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 New Cold War on China Is Against the Interests of Humanity
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    A New Cold War on China Is Against the Interests of Humanity
    22 Jul 2020
    Ajamu Baraka and Margaret Kimberley join with the No to the New Cold War coalition to demand Donald Trump back off his confrontational stance with China.
  • What Are Trump and His Goons Up To?
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    What Are Trump and His Goons Up To?
    22 Jul 2020
    That’s the question I asked policing and privacy expert Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director of Media Alliance, and coordinator of Oakland Privacy.
  • Third Reich Quick Strike: low Barr-Boss Tweet 
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Third Reich Quick Strike: low Barr-Boss Tweet 
    22 Jul 2020
    I remember when they used to play Round ‘em up—bang-bang, baby; I remember when they used to chase Schoolboys—beat ‘em up, lock ‘em up I remember Geronimo’s wife, Sandra Pratt, aka Red
  • Essays on The Cult of White Feminism: Dial M for Bernie
    Earl Hazell
    Essays on The Cult of White Feminism: Dial M for Bernie
    22 Jul 2020
    Bernie exposed the white supremacist and imperialist contradictions of white feminism to the disinfecting sunlight of reason.
  • Poultry and Prisons: Toward a General Strike for Abolition
    Carrie Freshour
    Poultry and Prisons: Toward a General Strike for Abolition
    22 Jul 2020
    Poultry-processing plants are critical sites of racial capitalist accumulation produced through an unequal valuation of people and places.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us