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


  • The Makings of A Capitalist Dystopia
    Erica Caines
    The Makings of A Capitalist Dystopia
    06 May 2020
    Colonized people, with a horrific historical connection to both science and medicine in this country, must examine science in service of the state.
  • US Prisons Are Vectors of Disease
    Sarah Lustbader
    US Prisons Are Vectors of Disease
    06 May 2020
    The penal system remains a source of diseases that spread among prisoners at rates far exceeding those in the communities from which they came.
  • BAR Book Forum: Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd’s “Break Every Yoke”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd’s “Break Every Yoke”
    06 May 2020
    The necessary political demand is not  that we make better, more humane prisons and jails, but that we abolish prisons and jails altogether.
  • 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 South.
  • Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism 2020, Not Covid-19
    Lauren Smith
    Fighting the Invisible Enemy: Imperial Fascism 2020, Not Covid-19
    06 May 2020
    What could possibly be a more effective way to seal borders, discourage protest, and position the United States into perfect alignment for WWIII?
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us