Marvin X introduced Eldridge Cleaver to the Black Panther Party. Cleaver and Marvin became friends after the staff of Black Dialogue Magazine visited the Soledad Prison Black Culture Club, chaired by Cleaver and Bunchy Carter, 1966. When Cleaver was released from prison, late 1966, he and Marvin established The Black House, political/cultural center, San Francisco.
After Cleaver's return from exile, Marvin helped him organize his Born Again ministry and traveled throughout the Americas as Cleaver's chief aide. Marvin officiated Cleaver's memorial service in Oakland, 1998.
PBS interviewed Black Arts Movement founder Marvin X on his relationship with founding members of the Black Panther Party. PBS director/producer Stanley Nelson questioned the poet, first asking about his relationship with Eldridge Cleaver--Marvin titled his memoir of Eldridge "My friend the Devil".
Why "the devil" Nelson asked. "Well, everybody called him the devil, even while he was in prison they called him devil eyes (see Soul on Ice). I met him when the staff of Black Dialogue magazine was invited by his lawyer/lover Beverly Axelrod to make a presentation at Soledad Prison's Black Culture Club. We saw this was more than a club but was actually a military organization inside the prison. According to prison griot Kumasi, this club was actually the beginning of the American prison movement. Now Eldridge and Alprintis Bunchy Carter were running this prison organization in a military fashion, with brothers on post. Of course the chairman was Eldridge. Bunchy was co-chair.
Nelson: What did you think about Eldridge at this time?
MX: I thought he was a dangerous Negro and if/when he was released, somebody would have hell to pay. I could see he was very intelligent and seasoned in warfare and steeped in Communist ideology, much more ideologically astute than Bobby and Huey could/would ever be. I sensed that if he were in an organization he would be the leader because of his intelligence and ego. Huey and Bobby may have
had egos but they were no match for Eldridge, especially with his added psychopathology as a result of his criminal past and having spent a total of 18 years in prison upon his release in late 1966.
When he was released in December, 1966, I was the first person he hooked up with and I soon convinced him to put his advance from Soul on Ice on the rent of a Victorian on Broderick Street in San Francisco we named The Black House, a political/cultural center.
Unlike Black Arts West Theatre, the Black bourgeoisie supported Black House, perhaps because we had a "famous" author in the house. BAW had fallen apart due to ego tripping so playwright Ed Bullins and Ethna Wyatt (Ethna X, Hurriyah Asar) joined us at Black House. But Black House soon suffered the same fate as BAW, ego and ideological tripping.
Eldridge wanted us artists to become Communists and we resisted, and when he persisted on talking about "Negroes with Guns" I got the bright idea to ship him across the Bay to my friends Huey and Bobby who were indeed arming themselves for self defense against the pigs. We got in his car and drove to Bobby Seale's house in North Oakland. I got Bobby to come outside and get in the car. Soon after this meeting, Eldridge joined the BPP and became Minister of Information.
Nelson: Tell me about Bobby and Huey.
MX: I met Bobby and Huey when I enrolled at Merritt College on Grove Street (now MLK, Jr). I was 18 years old, just out of high school. I encountered them on the steps of Merritt where brothers and sisters held rallies we called rap sessions or telling the truth sessions. The rap sessions were followed by independent study sessions in our rooms or at the cafe or at "conscious" parties where at a certain point the music was cut, lights on and brothers would rap or tell the truth about our condition, based on our reading of conscious literature such as E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie, Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, Kwame Nkrumah's Imperialism: the last stage of neocolonialism, or Fidel Castro's History Will Absolve Me, etc.
As between Eldridge, Bobby and Huey, Bobby was the nice guy. Huey was a mild psychopath, Eldridge a severe psychopath! But at Merritt we were students who engaged in self study to gain revolutionary black consciousness. Someone described us as petty bourgeoisie intellectuals, which we were, if we were anything, certainly not thugs although Huey still engaged in criminal activity and street fighting.
Bobby had been working as an engineer but gave it up after reading conscious literature.
Huey had his brother Melvin teach him how to read. He rejected Melvin's attempt to teach him how to read with Dick and Jane books. Huey demanded Melvin teach him from his graduate books. Bobby had been a comedian and performed in my second play Come Next Summer, playing the role of a young black man in search of revolutionary consciousness.
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