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


  • Fouad Mami
    Book Review: The Black Mediterranean: Bodies, Borders and Citizenship
    10 Nov 2021
  • Roger Harris
    Nicaragua Celebrates Democracy: an Election Day Report
    10 Nov 2021
    The US government and its allied corporate press are using every means to discredit and undermine the Nicaraguan election.
  • Kamau Franklin
    You Can’t Abolish the States Institutions without Abolishing the State that Created Them
    10 Nov 2021
  • Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
    03 Nov 2021
    Black politicians may be openly conservative or pretend leftists but their constituents rarely get what they need.
  • Ajamu Baraka on U.S. Ethiopian Policy
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Ajamu Baraka on U.S. Ethiopian Policy
    03 Nov 2021
    Ledet Muleta is the host of Prime Media’s "Prime Time." She spoke with Ajamu Baraka, National Organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace on October 30.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us