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


  • BAR Book Forum: Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s Book, “Epistemic Freedom in Africa”
    Roberto Sirvent
    BAR Book Forum: Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s Book, “Epistemic Freedom in Africa”
    13 Jul 2022
    This week’s featured author is Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni. Dr. Ndlovu-Gatsheni is Chair of Epistemologies of the Global South, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Vice-Dean: Research, Africa…
  • BAR Book Forum “Sports and Black Struggle”: Interview with Courtney M. Cox
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum “Sports and Black Struggle”: Interview with Courtney M. Cox
    13 Jul 2022
    This week, we interview Courtney Cox. Dr. Courtney M. Cox is an assistant professor in the Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon. Her research examines issues…
  • Prison in Plain Sight: Visualizing the Economic Veins That Fuel Our Carceral Reality
    The Mapping Project
    Prison in Plain Sight: Visualizing the Economic Veins That Fuel Our Carceral Reality
    13 Jul 2022
    The prison system links corporate interests, the military industrial complex, and policing into a web of oppression impacting more than 2 million people in this country. The Mapping Project reports…
  • How Cuba Is Eradicating Child Mortality and Banishing the Diseases of the Poor
    Vijay Prashad, Manolo De Los Santos
    How Cuba Is Eradicating Child Mortality and Banishing the Diseases of the Poor
    13 Jul 2022
    To move from 59 infant deaths out of every 1,000 live births to no infant deaths in the matter of a few decades is an extraordinary feat.
  • U.S.-led Imperialism is the World’s Leading Purveyor of Chaos
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    U.S.-led Imperialism is the World’s Leading Purveyor of Chaos
    13 Jul 2022
    The western capitalist axis of domination is responsible for most of the world's crises. The crisis of legitimacy extends from the UK to Japan, and U.S. imperialism is involved in every new…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us