In Honor of Women's History Month: A Memoir of Poet, Critic, Novelist, Professor Sherley Ann Williams
![Sherley Anne Williams's picture]()
Sherley Anne Williams was born in Bakersfield, California and was an African-American poet. Many of her works tell stories about her life in the African-American community. When she was little her family picked cotton in order to get money. At the age of eight her father died of tuberculosis and when she was sixteen her mother died. In 1966 she earned her bachelors degree in English at what is now California State University at Fresno and she received her master's degree at Brown University in 1972. The following year (1973) she became a professor of English Literature at the University of California at San Diego. Her works include collections of poetry such as The Peacock Poems (1975), the novel Dessa Rose (1986), and two picture books.
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Mama told her star child, Marvin X, who didn't know he was her star child, although his eight siblings knew, not to get married, rather she prescribed that he needed a maid, secretary and mistress, not a wife. Mama knew his high school girlfriends, especially his main two, Catholic School girl Patricia Smith, a year ahead of him, whom he married and gave him his two sons. Mama knew his other high school girlfriend as well, Shereley Ann Williams, with whom he experienced from the fifth grade through high school graduation. Yes, Mama knew both girls, but told him he should marry Sherley Ann because she was smart. Mama loved intelligence and hated ignorance, after all, she was a self educated woman who only graduated from high school but became the top black business woman as a real estate broker in Fresno, California. Even before she became a businesswoman in her own right, she and her husband, Owendell Jackmon I, were real estate brokers in the late 40s and 50s and sold homes to most North Americans in Fresno, yes, during the era of redlining. Additionally, his parents published a black newspaper called the Fresno Voice. Yes, his parents were called Race man and woman. His father was without influenced by the Marcus Garvey Movement. He told his star child son that he'd seen Marcus Garvey in Los Angeles, 1923. Father Jackmon was a WWI veteran who'd served in the cavalry as a bugler. Yes, he rallied the troops. He used to awaken his children with the cavalry mantra, "Dismount, unsettle your horses and clean your equipment!" Marvin X childhood memories are hearing his parents discuss the N double A, CP, endlessly, along with his father's constant talk of the Black Belt South, Communist terminology for the Jim Crow South.
Marvin X, in his Gemini madness, loved Pat and Sherey but wanted to marry Pat after she got pregnant in his senior year. His mother told him because a girl got pregnant, it was no reason to marry her. Again, his mother had advised him not to marry at all but if he wanted to marry, Sherley was the girl because she was smart and most of all, his mother loved intelligence and hated ignorance.
Marvin and Pat enjoyed a sensual relationship, especially in the 100 plus degree heat of the Central Valley. But when he and Sherley Ann Williams got to high school, their intellectual love affair began.
They were in the Honor Society, lifetime members of the CSF, California Scholarship Federation, State Honor Society; members of the drama club and speech club. Marvin and Sherley performed in the school production of Dino, made famous by actor Sal Mineo, with Marvin as Dino. Intellectually, Sherley was Marvin's teacher. She turned him onto Cervantes' Don Quixote but more especially novelist Frank Yerby.
Sherley educated Marvin to literature and blues. He educated her to revolution.
After a failed relationship, an aborted child that Marvin X regrets to this day, Sherley concuded, "Marvin X and I are friends and sometimes we fuck!"
A tenured professor at UC San Diego, she died at 51 years old. When she died, famed author Dr. William H. Grier, co-author of the 60s classic Black Rage, told his son, Geoffery Grier, brother of David Allen Grier, also an actor to portrayed Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton in Marvin's docudrama One Day in the Life, "Tell Marvin, Sherley didn't die from asthma but from toxic white supremacy at UC San Diego." Indeed, Sherley had told Marvin for years that she was in a toxi relationship with her white female colleagues at UC San Diego, she hadn't spoken with them in years were her last words to Marvin X.
Sherley Anne Williams was born in Bakersfield, California and was an African-American poet. Many of her works tell stories about her life in the African-American community. When she was little her family picked cotton in order to get money. At the age of eight her father died of tuberculosis and when she was sixteen her mother died. In 1966 she earned her bachelors degree in English at what is now California State University at Fresno and she received her master's degree at Brown University in 1972. The following year (1973) she became a professor of English Literature at the University of California at San Diego. Her works include collections of poetry such as The Peacock Poems (1975), the novel Dessa Rose (1986), and two picture books.
Mama told her star child, Marvin X, who didn't know he was her star child, although his eight siblings knew, not to get married, rather she prescribed that he needed a maid, secretary and mistress, not a wife. Mama knew his high school girlfriends, especially his main two, Catholic School girl Patricia Smith, a year ahead of him, whom he married and gave him his two sons. Mama knew his other high school girlfriend as well, Shereley Ann Williams, with whom he experienced from the fifth grade through high school graduation. Yes, Mama knew both girls, but told him he should marry Sherley Ann because she was smart. Mama loved intelligence and hated ignorance, after all, she was a self educated woman who only graduated from high school but became the top black business woman as a real estate broker in Fresno, California. Even before she became a businesswoman in her own right, she and her husband, Owendell Jackmon I, were real estate brokers in the late 40s and 50s and sold homes to most North Americans in Fresno, yes, during the era of redlining. Additionally, his parents published a black newspaper called the Fresno Voice. Yes, his parents were called Race man and woman. His father was without influenced by the Marcus Garvey Movement. He told his star child son that he'd seen Marcus Garvey in Los Angeles, 1923. Father Jackmon was a WWI veteran who'd served in the cavalry as a bugler. Yes, he rallied the troops. He used to awaken his children with the cavalry mantra, "Dismount, unsettle your horses and clean your equipment!" Marvin X childhood memories are hearing his parents discuss the N double A, CP, endlessly, along with his father's constant talk of the Black Belt South, Communist terminology for the Jim Crow South.
Marvin X, in his Gemini madness, loved Pat and Sherey but wanted to marry Pat after she got pregnant in his senior year. His mother told him because a girl got pregnant, it was no reason to marry her. Again, his mother had advised him not to marry at all but if he wanted to marry, Sherley was the girl because she was smart and most of all, his mother loved intelligence and hated ignorance.
Marvin and Pat enjoyed a sensual relationship, especially in the 100 plus degree heat of the Central Valley. But when he and Sherley Ann Williams got to high school, their intellectual love affair began.
They were in the Honor Society, lifetime members of the CSF, California Scholarship Federation, State Honor Society; members of the drama club and speech club. Marvin and Sherley performed in the school production of Dino, made famous by actor Sal Mineo, with Marvin as Dino. Intellectually, Sherley was Marvin's teacher. She turned him onto Cervantes' Don Quixote but more especially novelist Frank Yerby.
Sherley educated Marvin to literature and blues. He educated her to revolution.
After a failed relationship, an aborted child that Marvin X regrets to this day, Sherley concuded, "Marvin X and I are friends and sometimes we fuck!"
A tenured professor at UC San Diego, she died at 51 years old. When she died, famed author Dr. William H. Grier, co-author of the 60s classic Black Rage, told his son, Geoffery Grier, brother of David Allen Grier, also an actor to portrayed Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton in Marvin's docudrama One Day in the Life, "Tell Marvin, Sherley didn't die from asthma but from toxic white supremacy at UC San Diego." Indeed, Sherley had told Marvin for years that she was in a toxi relationship with her white female colleagues at UC San Diego, she hadn't spoken with them in years were her last words to Marvin X.