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


  • Letters from Our Readers
    Jahan Choudhry, BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers
    03 Feb 2021
    The federal government’s stimulus payments and the role of black police officers were on your minds.
  • BAR Book Forum: Destin Jenkins and Justin Leroy’s “Histories of Racial Capitalism”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Destin Jenkins and Justin Leroy’s “Histories of Racial Capitalism”
    03 Feb 2021
    Racial capitalism is insidious and malleable, and can adapt to nearly any political context.
  • BAR Book Forum: Short Meditations on Christina Sharpe’s "In the Wake"
    Jade Bentil
    BAR Book Forum: Short Meditations on Christina Sharpe’s "In the Wake"
    03 Feb 2021
    To read In the Wake  is to read a love letter to Black people in the everywhere of this world.
  • Building Solidarity 
    Renée Feltz 
    Building Solidarity 
    03 Feb 2021
    Mutual aid tends to expose the reality that people lack what they need, while also creating spaces to meet those needs and build a shared analysis.
  • Book Review: The Prologue, The Prototype, The O.G. Hater
    Todd Steven Burroughs
    Book Review: The Prologue, The Prototype, The O.G. Hater
    03 Feb 2021
    Hubert Henry Harrison was a Black intellectual inferno, a warrior in the cause of a race- and class-based politics.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us