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!

 

© 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


  • BAR Book Forum: Nathan Schneider’s “​​​​​​​Everything for Everyone”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Nathan Schneider’s “​​​​​​​Everything for Everyone”
    14 Aug 2019
    Cooperation is a radical model that could fundamentally reorient our economy toward democracy.
  • BAR Book Forum: Azeezat Johnson, Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Beth Kamunge’s “The Fire Now”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Azeezat Johnson, Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Beth Kamunge’s “The Fire Now”
    14 Aug 2019
    A new book highlights what contemporary prohibitions on Black life look like in various geographical and socio-political spaces.
  • Distinguished Black Scholar Writes Biography of Jefferson for the Age of Trump 
    Matthew Quest
    Distinguished Black Scholar Writes Biography of Jefferson for the Age of Trump 
    14 Aug 2019
    In the Age of Trump, it could be said that all interpreters of Jefferson and US History have their own “alternative facts.”
  • Mass Shootings, Militarism and Policing Are Chapters in the Same Manifesto
    Derecka Purnell 
    Mass Shootings, Militarism and Policing Are Chapters in the Same Manifesto
    14 Aug 2019
    White supremacist killers in the U.S. are simply implementing on a local level what their government does across the globe.
  • Ancient Eugenicists
    Zanga Chimombo
    Ancient Eugenicists
    14 Aug 2019
    Ancient Egyptians were not Asians, nor aliens. “Genocide might indeed be a worse demon of our nature.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us