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

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


  • Nora Barrows-Friedman
    US and Israel Turn “Aid” Centers Into Slaughter Zones
    11 Jun 2025
    Nowhere is safe in Gaza. US-backed Israeli forces are turning aid centers into slaughter zones, targeting starving civilians as they desperately search for food and medicine.
  • Mnar Adley
    “So They’ll Never Have Children”: American Nurse Says Israeli Soldiers Deliberately Shot Boys in the Penis
    11 Jun 2025
    Gaza’s hospitals have become killing fields, and medical workers witness Israeli forces executing unarmed civilians, including children.
  • Roger D. Harris
    Ballots and Bias: How the Press Framed Venezuela’s Regional and Legislative Elections
    11 Jun 2025
    Roger D. Harris analyzes Western media's biased and dishonest coverage of Venezuela's May 25 election and the sweeping Chavismo victory.
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio June 6, 2025
    06 Jun 2025
    In this week’s segment, we hear about the repatriation of skulls taken from the bodies of Black New Orleanians 150 years ago which were then sent to Germany for study in the practice of racist…
  • Michael Langley
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Trump Continues U.S. Interference in Africa
    06 Jun 2025
    Our guest is Abayomi Azikiwe, publisher of Pan African Newswire. He joins us from Detroit to discuss the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, and Trump administration plans for continued U.S.…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us