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


  • A “Communalist” Future?
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    A “Communalist” Future?
    10 Nov 2020
    “Socialism is communalism in the modern form,” said activist and University of Illinois doctoral candidate Shay Akil McLean, citing Kwame Nkrumah.
  •  Biden to Oversee a Kinder, Gentler Repression
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Biden to Oversee a Kinder, Gentler Repression
    10 Nov 2020
    “The Democratic Party has used the language of law and order as much as the Republicans,” said Justin Lang, a doctoral candidate and activist at Brown University.
  • White Supremacy Lite Wins the Prize
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    White Supremacy Lite Wins the Prize
    10 Nov 2020
    The contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was about how best to preserve whiteness, said Dr Johnny Williams, professor of Sociology at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticu
  • Corporate Democrats Want to Run Against Trump-like Republicans Forever
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Corporate Democrats Want to Run Against Trump-like Republicans Forever
    05 Nov 2020
    Whoever wins the Electoral College, race-based politics will continue to allow the corporate rulers to ignore public demands for relief from the Race to the Bottom and endless war.
  • Freedom Rider: Black People Lose in 2020
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Black People Lose in 2020
    05 Nov 2020
    Black people will get nothing from a Joe Biden administration except fiscal austerity and the precarity that comes with it.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us