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


  • Protesting for Jayland Walker
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Protesting for Jayland Walker
    06 Jul 2022
    The number of bullets used to kill Jayland Walker have sparked an outcry, but police kill one Black person every day in this country. If systemic change is not the demand all protest is for…
  • SPEECH: The Black Revolution is Part of World-wide Struggle, Malcolm X, 1964
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: The Black Revolution is Part of World-wide Struggle, Malcolm X, 1964
    06 Jul 2022
    Malcolm X reminds us of the deceit of liberals, the power of international thinking, and the coming of Black revolution.
  • Taiwan and the Making of an “Asian” NATO
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Taiwan and the Making of an “Asian” NATO
    06 Jul 2022
    The United States wants to turn Taiwan into an Asian Ukraine. The goal is to use it as a weapon against a China, a country that has been declared an adversary.
  • Slaveholders Who Signed the Declaration of Independence: Washington, Jefferson, and the People they Owned
    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
    06 Jul 2022
    Black Agenda Report editors Margaret Kimberley and Ann Garrison discuss the personal and institutional hypocrisy which allowed those who said, "All men are created to equal," to be slaveholders.
  • Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Massacre of African Migrants by U.S.- Backed Moroccan Armed Forces
    Black Alliance For Peace
    Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Massacre of African Migrants by U.S.- Backed Moroccan Armed Forces
    06 Jul 2022
    The U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, is no friend of Africans. The recent killing of migrants by AFRICOM trained Moroccan forces proves that the U.S. state presence on the continent is of no benefit to…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us