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


  • Trump is Wrong, Joe Biden is not the “Radical Left.” He is an Enemy of Humanity
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Trump is Wrong, Joe Biden is not the “Radical Left.” He is an Enemy of Humanity
    19 Aug 2020
    Both candidates are jockeying for who can best gaslight the U.S. public into remaining loyal to one side of the two-party corporate duopoly or the other.
  • Biden’s Philly Headquarters Rents a Fence to Stop the Poor People’s Army
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Biden’s Philly Headquarters Rents a Fence to Stop the Poor People’s Army
    19 Aug 2020
    Cheri Honkala tells Ann Garrison that the Biden campaign headquarters threw up a rent-a-fence when they heard the Poor People’s Army was coming.
  • Beirut BOOM
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Beirut BOOM
    19 Aug 2020
    A big BOOM— 27,000 tons of ammonium nitrate… chemical compound for agricultural  Fertilizer…  ‘stored’ 6 years at the port of Beirut 220 dead 5,000 injured
  • Kopmala’s Padlocks and the Games Politicians Play
    Paul Street
    Kopmala’s Padlocks and the Games Politicians Play
    19 Aug 2020
    The Big Business-backed Harris earned a reputation as a friend of the police and an agent of racially disparate mass incarceration.
  • Modern U.S. Racial Capitalism: Some Theoretical Insights
    Charisse Burden-Stelly, PhD
    Modern U.S. Racial Capitalism: Some Theoretical Insights
    19 Aug 2020
    Anti-Blackness and antiradicalism function as the legitimating architecture of modern U.S. racial capitalism.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us