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

Ruchell Magee Must Be Set Free!
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
26 Jul 2023
🖨️ Print Article

Ruchell Magee Must Be Set Free! 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

If 1619 started it—ebony/ivory—

teenage attraction 

Jim Crow’s watch—upped the ante!

Deep South apartheid stench/Emmett

Till terror/Pitched battles on blood rivers…

What could the boy be but Black rapist?

 

Bullwhip warped minds of white men— 

What could this be but ‘Master’s’

midnight visits to slave quarters—Prying

apart Black thighs—overruling cries, pleas,  

Love?

What could the boy be but Black rapist?

 

Crackers coveted Choctaw land—

Black soil mattered…

More than visiting terror—or

Another muddy, mutilated body in Mississippi

or another Dixie river. Crackers coveting

Choctaw land put the boy in his plantation place… 

 

Crackers coveting Choctaw land gifted 8 Angola yrs,

Under horseback-ridin, shot-gun-totin, tobacco-spittin

gaze; Under King Cotton’s rule; Gifted target embroidered

Jacket— Gifted exile to: City of Angels/ruled by devils…

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

His numbers are no longer:

“6-3-4-5-7-8-9”

no longer:

“Beechwood 4-5-7-8-9” 

far too long his numbers been:

#A92051 #T115— 83—Caged since ’63—

60 yrs of vengeance-driven torture!

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

Visualize him home—sun splashing light comic 

book bright colors of L.A. murals!

Visualize him home, pulling three-deep lines snaked 

‘round crooked corners…holding youth centers, senior

centers, libraries, bookstores captive.

Visualize him home—space, light, air, freedom to stretch 

out in sensory overload!

 

Elder, brother, comrade…Been gone 

too long…

Wanted in the Black Community—

Watts writ large!

 

No mo’ Golden State gulag/COVID 

concentration camp—

No mo’ Octogenarian barrister behind bars

law book-lifting—iron-pumping mind:

 

No mo’ memoranda, motion, writ and plea

No mo’ heroic, litigious—War of the Flea—

No mo’ symbol of strength/wisdom of tree—

People, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

Governor, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

People, Ruchell Magee must be set Free!

 

Š 2023. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.



 

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Abolitionists Drew Blood in Fighting Slavery
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Abolitionists Drew Blood in Fighting Slavery
    08 Jun 2020
    “It was fugitive slaves, who were violent in defending themselves against slave-catchers, who pushed abolitionists towards militant and sometimes violent tactics,” said Duke University historian Je
  • Community Control of Police Vs Impunity
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Community Control of Police Vs Impunity
    08 Jun 2020
    “Until our Black and brown communities get control of the police, they are going to continue to murder us with impunity,” said Frank Chapman, chair of the National Alliance Ag
  • Blacks Will No Longer Be “Chumps” for the Democrats
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Blacks Will No Longer Be “Chumps” for the Democrats
    08 Jun 2020
    Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms showed her true colors when she berated protesters, said Trinity College sociologist Dr Johnny Williams.
  • The “Carceral State” is the Enemy
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    The “Carceral State” is the Enemy
    08 Jun 2020
    The current wave of protest is correctly “targeting the commodification of Blackness by the state,” said Dr Brittany Friedman, a Rutgers University sociology professor at the
  • The Movement Gets BIG – and Its Enemies Reveal Themselves
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    The Movement Gets BIG – and Its Enemies Reveal Themselves
    04 Jun 2020
    The decrepit racial capitalist order appears to be unraveling under the weight of coronavirus, economic depression, and a quantitative leap in people’s willingness to confront power through the pol
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us