Are Oakland Black Artists Brain Dead?

For the last few months, I've been working on the Black Arts Movement Business District, but I have yet to hear from those Black artists who claim they are the new generation of artistic freedom fighters. Are they indeed the new generation of artistic freedom fighters, who were passed the baton from their elders? If so, why are they laying in the cut rather than on the front of the line representing themselves as the next generation of warriors? Somebody hep me! My favorite story teller Shirley Ceaser says, "Step to the front of the line. You been in the back of the line too long!"

Ole' Prophet Nat Turner


Oakland Black Artists where are you in the liberation struggle, oh, you free in the sea of nothingness, do yo own thang, gender freedom, artistic freedom, yet you are in peril in your freedom suite, the reason why BAM Master Sun Ra said fuck freedom. Oakland's Pointer Sister's sang Free Me From My Freedom! Sun Ra said all those who talked about freedom are dead, Jesus, MLK, Malcolm X, JFK, RFK, dead. He said, Marvin, stop teaching that freedom, justice and equality and teach discipline, that's what I teach my musicians: discipline.--Sun Ra



Black Arts Movement Masters Marvin X and Sun Ra, outside Marvin's Black Educational Theatre, on O'farrel between Fillmore and Webster, San Francisco. While both taught in Black Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, they worked off campus at Marvin's theatre in San Francisco, producing a fifty cast musical verson of Marvin's  BAM classic Flowers for the Trashman, retitled Take Care of Business