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


  • For African/Black Working Class and Colonized Peoples, Midterm Elections in the U.S. Offer No Relief from War, Repression and Capitalist Misery
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    For African/Black Working Class and Colonized Peoples, Midterm Elections in the U.S. Offer No Relief from War, Repression and Capitalist Misery
    09 Nov 2022
    The 50 year old neo-liberal agenda explains why political choices in this country provide little change that benefits the masses of people. The recent midterm election results will not bring about an…
  • Why Democrats Don't Win The Way They Should
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Why Democrats Don't Win The Way They Should
    09 Nov 2022
    ​​​​​​​The people prefer the initiatives which democrtatic party leadership claim to support. But their interests are those of the oligarchy and not of the voters. Slim margins of legislative victory…
  • DAKAR MANIFESTO: Africa: from Resistance to Alternatives, 2001
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    DAKAR MANIFESTO: Africa: from Resistance to Alternatives, 2001
    09 Nov 2022
    The 2001 Dakar Manifesto had a simple but unassailable claim: the total and unconditional cancellation of the odious African debt.
  • Africa Confronts the Food, Fertilizer, and Climate Crisis
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Africa Confronts the Food, Fertilizer, and Climate Crisis
    09 Nov 2022
    Food production in Africa is complicated by climate change and the use of fertilizers which increase food production but which also create green house gases and create other environmental harm.
  • A Football Fan's Lord Prayer
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    A Football Fan's Lord Prayer
    09 Nov 2022
                                                           …
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us