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


  • U.S. Congressional Support for More War spending and AUKUS Anti-China Pact Exposes Cynicism of Biden’s UN Speech Calling for More Diplomacy
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    U.S. Congressional Support for More War spending and AUKUS Anti-China Pact Exposes Cynicism of Biden’s UN Speech Calling for More Diplomacy
    29 Sep 2021
    Joe Biden spoke of peace and diplomacy at the U.N. but support for defense spending and war making are bipartisan imperatives that prevent the people's needs from being met.
  • ESSAY: The War Aims of World War I and World War II and Their Relations to the Darker Peoples of the World,  Merze Tate, 1943
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The War Aims of World War I and World War II and Their Relations to the Darker Peoples of the World, Merze Tate, 1943
    29 Sep 2021
    A 1943 Merze Tate essay provides a trenchant critique of the false hope of peace offered by the white west to “the darker peoples” of the world.
  • Raytheon’s Raven caws “War—Evermore!” Not wind beneath Negroz wings…
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Raytheon’s Raven caws “War—Evermore!” Not wind beneath Negroz wings…
    29 Sep 2021
  • Ethiopian Mystery: The Case of the 428 Disappearing Food Aid Trucks
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ethiopian Mystery: The Case of the 428 Disappearing Food Aid Trucks
    29 Sep 2021
    For nearly a year, warmonger and USAID administrator Samantha Power has been shrieking about famine in Ethiopia's Tigray, and demanding the humanitarian corridor that 428 massive food aid
  • Teaching Politically and the Problem of Afropessimism
    Nino Brown, Derek Ford
    Teaching Politically and the Problem of Afropessimism
    29 Sep 2021
    The authors argue that the theory of Afropessism is antithetical to the development of political movements.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us