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P-SPAN #413: Panel on Black Women Writers, at Laney College
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P-SPAN #413: Panel on Black Women Writers, at Laney College
The Black Arts Movement Women Speak at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Black Arts Movement, Laney College, Oakland CA, Feb. 7, 2015
Marvin X will speak on Racism at Berkeley High School Tuesday Night
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Video: Master Teacher Marvin X returns to Academy of Da Corner in Oakland's Black Arts Movement District, 14th Street
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Mumia Abu Jamal Medical Update
UPDATE: Yesterday morning, March 30, Mumia Abu-Jamal was rushed to the hospital after passing out at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Mahanoy. He was admitted to the Schuylkill Medical Center with a blood sugar level of 779. Today, he received visits from his wife, Wadiya, and his brother, Keith Cook. Mumia's blood sugar had dropped to 333 as of a couple hours ago. This is still elevated and at an unhealthy level.
Mumia does not have a history of diabetes, but had been experiencing a series of symptoms that should have alerted medical staff at the prison to the onset of the disease. Instead, he was not given comprehensive diagnostic treatment and a medical crisis emerged that could have resulted in his slipping into a diabetic coma or worse.
Family and friends are not leaving Pottsville. Mumia is not out of danger and we will remain vigilant and mobilized. The state keeps trying to kill Mumia - spied on by the FBI since he was 15, shot in the chest and severely beaten on December 9, 1981, framed for a killing he did not commit and put on death row, held in solitary confinement under threat of execution for 30 years, and now denied competent, basic medical care. He is alive because the movement has fought like hell to make it so. The government of the united states of apartheid can never be trusted to protect the rights or respect the lives of Black people or those held in prison. Never forgive, never forget. Stay alert and ready to act.
Free Mumia
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4/1 update on Mumia Abu Jam
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Common banned from speaking at university for song about Assata Shakur
The rapper Common is not the most racially controversial artist in America. In fact, some say he’s relatively mild mannered. But even one old song about Assata Shakur is enough to brew racial tensions in a country that pretends that racism doesn’t exist. The rapper was set to appear at Kean University to speak, but he’s now been told to go away after writing a song in support of Assata Shakur many years ago. According to some officials, Shakur is simply a wanted “cop killer” who doesn’t deserve anyone’s support, let alone an artist like Common.
The campus is divided about the decision to push Common off campus. Also, in recent years, many colleges campuses have become quite restrictive when it comes to freedom of speech, effectively banishing anyone sharing unpopular viewpoints. It leads us to wonder what future exists for a country when people are not able to express dissent without having their views squashed by those who disagree with them. Read more:
Common, who recently said that black people should show a hand in love to white people when it comes to racism, was scheduled to give Kean’s commencement address next month—that was until someone came across his song “A Song for Assata.” On Monday the university announced that Common had been selected, but by Tuesday it had axed him.
Susan Kayne, a university spokeswoman, told The Record that the announcement was made prematurely.
“The students expressed interest in Common because he composed the Oscar-winning song ‘Glory’ with our prior commencement speaker John Legend,” Kayne said. “While we respect his talent, Kean is pursuing other speaker options.”Chris Burgos, president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association of New Jersey, said that having Common speak at the university would be a “slap in the face.”Apparently New Jersey State Police took issue with Common’s old song because of Shakur’s conviction for killing a New Jersey state trooper.
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Black Bird Press News & Review: TOUR SCHEDULE OF THE WILD CRAZY RIDE CALLED THE MARVIN X EXPERIENCE
Black Bird Press News & Review: TOUR SCHEDULE OF THE WILD CRAZY RIDE CALLED THE MARVIN X EXPERIENCE
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Why not Invite Marvin X to a
venue in your town? You won't be
disappointed, although you are advised to bring your seat belt and air
bag. Ishmael Reed says, "If you want motivation and inspiration, don't
spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at
14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and watch Marvin X at work. He's
Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!" Bob Holman calls him the
USA's Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz. Amiri Baraka wrote, "Marvin X has always been
in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the
founders and innovators in the revolutionary school of African
writing."
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For booking Marvin X and/or the Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra, 27 City Tour: 510-200-4164/jmarvinx@yahoo.com
Why not Invite Marvin X to a
venue in your town? You won't be
disappointed, although you are advised to bring your seat belt and air
bag. Ishmael Reed says, "If you want motivation and inspiration, don't
spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at
14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and watch Marvin X at work. He's
Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!" Bob Holman calls him the
USA's Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz. Amiri Baraka wrote, "Marvin X has always been
in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the
founders and innovators in the revolutionary school of African
writing."
For booking Marvin X and/or the Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra, 27 City Tour: 510-200-4164/jmarvinx@yahoo.com
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Black Bird Press News & Review: SOS--CALLING ALL BLACK PEOPLE: A BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT READER
Black Bird Press News & Review: SOS--CALLING ALL BLACK PEOPLE: A BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT READER: Many of the movement’s leading artists, including Ed Bullins, Nikki Giovanni, Woodie King, Haki Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Touré, Marvin X and Val Gray Ward, remain artistically productive today. Its influence can also be seen in the work of later artists, from the writers Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, and August Wilson to actors Avery Brooks, Danny Glover, and Samuel L. Jackson, to hip-hop artists Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Chuck D. SOS—Calling All Black People includes works of fiction, poetry, and drama in addition to critical writings on issues of politics, aesthetics, and gender. It covers topics ranging from the legacy of Malcolm X and the impact of John Coltrane’s jazz to the tenets of the Black Panther Party and the music of Motown. The editors have provided a substantial introduction outlining the nature, history, and legacy of the Black Arts Movement as well as the principles by which the anthology was assembled.
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Goin ta Chicago, but can't take you: Marvin X--High voltage electricity!
Chicago musician/scholar David Boykin invited Marvin X to participate in the Sun Ra Conference at the University of Chicago, May 22, 2015, Sun Ra's birthday, although he claimed infinity and eternity. David and Marvin X will perform together in honor of Sun Ra.
Marvin X says, "I will try to explain my relationship with Sun Ra. The only historic relationship I can think of is Shams and Rumi. As we know, their relationship was totally overwhelming to Rumi, but he submitted to his teacher Shams, discarding all his previous knowledge of theology and other matters. Shams told Rumi to discard his previous learning so he could be taught the mystical and metaphysical knowledge. In the manner of the humble student, he did so, but even then his mission did not begin until the death of his teacher by students of Rumi who were jealous and envious of the Shams/Rumi relationship.
Marvin X and Sun Ra's relationship was not so painful, but for sure Sun Ra altered Marvin X's morality and esthetics. Sun Ra questioned and challenged Marvin's Islamic morality. While working with Marvin at his Black Educational Theatre in San Francisco, 1972, and simultaneously working with Marvin in the Black Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley, he challenged Marvin's world view. When Marvin's Islamic morality caused him to alter the muscial version of Flowers for the Trashman, renamed Take Care of Business with music arranged by Sun Ra, Sun Ra burned him with these words of wisdom, "Marvin X, you so right you wrong! You took the low down dirty truth out of your play, trying to be so right you wrong. The people don't want the truth, they want the low down dirty truth. You had it but you took it out. Don't nobody want to hear the watered down truth, they want the low down dirty truth."
Sun Ra performed with Marvin's Black Educational Theatre, 1972, with his entire twenty piece band. As the Creator would have it, Marvin was able to house the entire band after John Handy declined.
Marvin X and Sun Ra's relationship was not so painful, but for sure Sun Ra altered Marvin X's morality and esthetics. Sun Ra questioned and challenged Marvin's Islamic morality. While working with Marvin at his Black Educational Theatre in San Francisco, 1972, and simultaneously working with Marvin in the Black Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley, he challenged Marvin's world view. When Marvin's Islamic morality caused him to alter the muscial version of Flowers for the Trashman, renamed Take Care of Business with music arranged by Sun Ra, Sun Ra burned him with these words of wisdom, "Marvin X, you so right you wrong! You took the low down dirty truth out of your play, trying to be so right you wrong. The people don't want the truth, they want the low down dirty truth. You had it but you took it out. Don't nobody want to hear the watered down truth, they want the low down dirty truth."
Sun Ra performed with Marvin's Black Educational Theatre, 1972, with his entire twenty piece band. As the Creator would have it, Marvin was able to house the entire band after John Handy declined.
When Shams was murdered, it was then that Rumi whirled and whirled in grief at that death of his teacher. Only then did he spit out the poetry as he grieved the lost of his teacher. Thus the beginning of the Sufi order of whirling dervishes known to the world today.
The poetry that emerged in the 14th century is still the most powerful poetry in the world, for sure the most popular poetry in America. Why? Because it is the poetry of love. Love of the Divine and the love of self as part of the Divine. I am in God and God is in me! This is the summary of Sufi love. It is the essence of Marvin X's love as poet and revolution ary.
So in the irony of ironies, Persian poet Rumi is the most popular and best selling poet in America, while America wants to bomb the hell out of Iran. Please explain how such action is more barbaric than the ISIS destruction of historic monuments in Iraq, Syria and wherever they are in control, including Timbuktu in ancient Mali.
Amiri Baraka said."Your poet and artists give you visions and prophesy. If you don't support your poets and artists, you shall get no visions nor prophesy. He said, further, don't have your visionaries and prophets performing in smoke filled rooms with cash registers clinging.
As per my mission, he called for a 27 city tour of the Black Arts Movement to spread revolutionary cultural consciousness in the Black Arts Movement tradition. In my old age, I am trying to carry out his message. I hear him every day saying, "Marvin, why didn't you do it?" I am not going to deny my ancestors as long as I have the energy, so I am about the BAM business, but this is a national project, not local or state wide. I am not motivated by money but by truth and beauty. Those who believe in truth and beauty, please come forward and let us continue our work until freedom is a reality.
Let the opportunists do their mission of taking advantage of the cultural revolution. But they need to study the 1960s, what happened to those opportunists who took advantage of the Black Arts Movement? Was the Black Arts Movement about money, tenured jobs, fame and fortune? The true troopers are still here fighting the fight til the fat lady sings. If you can help the true troopers, let us hear from you ASAP. Give a generous donation to the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour. Donate to the wish list and the dream of a Black Arts District in your city.
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So in the irony of ironies, Persian poet Rumi is the most popular and best selling poet in America, while America wants to bomb the hell out of Iran. Please explain how such action is more barbaric than the ISIS destruction of historic monuments in Iraq, Syria and wherever they are in control, including Timbuktu in ancient Mali.
Amiri Baraka said."Your poet and artists give you visions and prophesy. If you don't support your poets and artists, you shall get no visions nor prophesy. He said, further, don't have your visionaries and prophets performing in smoke filled rooms with cash registers clinging.
As per my mission, he called for a 27 city tour of the Black Arts Movement to spread revolutionary cultural consciousness in the Black Arts Movement tradition. In my old age, I am trying to carry out his message. I hear him every day saying, "Marvin, why didn't you do it?" I am not going to deny my ancestors as long as I have the energy, so I am about the BAM business, but this is a national project, not local or state wide. I am not motivated by money but by truth and beauty. Those who believe in truth and beauty, please come forward and let us continue our work until freedom is a reality.
Let the opportunists do their mission of taking advantage of the cultural revolution. But they need to study the 1960s, what happened to those opportunists who took advantage of the Black Arts Movement? Was the Black Arts Movement about money, tenured jobs, fame and fortune? The true troopers are still here fighting the fight til the fat lady sings. If you can help the true troopers, let us hear from you ASAP. Give a generous donation to the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour. Donate to the wish list and the dream of a Black Arts District in your city.
Marvin X says, "On the 50th anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, sister of the Black Power/Black Student/Black Studies Movement, why don't one of you in the national black studies movement, hire Dr. Nathan Hare and his esteemed colleague Marvin X, M.A., as Visiting Professors in the Study of Social Movements, with a five-year contract. This would allow them to end their academic careers in professional dignity, especially since they are pioneers in multiple disciplines, including Social Movements, Black Arts Movement, Student Movements, Black Studies, Black Power Movement, etc.
FYI, the archives of Drs Nathan and Julia Hare, and Marvin X, M.A. are at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley CA.
On May 22, 2015, BAM poet/activist Marvin X will participate in a conference on BAM poet/bandleader, philosopher, mythologist Sun Ra at the University of Chicago. Marvin X is asking his Chicago friends and associates to host a reception/reading for him, if possible. Marvin X arrived in Chicago in 1968, when he departed Toronto, Canada as a resister to the Viet Nam war. Toronto radical DJ Norman Richmond was in exile with Marvin. Norman is still in Toronto.
After arriving in Chicago, via Detroit where the poet met historian Kofi Harun Wangara (Harold Lawerence) and poet Al Hamisi and other assoicated with Detroit's literacy scene, including publisher Dudley Randall who published X's Black Man Listen, poems and proverbs.
In Chicago, he hooked up with Don L. Lee (Haki Muhdubuti), Hoyt Fuller, Carolyn Rogers, Gwen Brooks, and others in OBAC. He also connected with the Phil Koran's AFro-Arts Theatre and the Chicago Art Ensemble that had performed at Marvin and Eldridge Cleaver's political/cultural center Black House, San Francisco, 1967.
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Black Bird Press News & Review: Goin ta Chicago, but can't take you: Marvin X--High voltage electricity!
Black Bird Press News & Review: Goin ta Chicago, but can't take you: Marvin X--High voltage electricity!Chicago musician/scholar
David Boykin invited Marvin X to participate in the Sun Ra Conference at
the University of Chicago, May 22, 2015, Sun Ra's birthday, although he
claimed infinity and eternity. David and Marvin X will perform together
in honor of Sun Ra.
Marvin X says, "I will try to explain my relationship with Sun Ra. The
only historic relationship I can think of is Shams and Rumi. As we know,
their relationship was totally overwhelming to Rumi, but he submitted
to his teacher Shams, discarding all his previous knowledge of theology
and other matters. Shams told Rumi to discard his previous learning so
he could be taught the mystical and metaphysical knowledge. In the
manner of the humble student, he did so, but even then his mission did
not begin until the death of his teacher by students of Rumi who were
jealous and envious of the Shams/Rumi relationship.
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David Boykin invited Marvin X to participate in the Sun Ra Conference at
the University of Chicago, May 22, 2015, Sun Ra's birthday, although he
claimed infinity and eternity. David and Marvin X will perform together
in honor of Sun Ra.
Marvin X says, "I will try to explain my relationship with Sun Ra. The
only historic relationship I can think of is Shams and Rumi. As we know,
their relationship was totally overwhelming to Rumi, but he submitted
to his teacher Shams, discarding all his previous knowledge of theology
and other matters. Shams told Rumi to discard his previous learning so
he could be taught the mystical and metaphysical knowledge. In the
manner of the humble student, he did so, but even then his mission did
not begin until the death of his teacher by students of Rumi who were
jealous and envious of the Shams/Rumi relationship.
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Please help secure Marvin X at the Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, Black Arts Movement District
Marvin X teaches in the most dangerous classroom in the world! Literally, his classroom is the where the Oscar Grant Rebellion took place; Occupy Oakland and all other liberation struggles, including I Can't Breathe and Black Lives Matter. We are declaring this area The Black Arts Movement District. We want you to support us in claiming this sacred space for culture, art and economics. We must pressure our politicians to declare the Black Arts Movement District that will honor and respect the revolutionary warriors in the arts, politics, business and educational struggle in Oakland, including the Black Panther Party and the Black Arts Movement. We want to see the appropriate banners up and down 14th Street.
We call upon the Black Chamber of Commerce and other Black businessmen and women to support this project that will support themselves. Paul Cobb of the
Post News Group told Marvin X, "Marvin X, we will owe you millions of dollars for proposing the Black Arts Movement District. But at least we have moved from 7th Street to 14th Street, yes, we have doubled our progress."
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Black Bird Press News & Review: Goin ta Chicago, but can't take you: Marvin X--High voltage electricity!
Black Bird Press News & Review: Goin ta Chicago, but can't take you: Marvin X--High voltage electricity!: Let the opportunists do their mission of taking advantage of the cultural revolution. But they need to study the 1960s, what happened to those opportunists who took advantage of the Black Arts Movement? Was the Black Arts Movement about money, tenured jobs, fame and fortune? The true troopers are still here fighting the fight til the fat lady sings. If you can help the true troopers, let us hear from you ASAP. Give a generous donation to the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour. Donate to the wish list and the dream of a Black Arts District in your city.
Do you understand The Black Arts Movement is for all artists. The BAM revolutionary arts were communal, not individual. Those individualists did their thing but the true troopers are still on the mission of truth and beauty. Check out Asia Toure, Nikki, Sonia, Haki, Marvin X. Seek out the true troopers and see if they have benefited financially.
Marvin X was invited to teach Black Studies at Fresno State College, now University, 1969. He was 25 years old but Gov. Ronald Reagan got involved as the President of the State College Board of Trustees. The same year he had Angela Davis removed from teaching at University of California, Los Angeles.
The City of Oakland and Laney College can show respect by appointing these brothers with a position in Black Studies at Laney College. Appointing Dr. Nathan Hare and Marvin X will show honor and respest to Black Studies, the Black Arts Movement and the Black Liberation Movement, aka The Black Panther Party that gave international recognition to Oakland. Let us see the banners of BAM and The BLM up and down 14th Street.
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Prayers for the Black Arts Movement Success of BAM 27 City Tour
Members of the BAM Poet's Choir and Arkestra informed producer Marvin X they are in prayer for the success in acquiring the funding needed for the 27 City Tour prescribed by Ancestor Amiri Baraka. It is estimated the tour will cost $2.7 million dollars @ $100,000.00 per city. Cost of the BAM 50th Anniversary Celebration/Conference at the University of California, Merced, Feb/Mar 2014, was approximately $60,000.00. The Oakland Laney College BAM Celebration, Feb. 7, 2015, was approximately $30,000.00. Marvin X says, "One hundred thousand dollars will allow us to do a first class production, including professional fees for all artists and participants. It will allow us to promote the event in Prime Time.
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The Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra at the Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland, May 27, 2014
Adam Turner photo collage
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Syrian poet/professor, Dr. Mohja Kahf and Marvin X. She invited Marvin X to speak and read at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Dr. Kahf proclaims that the Black Arts Movement poets are the foundation of the genre Muslim American literature. "Marvin X, well, along with Malcolm X, is the father of Muslim American literature, as well as other BAM poets, including Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez (Laila Mannan), Askia Muhammad Toure', Yusef Rahman, et al.
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Ancestor Ossie Davis, Dr. Nathan Hare, Bobby Seale, Dr. Carlton Goodlet (The street in front of San Francisco City Hall is named after Dr. Carlton Goodlett, publisher of the Sun Reporter Newspaper).
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Marvin X in Seattle, Washington at rally protesting genocide in Gaza, occupied Palestine.
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Oakland Post Newspaper Publisher Paul Cobb and Marvin X. They are childhood friends who grew up in West Oakland. "Marvin X, is this BAM thing a new Movement?" Paul is a supporter of the BAM District and the BAM 27 City Tour. He has promoted BAM in his Post News Group papers, including the Oakland Post, San Francisco Post, Richmond, Berkeley Post.
Paul Cobb suggests one hundred people in each city donate $100.00 each to BAM 27 City Tour. This will acknowledge that we are serious about doing for self, although we will seek funding from corporations, organizations and governments. We will not compromise our mission as artistic freedom fighters, lovers of truth and beauty. See the following essay by ancestor Langston Hughes:
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (1926)
Earlier that year, Freda Kirchwey, editor of the Nation, mailed Hughes a proof of “The Negro-Art Hokum,” an essay George Schuyler had written for the magazine, requesting a counterstatement. Schuyler, editor of the African-American newspaper The Pittsburgh Courier, questioned in his essay the need for a separate African-American artistic and literary tradition.
Understanding a fellow African American poet’s stated desire to be “a poet—not a Negro poet,” as that poet’s wish to look away from his African American heritage and instead absorb white culture, Hughes’ essay spoke to the concerns of the Harlem Renaissance as it celebrated African American creative innovations such as blues, spirituals, jazz, and literary work that engaged African American life. Notes Hughes, “this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America—this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.”
His attention to working-class African-American lives, coupled with his refusal to paint these lives as either saintly or stereotypical, brought criticism from several directions. Articulating the unspoken directives he struggled to ignore, Hughes observes, “‘Oh, be respectable, write about nice people, show how good we are,’ say the Negroes. ‘Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter our illusions about you, don't amuse us too seriously. We will pay you,’ say the whites.”
Hughes’ early poetry often explored domestic and musical themes—particularly jazz—in African American life, and his work grew increasingly political as the Great Depression wore on and his interest in Marxism deepened.
Adam Turner photo collage
Marvin X supports a democratic, non-sectarian Syria, but it is for the Syrian masses to decide their form of government, no matter what form, whether a Sharia or Democratic form of government. It should not be a decision of the imams but the suffering masses.
Syrian poet/professor, Dr. Mohja Kahf and Marvin X. She invited Marvin X to speak and read at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Dr. Kahf proclaims that the Black Arts Movement poets are the foundation of the genre Muslim American literature. "Marvin X, well, along with Malcolm X, is the father of Muslim American literature, as well as other BAM poets, including Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez (Laila Mannan), Askia Muhammad Toure', Yusef Rahman, et al. 
Dr. Cornel West is a longtime supporter of Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement. Dr. West participated in the Marvin X production The Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness, San Francisco State University, April 1, 2001.
The Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra, University of California, Merced, 2014
Marvin X, David Murray and Earle Davis, Malcolm X Jazz/Art Fest, Oakland CA 2014
Paul Cobb suggests one hundred people in each city donate $100.00 each to BAM 27 City Tour. This will acknowledge that we are serious about doing for self, although we will seek funding from corporations, organizations and governments. We will not compromise our mission as artistic freedom fighters, lovers of truth and beauty. See the following essay by ancestor Langston Hughes:
The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain (1926)
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Ancestor Paul Robeson, Artistic Freedom Fighter Supreme
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Alprentice Bunchy Carter, BAM/Black Power Freedom Fighter, Poet/Chairman of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Black Panther Party.
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Kathleen Cleaver, Black Panther Party member, Black Power Revolutionary
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Only known picture of Eldridge Cleaver and Marvin X. Marvin X introduced Eldridge Cleaver to Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. Eldridge and Marvin co-founded the San Francisco Black House, 1967, on Broderick Street.
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A Day in the life: Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, renamed the Black Arts Movement District.
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Sufi Master, His Holiness Guru Muhaiyadin Bawa, one of Marvin X's main teachers. Many BAM members are influenced by the Sufi Teachers, especially Bamba of Senegal and Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan. Marvin X and the BAM artists are the founders of the genre known as Muslim American literature, according to Dr. Mohja Kahf, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
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Jah Amiel, grandson of Marvin X. At three years old, he told his grandfather, "Grandfather, you can't save the world, but I can!"
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BAM co-founder Amiri Baraka
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BAM founding General, Askia Toure'
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BAM founding General Sonia Sanchez
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BAM founding General Marvin X, West Coast
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BAM Generals, Amiri Baraka and Marvin X. They enjoyed a 47 year friendship as Artistic Freedom Fighters.
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Mrs. Amina Baraka and Mr. Amiri Baraka, friends of Marvin X for 47 years. I partyed with the Barakas for 47 years, from the time I met them both at the Black House, San Francisco, 1967, founded by Eldridge Cleaver, Ed Bullins, Ethna X. Wyatt (Hurriyah Asar) and myself. I miss my drinking buddy!
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Marvin X at memorial for Amiri Baraka
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Danny Glover at AB memorial
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Amiri Baraka, "Marvin, why didn't you do it--yeah, the 27 City Tour?"
Marvin X at memorial for Amiri Baraka
Danny Glover at AB memorial
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When AB transitioned, it was the coldest winter ever. --MX
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The good times: AB, Amina, Mariam Makeba, Kwame Toure
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Marvin X and Nuyorican poet Nancy Mercado at Harlem NY reception for Marvin X.
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Bam Poets honor Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka at New York University: left to right: Ted Wilson, Rashidah Ismaili, Sandra Esteves. Black Row: , Haki Madhubuti, Askia Toure, Marvin X, bassist Henry Grimes who accompanied Marvin X.
Bam Poets honor Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka at New York University: left to right: Ted Wilson, Rashidah Ismaili, Sandra Esteves. Black Row: , Haki Madhubuti, Askia Toure, Marvin X, bassist Henry Grimes who accompanied Marvin X.Introduction
Langston Hughes was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He was educated at Columbia University and Lincoln University. While a student at Lincoln, he published his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues (1926), as well as his landmark essay, seen by many as a cornerstone document articulation of the Harlem renaissance, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.”Earlier that year, Freda Kirchwey, editor of the Nation, mailed Hughes a proof of “The Negro-Art Hokum,” an essay George Schuyler had written for the magazine, requesting a counterstatement. Schuyler, editor of the African-American newspaper The Pittsburgh Courier, questioned in his essay the need for a separate African-American artistic and literary tradition.
Understanding a fellow African American poet’s stated desire to be “a poet—not a Negro poet,” as that poet’s wish to look away from his African American heritage and instead absorb white culture, Hughes’ essay spoke to the concerns of the Harlem Renaissance as it celebrated African American creative innovations such as blues, spirituals, jazz, and literary work that engaged African American life. Notes Hughes, “this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America—this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.”
His attention to working-class African-American lives, coupled with his refusal to paint these lives as either saintly or stereotypical, brought criticism from several directions. Articulating the unspoken directives he struggled to ignore, Hughes observes, “‘Oh, be respectable, write about nice people, show how good we are,’ say the Negroes. ‘Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter our illusions about you, don't amuse us too seriously. We will pay you,’ say the whites.”
Hughes’ early poetry often explored domestic and musical themes—particularly jazz—in African American life, and his work grew increasingly political as the Great Depression wore on and his interest in Marxism deepened.
One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, “I want to be a poet—not a Negro poet,” meaning, I believe, “I want to write like a white poet”; meaning subconsciously, “I would like to be a white poet”; meaning behind that, “I would like to be white.”(1) And I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself. And I doubted then that, with his desire to run away spiritually from his race, this boy would ever be a great poet. But this is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America—this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.
But let us look at the immediate background of this young poet. His family is of what I suppose one would call the Negro middle class: people who are by no means rich yet never uncomfortable nor hungry—smug, contented, respectable folk, members of the Baptist church. The father goes to work every morning.
He is a chief steward at a large white club. The mother sometimes does fancy sewing or supervises parties for the rich families of the town. The children go to a mixed school. In the home they read white papers and magazines. And the mother often says “Don’t be like niggers” when the children are bad.
A frequent phrase from the father is, “Look how well a white man does things.” And so the word white comes to be unconsciously a symbol of all virtues. It holds for the children beauty, morality, and money. The whisper of “I want to be white” runs silently through their minds. This young poet’s home is, I believe, a fairly typical home of the colored middle class. One sees immediately how difficult it would be for an artist born in such a home to interest himself in interpreting the beauty of his own people. He is never taught to see that beauty. He is taught rather not to see it, or if he does, to be ashamed of it when it is not according to Caucasian patterns.
For racial culture the home of a self-styled “high-class” Negro has nothing better to offer. Instead there will perhaps be more aping of things white than in a less cultured or less wealthy home. The father is perhaps a doctor, lawyer, landowner, or politician. The mother may be a social worker, or a teacher, or she may do nothing and have a maid. Father is often dark but he has usually married the lightest woman he could find. The family attend a fashionable church where few really colored faces are to be found. And they themselves draw a color line.
In the North they go to white theaters and white movies. And in the South they have at least two cars and house “like white folks.” Nordic manners, Nordic faces, Nordic hair, Nordic art (if any), and an Episcopal heaven. A very high mountain indeed for the would-be racial artist to climb in order to discover himself and his people.
But then there are the low-down folks, the so-called common element, and they are the majority—may the Lord be praised! The people who have their nip of gin on Saturday nights and are not too important to themselves or the community, or too well fed, or too learned to watch the lazy world go round. They live on Seventh Street in Washington or State Street in Chicago and they do not particularly care whether they are like white folks or anybody else. Their joy runs, bang! into ecstasy. Their religion soars to a shout. Work maybe a little today, rest a little tomorrow. Play awhile. Sing awhile. O, let’s dance!
These common people are not afraid of spirituals, as for a long time their more intellectual brethren were, and jazz is their child. They furnish a wealth of colorful, distinctive material for any artist because they still hold their own individuality in the face of American standardizations. And perhaps these common people will give to the world its truly great Negro artist, the one who is not afraid to be himself. Whereas the better-class Negro would tell the artist what to do, the people at least let him alone when he does appear. And they are not ashamed of him—if they know he exists at all. And they accept what beauty is their own without question.
Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who canescape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art. Without going outside his race, and even among the better classes with their “white” culture and conscious American manners, but still Negro enough to be different, there is sufficient matter to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work. And when he chooses to touch on the relations between Negroes and whites in this country, with their innumerable overtones and undertones, surely, and especially for literature and the drama, there is an inexhaustible supply of themes at hand. To these the Negro artist can give his racial individuality, his heritage of rhythm and warmth, and his incongruous humor that so often, as in the Blues, becomes ironic laughter mixed with tears. But let us look again at the mountain.
A prominent Negro clubwoman in Philadelphia paid eleven dollars to hear Raquel Meller sing Andalusian popular songs. But she told me a few weeks before she would not think of going to hear “that woman,” Clara Smith, a great black artist, sing Negro folksongs.(2) And many an upper-class Negro church, even now, would not dream of employing a spiritual in its services. The drab melodies in white folks’ hymnbooks are much to be preferred. “We want to worship the Lord correctly and quietly. We don’t believe in ‘shouting.’ Let’s be dull like the Nordics,” they say, in effect.
But let us look at the immediate background of this young poet. His family is of what I suppose one would call the Negro middle class: people who are by no means rich yet never uncomfortable nor hungry—smug, contented, respectable folk, members of the Baptist church. The father goes to work every morning.
He is a chief steward at a large white club. The mother sometimes does fancy sewing or supervises parties for the rich families of the town. The children go to a mixed school. In the home they read white papers and magazines. And the mother often says “Don’t be like niggers” when the children are bad.
A frequent phrase from the father is, “Look how well a white man does things.” And so the word white comes to be unconsciously a symbol of all virtues. It holds for the children beauty, morality, and money. The whisper of “I want to be white” runs silently through their minds. This young poet’s home is, I believe, a fairly typical home of the colored middle class. One sees immediately how difficult it would be for an artist born in such a home to interest himself in interpreting the beauty of his own people. He is never taught to see that beauty. He is taught rather not to see it, or if he does, to be ashamed of it when it is not according to Caucasian patterns.
For racial culture the home of a self-styled “high-class” Negro has nothing better to offer. Instead there will perhaps be more aping of things white than in a less cultured or less wealthy home. The father is perhaps a doctor, lawyer, landowner, or politician. The mother may be a social worker, or a teacher, or she may do nothing and have a maid. Father is often dark but he has usually married the lightest woman he could find. The family attend a fashionable church where few really colored faces are to be found. And they themselves draw a color line.
In the North they go to white theaters and white movies. And in the South they have at least two cars and house “like white folks.” Nordic manners, Nordic faces, Nordic hair, Nordic art (if any), and an Episcopal heaven. A very high mountain indeed for the would-be racial artist to climb in order to discover himself and his people.
But then there are the low-down folks, the so-called common element, and they are the majority—may the Lord be praised! The people who have their nip of gin on Saturday nights and are not too important to themselves or the community, or too well fed, or too learned to watch the lazy world go round. They live on Seventh Street in Washington or State Street in Chicago and they do not particularly care whether they are like white folks or anybody else. Their joy runs, bang! into ecstasy. Their religion soars to a shout. Work maybe a little today, rest a little tomorrow. Play awhile. Sing awhile. O, let’s dance!
These common people are not afraid of spirituals, as for a long time their more intellectual brethren were, and jazz is their child. They furnish a wealth of colorful, distinctive material for any artist because they still hold their own individuality in the face of American standardizations. And perhaps these common people will give to the world its truly great Negro artist, the one who is not afraid to be himself. Whereas the better-class Negro would tell the artist what to do, the people at least let him alone when he does appear. And they are not ashamed of him—if they know he exists at all. And they accept what beauty is their own without question.
Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who canescape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art. Without going outside his race, and even among the better classes with their “white” culture and conscious American manners, but still Negro enough to be different, there is sufficient matter to furnish a black artist with a lifetime of creative work. And when he chooses to touch on the relations between Negroes and whites in this country, with their innumerable overtones and undertones, surely, and especially for literature and the drama, there is an inexhaustible supply of themes at hand. To these the Negro artist can give his racial individuality, his heritage of rhythm and warmth, and his incongruous humor that so often, as in the Blues, becomes ironic laughter mixed with tears. But let us look again at the mountain.
A prominent Negro clubwoman in Philadelphia paid eleven dollars to hear Raquel Meller sing Andalusian popular songs. But she told me a few weeks before she would not think of going to hear “that woman,” Clara Smith, a great black artist, sing Negro folksongs.(2) And many an upper-class Negro church, even now, would not dream of employing a spiritual in its services. The drab melodies in white folks’ hymnbooks are much to be preferred. “We want to worship the Lord correctly and quietly. We don’t believe in ‘shouting.’ Let’s be dull like the Nordics,” they say, in effect.
Langston Hughes, “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” from TheCollected Works of Langston Hughes, published by University of Missouri Press. Copyright © 2002 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted with the permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
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The Black Students Union at San Francisco State University started it all!
The Black Student Union at San Francisco State University was the first at any school anywhere. Its official history has not yet been written, but the oral history is being kept alive by two men in their mid-60s talking about the mid-'60s.
They are Jimmy Garrett and Jerry Varnado, who cooked up the concept - a college advocacy group that would work toward civil rights everywhere - and barnstormed it around to other colleges and high schools. The pair met as undergraduate activists in early 1966 and met most recently at Garrett's house a few doors off Martin Luther King Jr. Way in North Oakland.
"We did manage to play a role in a broader movement," says Varnado, a retired attorney who lives in the Oakland hills. "There are Black Student Unions all over the world. I went to the London School of Economics to visit the Black Student Union."
"The group at San Francisco State is the first that we know to use that term," says Akinyele Umoja, associate professor of African American studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta and a leader at the National Council for Black Studies. "Later on, there was a conference in California where black students at other campuses all adopted that name."
It was more than a name, and the lasting acronym BSU. "That activity that they were leaders in didn't just shift San Francisco State. It shifted the access and the academic context of every university in the country," says Kenneth Monteiro, dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State.
The first and still the only academic department of its kind in the country, the College of Ethnic Studies is celebrating its 40th anniversary this school year. The College of Ethnic Studies came out of the black studies department, which came out of the famed student strike of 1968-69, which came out of the BSU, which came out of a wager that Garrett made in Los Angeles shortly after the Watts Riots of 1965.
A winning bet
"The bet was that you could build a black student movement on a predominately white campus," says Garrett, 67, also a lawyer and the retired dean of instruction at Vista Community College (now Berkeley City College). "That was a bet that a couple of people in SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) made. I bet that it could happen."In his early 20s, Garrett was already a veteran Freedom Rider and youth activist. He came to San Francisco because he had family here, and he came to S.F. State specifically to organize. Being enrolled in classes was mainly a way to avoid Vietnam.
"When I got to San Francisco State, I did an analysis," says Garrett, who broke the black student population into three categories: the Negro Student Association (NSA), an organized club inclusive of all black students; the fraternities and sororities; and the radical Black Nationalists.
"Then there were people like me who didn't know what they were," Garrett says. "Whatever I was, it wasn't one of those."
Strategy sessions
Varnado was one of those. A 21-year-old freshman from segregated Mississippi, by way of the Air Force, he was chapter president of Alpha Phi Alpha, a black fraternity, and active in the NSA. He may have met Garrett at a party at the frat house on Capitol Avenue in the Ingleside district, but he isn't sure. They started having strategy sessions in a corner of the campus library. Two became three. Three grew to five, then to eight.Whatever it was they were on to, it needed its own name, and that took two or three weeks of meetings to settle. Otherwise, there were no membership rules or bylaws or articles of incorporation filed in the student activities office.
"We didn't plan all this stuff," Varnado says. "It just started happening and it grew."
According to "Blow It Up!" Dikran Karagueuzian's account of the 1968 campus revolt, the name Black Student Union was attributed to a student named Tricia Navara. The book suggests that it was just a matter of renaming the NSA, which is the way Varnado and Garrett tell it.
"For all practical purposes, the BSU and the NSA were the same," says Varnado. But Dean Monteiro says that the BSU formed as a wholly separate entity.
"That was a tough moment," says Monteiro, who was too young to be there but has studied the chronology. "The Negro Student Association was not moving along as if it needed to be defunct."
But it couldn't keep up with the BSU under Garrett, who "soon moved into politics and made the BSU the most powerful pressure group on campus," according to "Blow It Up!"
"Our thing was not simply to understand the world. Our duty was to change it," Garrett says. "Everybody on the campus who identified themselves as a black person, whether they were a student, faculty, worked in the yards, you were a member of the Black Student Union by definition."
Garrett was the first chair, and Varnado was the on-campus coordinator. Word got around, and soon their expertise was being sought at other campuses.
"We had a student who called us from Stanford and he said, 'There's only six or seven of us, can we set up a Black Student Union?'" Garrett says. "We worked at every institution that would open space for us: community college, high school, elementary school."
College outreach
Within a year, the BSU was at every state college in California. There were BSU sweatshirts, BSU dances, but the most important aspect was the BSU outreach into high schools with tutorials and college prep programs."Having the name Black Student Union, we were not afraid to go to the ghetto. We were not afraid to go to Hunters Point," says Varnado. "We tried to recruit students to come to college. We wanted them to join the BSU also, but the primary reason was for them to get an education."
The BSU pressed campus administrators for a more liberal admissions policy. A year after its launch, the black population at San Francisco State had doubled, Garrett says, and a year after that, it doubled again.
"Enrollment was increased and many lives were changed because of the outreach they did," says Umoja of the National Council of Black Studies. "BSUs in the late '60s and early '70s provided a key role for tens of thousands of black kids in the United States."
Much of that was the result of the student strike to institutionalize minority curriculums. The walkout started Nov. 6, 1968, and ended March, 21, 1969, making it the longest campus strike in U.S. history. By then, Garrett had moved on toward graduate school in the East, but Varnado wasn't going anywhere. He liked S.F. State so much that he changed his major to prolong his undergraduate career.
During the strike, he was arrested many times and ended up spending a year in County Jail. But it ended well. He proceeded directly from jail to law school at Hastings, though he doesn't recall ever filling out an application. That was the power of the BSU at S.F. State.
A new plaque
If you go out to the Outer Sunset campus looking for the history of the BSU, you won't find much. There is the BSU headquarters in Cesar Chavez Student Center, and there is a commemorative rock hidden in the Quad with a plaque that vaguely honors the strike but doesn't mention the BSU.Next month, a historic plaque that speaks specifically to the BSU and its sister in arms, the Third World Liberation Front, will be mounted in the front lobby of the ethnic studies building.
Garrett and Varnado will be proud to see it, but they're more proud of what stands behind it.
"I'm just happy that the ethnic studies department is still in existence at San Francisco State," Varnado says. "It's beyond anything that I could have imagined."
Garrett breaks it down to numbers: "Six thousand students take those courses every semester."
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Democracy in Nigeria: Gen. Buhari wins, Badluck befalls loser but he accepts defeat. Ase'
Women vote
Traditional rulers
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Mumia's wife, Wadiya: Stop trying to kill my husband, free him now!
It’s Time to Stop Trying to Kill My Husband and Free Him Now!! |  |
Mumia and Wadiya, February 6, 2012 |
Wadiya Jamal, April 5, 2015 Enough is enough!!! Today is my birthday. April 24 is Mumia’s 61st birthday. But today my husband is in critical condition in a cell in the infirmary at SCI Mahanoy. We need Mumia free and home!!! This rotten ass system has made many attempts on my husband's life when his only crime is that on December 9, 1981 he survived a cop’s gunshot to the chest through his lungs to the liver, a serious ass whipping by cops on the street of 13th and Locust, then cops surrounding his hospital bed stepping on his urine bag making the poison go back up into his body. He is innocent in the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner and the cops on the scene all knew that. But Mumia was convicted for a murder he did not commit and sentenced to death. For over 30 years my husband was on death row in solitary confinement!!! where he was caged 24 hours a day, in his cell and even when outside. In general population these past three years, he has yet to receive his correct diet,!!! He developed a skin disease that spread over his whole body, treated with wrong medicine that he was allergic to, had pneumonia and last Monday, March 30, he went into diabetic shock with a blood sugar level of a deadly high of 779 and rushed to the hospital and put into the ICU on an insulin drip. During these years on death row and now slow death row, Mumia has lost his mother, his sister, a brother, our brother Jahlani, my mother, my father, and our baby girl Goldii who was very active in trying to free him 'til the end of her life. Every single one of them expected to see him come home a free man, because like us all they believe in his innocence. May Allah bless and have mercy on their sweet souls!!!! The prison didn’t even let me know my husband had been rushed to the hospital and put into the ICU. I was told by Rachel Wolkenstein and then I called to find out what happened and where Mumia was taken. And then the prison blocked my visit at the hospital until the international campaign flooded the prison and PA Department of Corrections with protest calls. Guards stood outside the hospital room and one was inside the room with Mumia. I was shocked at his condition, he had lost over 40 pounds, was weak, barely able to sit up and keep his head up, handcuffed to his chair, with labored breathing, and dry mouth. I told him about all the love outpouring for him and that the world is watching!!! News media waited outside the hospital for our report after Mumia’s brother Keith Cook and I visited Mumia. It took all my strength and the memory of our daughter Goldii for me to be able to speak to the press after seeing my very ill, weak husband. The press did report Mumia’s serious medical condition … But the press wouldn’t report my statement that Mumia is innocent, he should never have been arrested or convicted!!! He should never have been in prison. This medical condition should never have happened. Mumia needs to be free!!! The prison Superintendent promised that Keith and I and other family members would be able to visit Mumia again the next day, Wednesday. But when we arrived for the visit, we were refused, with the new “Mumia rule” that a person could have only one visit a week with a prisoner. After more protests, the prison allowed Mumia’s eldest son, Jamal Hart, who had driven over 400 miles, and his younger brother, Bill Cook to visit. They described Mumia as in worse condition than he was the day before. Jamal came out, saying, “I couldn’t stand there and watch my father in pain. I kissed and hugged him and left." Jamal and I had medical consults with the attending doctors and the ICU nurse. They described my husband’s arrival in the ICU with a blood sugar level of 779, an abnormal kidney, and dangerously high sodium levels. They had Mumia on an insulin drip and later tested him for gallstones, which they found he had. When asked, the hospital admitted that they didn’t have a diabetes specialist. That morning (Wednesday) his blood sugar level was still a very high 333. The attending doctor told us they needed his bed in the ICU for other patients. But the kidney doctor said that he would check my husband the next morning as to whether his kidney function was normal. Yet, just a few hours later, without letting us know, Mumia was sent back to the prison, without an expert medical diagnosis or a treatment plan or his sugar levels under control. He was transferred back to the prison infirmary with a temperature of 102 degrees, to the same people who knew for weeks and didn’t treat his “new onset diabetes” before he collapsed and went into diabetic shock. This is execution by medical neglect and mistreatment. On Thursday, April 2, I spoke with the Chief Health Care Administrator at SCI Mahanoy who gave me a report and said that I could call and get medical updates on Mumia’s health day or night. But from my first call late Thursday night through this weekend, my attempts to reach the infirmary were blocked. On Friday, April 3, some family and friends were able to visit Mumia. Instead of allowing visits in the infirmary, they had Mumia brought down to the general visiting room in a wheelchair. He had to go through security checks between the infirmary and the visiting area, meaning taking his clothes on and off and a body search. His brother Keith Cook, who had seen Mumia on Tuesday said Mumia appeared worse. My sister, Rachel Wolkenstein, said Mumia appeared very sick, and was so weak he was barely able to hold a pen to sign a legal document. Mumia told those visiting, also including Mike Africa, Abdul John and Johanna Fernandez, that his morning blood sugar was 186 and spiked again to around 330 after a lunch of spaghetti! Mumia was very tired but alert and asked about the court hearing on the “Silencing Act” went and whether there was a decision yet. We have no new information on Mumia’s condition. Pam Africa and Johanna Fernandez are attempting to visit him Monday, April 6. I will be visiting on Thursday. Diabetes is a deadly disease. My mother had diabetes. It requires constant care and healthy food. It can lead to loss of eyesight, nerve damage, amputation and loss of kidney function. Mumia has had problems with his feet and leg for years, also not adequately treated. Send your letters and cards with love and news to Mumia. His address is: Mumia Abu-Jamal, #AM 8335, SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Dr., Frackville, PA 17932. To all those people around the world who have stated their love and support for Mumia over the years, please, please, please ACT NOW!!!! MUMIA MUST LIVE!!!! . HE NEEDS MEDICAL CARE AND ATTENTION. WE NEED TO FIGHT FOR HIM TO GET THAT CARE NOW. BUT WE NEED TO FIGHT TO GET MUMIA OUT OF PRISON, FREE AND HOME, NOW!!! Wadiya Jamal, with Big Pride Send your message back to me via my Facebook “in box” at: Write to me at: Wadiya Jamal, PO Box 19404, Kingsessing Station, Philadelphia, Pa. 19143-9998 WE NEED TO KEEP UP THE PRESSURE. Let SCI Mahanoy Superintendent John Kerestes and Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel know we insist that Mumia have a diabetes specialist examine and treat him. |
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Wadiya Jamal, outside hospital |
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Samiya (Goldii) Performs at Mumia's 55th
Birthday & Book Release Party (2009)
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Now booking the Wild Crazy Ride Called the Marvin X Experience, raw, uncut, xxxxxxx-rated!
Bob Holman says "Marvin X is the USA's Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz." Ishmael Reed says Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.
Poet Marvin X, accompanied by David Murray and Earle Davis
BAM celebration at Oakland's Laney College: Panel on BAM and Women Writers
Elaine Brown, Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson, Kujichagulia, Aries Jordan
MARCH 31, 2015
BERKELEY CA
MEETING TO PROTEST RACISM AT BERKELEY HIGH SCHOOL
MAY 22, 2015
CHICAGO ILL
CONFERENCE ON SUN RA AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
May TBA
University of California, Merced, Kim McMillan Theatre Class
JUNE 5,6,7, 2015
FEATURED AUTHOR AT THE SACRAMENTO BOOK FAIR
JUNE 13, 2015
JUNETEENTH SAN FRANCISCO ON FILLMORE STREET
SAN DIEGO CA. TBA
MARVIN X READING
Why not Invite Marvin X to a
venue in your town? You won't be
disappointed, although you are advised to bring your seat belt and air
bag. Ishmael Reed says, "If you want motivation and inspiration, don't
spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at
14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and watch Marvin X at work. He's
Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!" Bob Holman calls him the
USA's Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz. Amiri Baraka wrote, "Marvin X has always been
in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the
founders and innovators in the revolutionary school of African
writing."
Marvin X and the BAM Poet's Choir & Arkestra, Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland, 2014
Many of the movement’s leading artists, including Ed Bullins, Nikki Giovanni, Woodie King, Haki Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Touré, Marvin X and Val Gray Ward, remain artistically productive today. Its influence can also be seen in the work of later artists, from the writers Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, and August Wilson to actors Avery Brooks, Danny Glover, and Samuel L. Jackson, to hip-hop artists Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Chuck D. SOS—Calling All Black People includes works of fiction, poetry, and drama in addition to critical writings on issues of politics, aesthetics, and gender. It covers topics ranging from the legacy of Malcolm X and the impact of John Coltrane’s jazz to the tenets of the Black Panther Party and the music of Motown. The editors have provided a substantial introduction outlining the nature, history, and legacy of the Black Arts Movement as well as the principles by which the anthology was assembled.
Marvin's play Flowers for the Trashman and a poem on Malcolm X appears in SOS
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf proclaims BAM Day in Oakland, at Laney College
Left to right: Paul Cobb, Dr. Leslee Stradford, Rt. Col. Conway Jones, Jr., Marvin X,
Mayor Libby Schaaf holding Marvin's granddaughter Naima Joy, also his grandson Jah Amiel, Laney College President Dr. Elnora T. Webb, Dr. Nathan Hare, father of Black Studies, President of Oakland City Council, Lynette McElhaney
photo South Park Kenny Johnson
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
Black Arts Movement chief architect Amiri Baraka (RIP), Black Panther Party Co-founder Bobby Seale, BAM student Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Ahi Baraka, and Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, in the heart of the BAM District.
photo Gene Hazzard
Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner in the heart of the BAM District, 14th and Broadway.
photo Adam Turner
Marvin X reception in Harlem at the home of Rashidah Ismaili, 2014
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Reporter Encounters Houthi Gunmen in Yemen | The Fight for Yemen | FRONT...
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Dr. Ron Daniels on the Reparations Movement
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Poem for Lady Day @ 100: Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit
For you Lady Day @ 100
Queen of the Blues Black Classic sound
Strange Fruit hangin above the ground
Black lives Matter then and now
we love the songs you gave
they handcuffed you to yr bed
on the way to your grave
sing Billie
yr songs for eternity
Lover Man, My Man
All of me
Yeah, why not take all of me
Sing Billie
from your heaven throne
God bless the child
that's got his own....
--Marvin X
7 April 2015
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