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


  • Walter Rodney’s Death Records to be Amended and Children’s Books Placed in Schools
    Denis Chabrol
     Walter Rodney’s Death Records to be Amended and Children’s Books Placed in Schools
    16 Jun 2021
    The martyred revolutionary’s assassination has finally been acknowledged by the Guyana state, and his works will become part of the educational curriculum. 
  • BAR Book Forum: Jerrilyn McGregory’s “One Grand Noise”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Jerrilyn McGregory’s “One Grand Noise”
    16 Jun 2021
    To break cyclical, systemic oppression requires a functionality that rejects reified notions of governance, global capitalism, and accommodation.
  • BAR Book Forum: Cisco Bradley’s “Universal Tonality”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Cisco Bradley’s “Universal Tonality”
    16 Jun 2021
    Jazzman William Parker’s work is a bold art of resistance to capitalism, colonialism, racism, and the runaway train that is our present-day America.
  • NYT’s Africa: A Place of Failure and No Leadership
    Siyanda Mohutsiwa
    NYT’s Africa: A Place of Failure and No Leadership
    16 Jun 2021
    Ruth Maclean’s article, like countless others in Western media, took place in an Africa without leaders, without public health officials or activists.
  • The Responsibilities of Caribbean Intellectuals
    Aaron Kamugisha  
    The Responsibilities of Caribbean Intellectuals
    16 Jun 2021
    The tradition of Caribbean intelligentsia insists on a grounding with the massive against the elites.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us