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


  • Letters from Our Readers
    Jahan Choudhry BAR Comments Editor
    Letters from Our Readers
    20 Jan 2021
    This week the uprising in Washington and Du Bois’s writings on the Soviet Union were on your mind.
  • BAR Book Forum: L.H. Stallings’ “Funk the Erotic”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: L.H. Stallings’ “Funk the Erotic”
    20 Jan 2021
    We need a different relationship to and with time and temporality to imagine new worlds and to begin bringing those new worlds into being.
  • BAR Book Forum: John Murillo III’s “Impossible Stories”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: John Murillo III’s “Impossible Stories”
    20 Jan 2021
    The author dissects Black time and space in order to better understand the nature and mechanics of Black life and death lived in the antiblack world.
  • Defund the Police is Not Abolition
    Greg Felton
    Defund the Police is Not Abolition
    20 Jan 2021
    In practice, defunding police leads to endless dickering with local politicians and allows reformists to present themselves as abolitionists.
  • The Crisis of White Squatters Rights
    Too Black
    The Crisis of White Squatters Rights
    20 Jan 2021
    The white ruling class is evicting the squatter-in-chief (Trump) for violating the class collaborative agreement.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us