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


  • BAR Book Forum: Joy White’s “Terraformed”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Joy White’s “Terraformed”
    23 Sep 2020
    This book locates the struggles, wins and losses of young Black lives in a structural, institutional and historical context.
  • BAR Book Forum: Minna Salami’s Book, “Sensuous Knowledge”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Minna Salami’s Book, “Sensuous Knowledge”
    23 Sep 2020
    Sensuous Knowledge is an approach to knowledge production that can help you see reality clearly, wholly, with all your faculties. 
  • Expanding Monstrous US Drone War to Kenya is Bi-Partisan Madness
    Netfa Freeman
    Expanding Monstrous US Drone War to Kenya is Bi-Partisan Madness
    23 Sep 2020
    The absence of a domestic backlash against US Africa policy is testament to the blind spots of our movement.
  • Whitewashing the Destruction of Libya: Douglas Murray’s Libya Whitewash
    Nu’man Abd al-Wahid
    Whitewashing the Destruction of Libya: Douglas Murray’s Libya Whitewash
    23 Sep 2020
    The British, both left and right, simply do not want to acknowledge the role their government played in destroying Libya and the attendant migration crises.
  • White Women Were Avid Slaveowners
    Parul Sehgal
    White Women Were Avid Slaveowners
    23 Sep 2020
    The violence of slave-owning women especially could go unchecked, particularly when the victims were black children.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us