noise; pre-half century rest…

Sing their names! Sing their names! Names

floating from wings of history’s stage—Names

Never too far from tips, riffs, runs of flattened

tongues of our true singers, shouters, belters…

Sing their names! Sing ‘bout blended voices

Voted from ‘office’ with hot lead ballots—

Cast in driveway, ballroom, bedroom, motel,

Polling places! The M’s alone, loop like some

hypnotic drum machine’s licks—repeatedly

pounding trauma into wide Eyes On The Prize…

Sing their names!Sing them as rhythmic

responses to ancient calls of our organic

Leaders.

Sing them as legato ghost note tributes to

Martyrs waking our resistance with

counter melody messages to the Grassroots…

Sing their names! Sing their names! Names

floating from wings of history’s stage—Names

Never too far from tips, riffs, runs of flattened

tongues of our true singers, shouters, belters…

Names forecasting 2020 Summers of Rainbow

Resistance…

© 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is an accomplished poet and performing artist, and an official of the National Writers Union. Find more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com.

Black Panther Party

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


Related Stories

Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Southern Panther Malik Rahim
14 May 2025
In “A Southern Panther,” movement elder Malik Rahim talks about his lifetime of battling ra
NY Panther 21
Dhoruba bin-Wahad
55th Anniversary of the NY Panther 21 Case
03 April 2024
The trial of the New York Panther 21 was the moment in the Black liberation movement that ushered in an era of intensified state repressio
Eddie Conway Tribute
Mali Collins
Eddie Conway Tribute
15 March 2023
The late Eddie Conway was a young member of the Black Panther Party who was framed for the killing of a police officer and spent more
BAR Book Forum: Interview with Akinyele Umoja
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Interview with Akinyele Umoja
08 June 2022
As part of the Black Agenda Report Book Forum, we interview scholars about a recent article they’ve written for either an academic journal or p
911 Is a Joke: Preferring to Shoot Unarmed Blacks, Cops Find It Ain't No Fun When the Rabbit Has the Gun
Jon Jeter
911 Is a Joke: Preferring to Shoot Unarmed Blacks, Cops Find It Ain't No Fun When the Rabbit Has the Gun
01 June 2022
Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) began after an LAPD raid on the Black Panthers in 1969 and spread throughout the country.
Bye, Big Sis
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Bye, Big Sis
11 May 2022
                                         
EDITORIAL: Poor Women: Pawns in the Abortion Controversy, The Black Panther, 1980
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
EDITORIAL: Poor Women: Pawns in the Abortion Controversy, The Black Panther, 1980
07 December 2021
A 1980 editorial in The Black Panther argues that the war against abortion is a bi-partisan war against poor women.
Lessons from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party
Ahjamu Umi
Lessons from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party
16 June 2021
Just like we glorified the black leather jackets, black berets, and guns in the 60s, we still romanticize African people with guns and mouths that
The Black Panther Party Has Never Been More Popular, but Actual Black Panthers Have Been Forgotten
Santi Elijah Holley
The Black Panther Party Has Never Been More Popular, but Actual Black Panthers Have Been Forgotten
06 May 2021
The name Black Panther is a box-office draw, but can cinematic sympathy be extended to the Panthers who are still living and breathing in this
Newly Obtained FBI Files Shed New Light on the Murder of Fred Hampton
Aaron J. Leonard and Conor A. Gallagher 
Newly Obtained FBI Files Shed New Light on the Murder of Fred Hampton
10 March 2021
That all this time later we are still learning new information about Hampton’s killing is testament to the sheer volume of the effort aimed at this

More Stories


  • Elias Isquith
    White supremacy and slavery: Gerald Horne on the real story of American independence
    01 Jul 2026
    It's time to revisit America's heroic creation myth and what really happened in 1776, author-historian tells Salon.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Slaveholders Who Signed the Declaration of Independence: Washington, Jefferson, and the People they Owned
    01 Jul 2026
    Black Agenda Report editors Margaret Kimberley and Ann Garrison discuss the personal and institutional hypocrisy that allowed those who said, "All men are created equal," to be slaveholders.
  • Carlos Martinez
    Cuba’s economic reforms and the prospects for socialist renewal
    01 Jul 2026
    The following article by Carlos Martinez, co-editor of Friends of Socialist China and author of The East Is Still Red, examines the most far-reaching changes to Cuba’s economic model in more than 60…
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Report June 26, 2026
    26 Jun 2026
    In this week’s segment, we discuss the status of talks between Iran and the U.S.
  • Colombia elections
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Colombia, FIFA, the World Cup and the Materiality of White Supremacy in the Age of Globalization
    26 Jun 2026
    Ajamu Baraka is a Black Agenda Report contributing editor and Director of the North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Right
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us