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


  • Closeup of a child working in cobalt mine
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    China in Congo
    14 Feb 2024
    Ann Garrison speaks to Maurice Carney about the role of China in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s mining industry.
  • China Congo
    Dee Knight
    Disappointing “rush to judgment” on China’s Role in the Congo
    14 Feb 2024
    Dee Knight’s comments on a review by Ann Garrison in Black Agenda Report, of Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives.
  • Austin Cole
    Roberto Sirvent , Austin Cole
    Black Liberation and Anti-Imperialism: An Interview with Austin Cole
    14 Feb 2024
    Book Forum Editor, Roberto Sirvent, interviews Austin Cole about his organizing work and political writing.
  • GDF and US troops in Guyana for Exercise Tradewinds
    Tamanisha John
    Exercise Tradewinds: 40 years of U.S. Counterinsurgency in the Caribbean
    14 Feb 2024
    Exercise Tradewinds has historically been a show of military might and a threat to other nations in the Caribbean and Latin America that the West would exert force if they dared to stray from…
  • Rally against sanctions
    Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    Peoples to Peoples Encounters: Venezuela’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America In Dialogue with Local Organizations and Social Movements in New York
    14 Feb 2024
    Venezuela's Vide Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Ron, recently met with representatives from various organizations and social movements to discuss the latest U.S. effort to destabilize the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us