Marvin X: The Meta-Mayor of Oakland CA
Master Writer Ishmael Reed has always honored and supported Marvin X. Reed's Literary
Society Pen Oakland, presented Marvin X with a lifetime achievement award. Of Marvin X's docudrama of addiction and recovery, One Day in the Life, Reed said, "It's the most powerful drama I've seen."]
AB and Marvin X, co-founder of BAM and BAMBD, Oakland's Black Arts Movement Business District along the 14th Street corridor from the Lower Bottom to Lake Merritt.
Oakland Mayoral candidate Cat Brooks and Meta-Mayor Marvin X
Marvin X supports Cat Brooks for Mayor
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Poet-playwright Marvin X and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
"We appreciate Mayor Willie Brown for supporting our Recovery Theatre and my docudrama of addiction and recovery, One Day in the Life. The Mayor gave grant funds from the Mayor's Office and introduced my play at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre to a sold out crowd. We thank San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown for his help in making One Day in the Life the longest running African American drama in Northern California history.
Ishmael Reed calls him, "Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland." Bob Holman says, "He is the USA's Rumi, the wisdom of Saadi, the ecstasy of Hafiz, the politics of Amiri Baraka, the humor of Pietri.
As we go into the City of Oakland elections, Oakland's Black politicos are finding their way to Oakland's Meta-Mayor, poet/scholar/organizer, philosopher Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore.
He is likely to return soon to his original classroom at 14th and Broadway, where he initially made himself accessible to the citizens of Oakland, Black, White, Brown, Yellow, no matter.
After Ishmael Reed observed X in his street corner classroom, Reed said, "If you want to learn inspiration and motivation, don't spend all that money going to seminars and workshops, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland."
Today on Lakeshore, the Meta-Mayor was visited by Peggy Moore, former chief assistant to Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, soon joined by Brother Troop, candidate for Mayor from Deep East, along with Cat Brooks and the persistent candidate for any office, Pamela Price, and with incumbent Libby Schaaf, aka, Jerry Brown in drag. LOL. See my short script Marvin X Driving Miss Libby (Youtube).
Peggy and Troop conversed and when they departed when a young writer and photographer arrived to interview me, I informed them I was the Meta-Mayor. They bowed to me in the oriental manner and I returned the bow.
As I ear-hustled their conversation and in prior comments to me, they had doubts that my favorite candidate Cat Brooks was qualified since she had no experience in city politics. Peggy noted that several City of Oakland departments are headed by Black men, e.g., planning, recreation, fire, etc.
These are the people a mayor must work with, Peggy said.
Others politicos have doubts about Cat Brooks because of her antipathy with the Oakland Police Department. Cat Brooks is head of the Anti-Police Terrorism Project. We long ago told Cat to visit Newark, New Jersey, to student the City of Newark's Police Model, under Mayor Ras Baraka. She might also learn how Mayor Baraka deals with developers and gentrification, demanding 20% housing for below market rate citizens in new housing developments. We suggest Cat Brooks invite Mayor Ras Baraka to Oakland to speak on her behalf.
As per Cat Brooks antipathy with the OPD, we suggest reconciliation as Mayor Ras Baraka has done in Newark, NJ. His mother, Mrs. Amina Baraka, informed me Mayor Baraka has stopped the police killing Black men but has not stopped Black men from killing Black men!
After candidate Troop returned from his conversation with Peggy Moore, he stopped at Academy of da Corner and said, "We know this, if Black men and women can feed themselves, they are not likely to go out shooting each other. With bellies full, they are likely to kick back and relax. But if they are hungry and cannot satisfy their hunger, all manner of crimes are likely. So we need jobs."
As Meta-Mayor, I said/wrote years ago, "Bush and Baraka offered three things to the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan, "If you lay arms and pledge allegiance to the constitution of your countries, we will provide you with education, housing and jobs." When America is ready to do this for the desperate young men and women in her inner cities, we suspect the violence will subside.
As mayoral candidate Brother Troop departed with The Movement Newspaper (Marvin X Publisher, no longer in circulation due to lack of funds), he pointed to the picture of Marvin X and Mayor Libby Schaaf alongside the City of Oakland's Proclamation honoring the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, of which Marvin X is one of the founders with his Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1966, Black House Cultural/Political Center, (Co-founded with Eldridge Cleaver, Ed Bullins, Ethna Wyatt, Willie and Vernastine Dale, San Francisco, 1967; New Lafayette Theatre, Harlem, 1968 (associate editor of Black Theatre Magazine; Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, 1972; Recovery Theatre, 1996-2002. He said, "Hopefully, the day will come when I will be the Mayor and take a picture with you as you have with Mayor Labby Schaaf.
The Meta-Mayor was soon occupied with a young writer/photographer from New York who seeks to photograph and interview Oakland's Plato, Rumi, Hafiz, Saadi, Pietri, Baraka.
--Marvin X
7 September 2018