Will Oakland establish the Black Arts Movement Cultural and Business District?

We are calling for the Black Arts Movement District along the 14th Street corridor, downtown Oakland, from Martin Luther King, Jr. Way to Alice Street. This corridor should be the resurrection of 7th Street, West Oakland, Harlem of the West. It should be the cultural and economic expression of North American Africans who have been the vanguard of resistance to white supremacy domination in Oakland and America. Yes, Oakland is the City of Resistance, like Fallujah in Iraq. Let's be clear, during the 1960s North American Africans in Oakland suffered a military defeat by the US Government's Cointelpro, the effort to prevent the rise of a black messiah and the liberation of the Black Masses. The revolutionary Black Panther Party was ultimately defeated on the streets of Oakland by police, military and intelligence agencies of America. See Stanley Nelson's film Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution. Fifty years later we are still fighting the police, miseducation of our children, urban removal (now called gentrification), joblessness and incarceration; still suffering traumatic slave syndrome, unresolved grief and a pervasive toxic environment.

Culturally, housing for North American Africans is disappearing rapidly, artistic institutions are few and funding is minimal while European American art and cultural institutions flourish, especially in the downtown area. 

Our cultural gatherings are under attack. We are fined for singing in church while Black, drumming while Black, partying at Lake Merritt while Black: No amplified music, no Bar b Que, no alcohol= No Nigguhs at the Lake! Black women from the Bay were recently kicked off the Napa Wine Train for laughing while Black. 

Richard Wright said it best in Native Son, "Your very presence is a crime against the State!...."

It is time to stand our ground, maybe it's the last stand, but stand and resist white supremacy domination in Oakland. Oakland's socalled multi-racial demographics is not what Oakland is about. Oakland is the City of Resistance to oppression and pervasive discrimination in every sphere of cultural life: political, economic, educational, religious. Resistance is the key to Oakland's past and future. The Black Arts Movement District will continue the tradition of art for liberation, not to perpetuate the world of make believe projected by the dominate culture.

WE call upon all conscious people to attend the upcoming planning meetings to demand the Black Arts Movement District.

--Marvin X

Black Arts Movement co-founder

510-200-4164

jmarvinx@yahoo.com

www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com