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Marvin X at Yoshi's San Francisco Part II
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Marvin X on War in the Hood
America is the Black man's battleground. As I travel the streets of Oakland, I run into police at crime scenes, streets taped and markings for bullet casings. It is almost daily or weekly. This is war, whether caused by external or internal forces. War is war. Coast to coast. But we cannot make war unless one is prepared. When unprepared, one is simply the victim who suffers but is unable to stop the war against him or her. How does one prepare for war? Put on the armor of God or obtain spiritual consciousness, then one can walk through the valley of the shadow of death but fear no evil. Be conscious of the Tone Test: when stopped by the police, one can be arrested, released or killed, depending on one's tone of voice. When encountering another brother, the tone test operates. Depending on our tone of voice, we can have an argument or the situation can escalate to violence and death. Isn't there a Hadith that says when we encounter the ignorant, say As-Salaam-Alaikum. Don't escalate a situation when you know where it is going! We must survive to fight another day of our choice, not the enemy's. And don't think you are going to defeat the enemy with guns. My friends and comrades in the Black Panther Party tried this but suffered a military defeat. We don't have enough guns or bullets to match the police, the US Army, Navy, Air Force, FBI, CIA, NSA, spies, snitches and agent provocateurs. Fidel Castro said, "The weapon of today is not guns but consciousness."--Marvin X
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Merritt College: Home of the Black Panthers (New Trailer)
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Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's proclamation of the Black Arts Movement Day
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For the Women by Marvin X
Women Writers Panel at Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration, Laney College, Oakland, Feb. 7, 2015. L to R: Elaine Brown, Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson, Kujichagulia, Aries Jordan. Standing: Marvin X, BAM producerphoto South Park Kenny Johnson
For the Women
For the women who bear children
and nurture them with truth
for the women who cook and clean
behind thankless men
for the women who love so hard so true so pure
for the women with faith in God and men
for the women alone with beer and rum
for the women searching for a man at the club, college, church, party
for the women independent of men
for the women searching their souls
for the women who do drugs and freak
for the women who love only women
for the women who play and run and never show
for the women who rise in revolt in hand with men
who say never, never, never again
for the women who suffer abuse and cry for justice
for the women happy and free of maternal madness
for the women who study and write
for the women who sell their love to starving men
for the women who love to make love and be loved by men
for the women of Africa who work so hard
for the women of America who suffer the master
for the women who turn to God in prayer and patience
for the women who are mothers of children and mothers of men
for the women who suffer inflation, recession, abortion, rejection
for the women who understand the rituals of men and women
for the women who share
for the women who are greedy
for the women with power
for the women with nothing
for the women locked down
for the women down town
for the women who break horses
for the women in the fields
for the women who rob banks
for the women who kill
for the women of history
for the women of now
I salute you
A Man.
--Marvin X
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
510-200-4164
For the women who bear children
and nurture them with truth
for the women who cook and clean
behind thankless men
for the women who love so hard so true so pure
for the women with faith in God and men
for the women alone with beer and rum
for the women searching for a man at the club, college, church, party
for the women independent of men
for the women searching their souls
for the women who do drugs and freak
for the women who love only women
for the women who play and run and never show
for the women who rise in revolt in hand with men
who say never, never, never again
for the women who suffer abuse and cry for justice
for the women happy and free of maternal madness
for the women who study and write
for the women who sell their love to starving men
for the women who love to make love and be loved by men
for the women of Africa who work so hard
for the women of America who suffer the master
for the women who turn to God in prayer and patience
for the women who are mothers of children and mothers of men
for the women who suffer inflation, recession, abortion, rejection
for the women who understand the rituals of men and women
for the women who share
for the women who are greedy
for the women with power
for the women with nothing
for the women locked down
for the women down town
for the women who break horses
for the women in the fields
for the women who rob banks
for the women who kill
for the women of history
for the women of now
I salute you
A Man.
--Marvin X
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
510-200-4164
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BAM District Flag statement revised
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From the Archives of Marvin X, the USA's Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz, Plato
Al Fitnah Muhajir
When you enter
strange cities
be silent
in the streets
but speak
with all
you meet
And you will see
as the people see
the poor people
are very rich.
When you enter
their homes
eat with them
or they will hate you
but eat not
that which will kill you
even if they insist
for you have been taught
by the Great Teacher
and they know Him not
may even mock Him
to your face
but cool your voice
they will submit
when they meet Him
when they see Him
in you
When you love
peoples of the world
rivers are nothing
between you
and strange tongues
a soulful tune
Salaam, salaam.
--Marvin X, aka Nazzam Al Sudan, El Muhajir
from The New Black Poetry, edited by Clarence Major, 1972, New World Paperbacks
Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour is coming your way soon as you book us in your city. For booking the BAM Poet's Choir and Arkestra: Call 510-200-4164. Suggested fee for three hour concert with the BAM Poet's Choir and Arkestra, including Q and A: $50,000.00--$100,000. Fee negotiable.
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Peralta Colleges honors Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party; Bobby Seale honors Marvin X
Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale and fellow Merritt College student, Marvin X. Bobby Seale performed in Marvin's Black Arts West Theatre before joining the Black Panther Party. He played a young revolutionary Black man trying to find himself in Come Next Summer, Marvin's second play. Tonight at Oakland's Marriott City Center, the Peralta Colleges Foundation honored one of their own, former Merritt College student Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, along with fellow student Huey P. Newton. Bobby Seale was ill, so he sent Virtual Murrell, another Merritt College student and first president of the Soul Students Advisory Council, that morphed into BSUs across America. The first thing Virtual Murrell read was a note from Bobby to let those in attendance know that the Soul Students Advisory Council began after a performance of fellow Merritt student Marvin X's (Jackmon) play Flowers for the Trashman. The anti-Vietnam play recruited students into the Black consciousness and activist movement at Merritt College. Marvin X stood at the $175.00 plate dinner, a benefit for the Peralta College Foundation that gives scholarships to needy students.
Speaking for Bobby, Virtual also said Peralta College students and instructors must tell the true story of Merritt, not the watered down, Miller Lite version so often heard, although attendees did view a trailer of the award winning Peralta College TV documentary on Merritt College as the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and student activism, especially in the Bay Area.
Marvin X's autobiography Somethin' Proper, narrates the student struggle at Merritt, one of the few sources on the history of the Black Arts/Black Power Movement, especially on the West Coast. Laney College Professor, Judy Juanita's novel, relates some of the history as well. See also the writings of Donald Warden of the Afro-American Association, the key organization that preceded the Black Panther Party and the Black Arts Movement on the West Coast and nationally.
Bobby Seale and Marvin X
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The Wild Crazy Ride Called the Marvin X Experience coming to San Diego
photo by Kamau Amen Ra
photo Gene Hazzard
Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Marvin X and Hunia at the How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy Retreat, facilitated by Marvin X
Marvin X with David Murray and Earle Davis at Oakland's Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, 2014
photo Gene Hazzard
A few of Marvin X's thirty books
Longtime friends, Angela Davis, Marvin X, Sonia Sanchez
Marvin X's one-man concert entitled The Wild Crazy Ride Called the Marvin X Experience will arrive in San Diego soon as final arrangements are made. Community Black Art groups will bring the poet to town. The poet will read from a variety of works, including poems, parables, fables, essays and plays during his concert, a separate project from the BAM 27 City Tour.
The late critic, poet, novelist, professor Sherley A. Williams
To book Marvin X and/or the BAM 27 City Tour, call 510-200-4164. Send letter of invitation to jmarvinx@yahoo.com.
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The Black Arts Movement Wish List
1. Black Arts Movement Districts established nationwide in each city with large populations of North American Africans. BAM chief architect, Amiri Baraka (RIP), called for the BAM tour to include 27 cities with large populations of North American Africans.
2. A community/corporate sponsorship of the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour. Government agencies should support BAM as well, with the understanding that we are and shall remain artistic freedom fighters!
Mrs. Gay Pair Cobb, Marvin X, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Laney College President Elnora T. Webb, Dr. Nathan Hare, Paul Cobb
photo South Park Kenny Johnson
3. A BAM Endowment Fund for veteran BAM artistic freedom fighters without basic survival funds. FYI, BAM/Black Power activists were patriots who believed in the values of American democracy. We believed in the American revolution. We quoted the US Constitution in our raps and principles. We believed in the consent of the governed, yet we suffered taxation without representation. We suffered a military defeat by the US Government. We hereby call upon all veterans of the US military to connect and support the BAM/Black Power veterans, especially those in need. We call on Black military veterans to reach out and touch the soldiers in America's domestic war against the freedom and independence of North American Africans, e.g., Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, Socialists, Communists, Liberation theologists and others. Now there are some who completely missed the 60s. They are like the girl who said Wake up to what? Poor girl doesn't even know she's sleeping. But US military veterans, reach out and touch your brothers in the war for freedom in America.
4. A BAM House in every North American African city. A separate house for men, women and youth in the BAM tradition. House can serve as a recovery center for those artists suffering from the addiction to white supremacy. BAM housing should be owned by a Land Trust. As per elder housing, they should be given the Life Estate to the space they inhabit, wherein they hold title to the property for natural life. Upon their transition to the ancestors, the title reverts to the Land Trust. On the general societal level, we think the Life Estate can end homelessness overnight in America. Of course, case management of many residents may be in order since many suffer traumatic slave syndrome, unresolved grief and communal amnesia, although Dr. Nathan Hare says it is not amnesia because they never knew, therefore they cannot suffer amnesia. Domestic colonialism severed the umbilical cord except for deep structure DNA residue. We know the ritual but not the myth, we beat the drum but don't know the rhythms as divine movement. How many of us recall the musical culture of Mali as origin of the Blues, especially in the Mississippi Delta. The Malian musician Ali Farka played with BB King and the Rolling Stones but he said he was not playing Blues. His music is from a ten thousand year old mythology, aboriginal and Islamic. Sorry we diverted from the housing issue but we must also address the dire mental apparatus that must be restored so the oppressed can regain their mental equilibrium as Dr. Hare notes. One project we have is the How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy mental health peer group facilitated by Dr. Nathan Hare and Suzzette Celeste, MPA, MSW. They recently conducted a session at the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration on Feb. 7, 2015, Laney College, Oakland.
5. A BAM Union of Artists, modeled on the National Writers Union. Union will offer health and life insurance for all members. Please comment on the NWU model. Do you suggest we reinvent the wheel?
6. A general fund.
Want to help? Contact: Marvin X, BAM 27 City Tour, 510-200-4164, jmarvinx@yahoo.com
Please send a generous donation to the BAM 27 City Tour, 339 Lester Ave. #10, Oakland CA. 94606. Your donation can be tax deductible. BAM 27 City Tour co-planner, Paul Cobb, Publisher of the Post News Group in Oakland, suggests 100 people donate $100.00 in each city. This would go a long way to making the BAM 27 City Tour happen in your city. Set up a planning committee in your city, secure donations, grants. I will help you plan the BAM 27 City Tour for your city. Each city must have the participation of local artists, after all, BAM was local as well as national. Each city had their little Black theatres, some funded but mostly unfunded but were able to do productions as they were able. This was certainly true for Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco. We got no grants. The Bay Area Black bourgeoisie did not support BAM until we established Black House with Eldridge Cleaver. They supported Black House because we had a celebrity in da house. Eldridge released his best-seller Soul on Ice while at Black House. Today, we again call upon the progressive Black bourgeoisie to support the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour.
1. Black Arts Movement Districts established nationwide in each city with large populations of North American Africans.
2. A community/corporate sponsorship of the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour.
3. A BAM Endowment Fund for veteran BAM artistic freedom fighters without basic survival funds.
4. A BAM House in every North American African city. A separate house for men, women and youth in the BAM tradition. House can serve as a recovery center for those artists suffering from the addiction to white supremacy.
5. A BAM Union of Artists, modeled on the National Writers Union. Union will offer health and life insurance for all members.
6. A general fund.
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selma
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Black Bird Press News & Review: Peralta Colleges honors Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party; Bobby Seale honors Marvin X
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Poems for Syria and the Hoods of America by Marvin X and Mohja Kahf
Two Poems for the People of Syria
how much water can run from rivers to sea
how much blood can soak the earth
the guns of tyrants know no end
a people awakened are bigger than bullets
there is no sleep in their eyes
no more stunted backs and fear of broken limbs
even men, women and children are humble with sacrifice
the old the young play their roles
with smiles they endure torture chambers
with laughs they submit to rape and mutilations
there is no victory for oppressors
whose days are numbered
as the clock ticks as the sun rises
let the people continue til victory
surely they smell it on their hands
taste it on lips
believe it in their hearts
know it in their minds
no more backwardness no fear
let there be resistance til victory.
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
Syrian poet/professor Dr. Mohja Kahf
Oh Marvin, how much blood can soak the earth?
The angels asked, “will you create a species who will shed blood
and overrun the earth with evil?”
And it turns out “rivers of blood” is no metaphor:
see the stones of narrow alleys in Duma
shiny with blood hissing from humans? Dark
and dazzling, it keeps pouring and pumping
from the inexhaustible soft flesh of Syrians,
and neither regime cluster bombs from the air,
nor rebel car bombs on the ground,
ask them their names before they die.
They are mowed down like wheat harvested by machine,
and every stalk has seven ears, and every ear a hundred grains.
They bleed like irrigation canals into the earth.
Even one little girl in Idlib with a carotid artery cut
becomes a river of blood. Who knew she could be a river
running all the way over the ocean, to you,
draining me of my heart? And God said to the angels,
“I know what you know not.” But right now,
the angels seem right. Cut the coyness, God;
learn the names of all the Syrians.
See what your species has done.
--Mohja Kahf
Mohja Kahf and Marvin X at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Marvin X was invited to read.
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bam wish list
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BAM Poetess Kalamu Chache'
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Black Bird Press News & Review: The Black Arts Movement Wish List
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Open letter to USA Black Military Veterans to unite with Veteran soliders of the 1960s Revolution for American Democracy
From the Black Arts/Black Liberation Movement
To all Black American military veterans
who served in foreign wars and to those veteran Black liberation Movement/Black Arts Movement artistic freedom fighters and political activists who fought for the liberation of the Hood from the ravages of domestic colonialism; who are also patriots in the American revolutionary tradition; who believed in the consent of the governed, a jury of peers, innocence until proven guilty, one man, one vote.
We call upon our North American African, United State of America military brothers and sisters to celebrate a reconciliation with a banquet and parade down the Oakland BAM District, 14th and MLK, Jr. Way to 14th and Alice. We call upon our US Military Veterans to show unity with the people with public recognition of love and respect between all those who fought for the American revolution, from the founding fathers to the elders of today, in the US military and those in the Black Arts/Black Liberation Movement. We must have a unity gathering, what about Geoffery’s Inner Circle, in the BAM District at 14th and Franklin?
We envision a Red, Black and Green Parade (with the heart) , in the Marcus Garvey style, down 14th from MLK, Jr. Way to Alice. We see USA North American African veterans in uniform marching along with the F.O.I, Black Panther Party, workers, students, religious leaders, educators, politicians, artists, same gender loving persons, et al.
As we all well know, our community is in need of unity,thus our task is to unite the people, regardless of our individual political/religious beliefs, military allegiance . Let us come together for the common cause of our liberation—no matter the results of American politricks, we must get a consensus on our agenda for the next 50 to 100 years. Let us put on the Divine thinking cap and come to understand there is only one truth, one reality. If it’s true for you, it is true for me. Ache’.
As independent people, we must remain in this world but not of it! Let us stay focused on our wants and needs. For all we know, though we hope not, America may fall tomorrow. Where shall we be, want part of the American pie do we want. We know there shall be the Balkinization, ethnic, political, religious groups will claim their share of the American pie. Without an agenda, we shall find ourselves on the lowest rung of the multicultural ladder.
We therefore call upon Bay Area North American African US Military Veterans, especially, Rt. Col. Conway Jones, Jr. and Charles Blanchard, to lead the charge for a Day of Reconciliation of North American African Veterans who fought in US wars abroad and at home, including the F.O.I., Black Panther Party, Students, Workers, et al. Ase’.—Marvin X
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PASS THE BATON BUT CAN YOU CATCH IT?
ONE OF THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT'S CO-FOUNDERS, MARVIN X, ASKS IF THE ELDERS PASS THE BATON TO THE YOUTH AND YOUNG ADULTS, CAN YOU CATCH IT?
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In this picture, we see, L to R, Oakland Post Publisher Paul Cobb, Laney College Professor of Art, Dr. Leslee Stradford, Rt. Col. Conway Jones, Jr. Marvin X, Naima Joy, granddaughter of Marvin X, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Jah Amiel, grandson of Marvin X, President of Laney College, Dr. Elnora T. Webb, Dr. Nathan Hare, father of Black Studies, and Lynette McElhaney, President of the Oakland City Council.
photo South Park Kenny Johnson
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photo South Park Kenny Johnson
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Black Arts Movement Dream and Wishlist
I want to see artists and craft persons in the Black Arts Movement District along Oakland's 14th St., just as they are daily on Berkeley's Telegraph Avenue and San Francisco's Market Street. This will inspire entrepreneurship or do-for-self economics in our community, as well as inspire cultural consciousness. If youth can sell drugs, they can sell anything, legal goods, gear, music and educational tapes, books, healthy food and vegetables. I don't want to hear problems, I want to hear solutions! The cultural revolution is first, then follows the political revolution!--Marvin X
photo Gene Hazzard
Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner in the heart of the BAM District, 14th and Broadway.
photo Adam Turner
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Black Bird Press News & Review: Open letter to USA Black Military Veterans to unite with Veteran soliders of the 1960s Revolution for American Democracy
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