Left to right: Kokavulu Lumukanda and Marvin X
"Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland."--Ishmael Reed, Emeritus Lecturer, UC Berkeley, MacArthur Genius Awardee
"Marvin X is the African Socrates teaching in the hood!"--Dr. Cornel West, Harvard University, #4 of the 50th Greatest Minds in the World, 2020
Comment by Marvin X
Don't discount the remarks of Paul Cobb. Without a doubt, Lumukanda is one of the great grassroots Intellectuals in the Bay Area, after all, he operated several book stores in downtown Oakland. For sure, he is equal to another book store owner, Dr Raye Richardson of Marcus Garvey Books. She was declared The Mother of Black Studies. Shall we declare Lumukanda the Father of Black Studies in the Hood, since he was never a part of black academia, alas, nor was J.A. Rogers, our greatest Black historian, quoted by WEB Dubois and Elijah Muhammad, among others. Don't discount our great grassroots Intellectuals! I will put J.A. Rogers against any Western trained African/Negropean histriographer. Name them:
Cheikh Anta Diop
Chancellor Williams
Dr. Ben
Dr. Clarke
WEB Dubois, love his The World and Africa, wherein he quoted Rogers.
George M James, Stolen Legacy
As per myself, I am saddened by the fact that non black and white scholars, i.e., Asian and Arab, have found the interest to deconstruct me.
1. Bob Holman, a Jew, I presume, put me in the center of Persian literature when he called me the USA'S Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz. This is the greatest honor of my life as a writer. Do you think it matters to me that I am not recognized in European and Negropean/African literature? But what writer writes to be recognized by anyone? I write to write, not to be famous or commercial. More than likely, if I didn't write I would be a killer, mass killer, and 50% of my victims would be white, the other 50% black. Ask the Mau Mau! Ask Harriet Tubman, i.e., she had to put a gun upside the head of slaves who didn't want to be free. What did she say, "I could have freed more slaves if they had known they were slaves!" Alas, in 2020 one must fight with the neo-slave to free him/her from neo-slavery.\
2. Dr. Mohja Khaf, Syrian poet declared The Black Arts Movement poets the founders of the genre Muslim American literature, no matter they were/are not Sunni, Shia or profess their original sectarian version of Islam as all Muslims do, see Senegal and their Saint Bamba! Touba, the African Holy City is as sacred as Mecca to African Muslims.
3. Dr Ellen McLarney, Duke University. We await her book on the Black Arts Movement poets and the genre of Muslim American literature.
4. We must credit our dearly departed Critic James G Spady for the most intense deconstruction of my writing and radical activist career. See his essays on Marvin X.
5. Also, althout it has nothing to do with me except in the long history of African Muslim American history, as per black history in Arabia, after Rogers World's Great Men of Color, et al, critical reading is Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire by Drusilla Dunjee Houston.
6. Of course we cannot neglect From Babylon to Timbuktu.
7. Again, as per Marvin X, see Critic Lorenzo Thomas, RIP, for attempting to put me in the Islamic tradition. Please note, I have not tried to be in any tradition. At the Malcolm X Jazz Festival in Oakland, I was introduced by a hip hop poet as one who called myself Rumi. Por favor, I have never called myself Rumi, Hafiz, Saadi, Plato, Socrates or anyone but myself, i.e., a nigga in da alley with the machete with blood shot eyes drinking rot gut wine. Now deconstruct this shit, por favor!
Comment from our Great Historian John Bracey
Greetings Marvin and friends,
Hope that all is as well as possible in your parts of the world.
I would add to your list St.Clair Drake's magnificent 2 volume Black Folk Here and There. The first volume contains
one of the few efforts to analyze and incorporate the insights of the scholars you mentioned into debates that too often
take place as if they had never written a word. Drake's work is so unique in method and scope that few academics have figured
out how to teach it.
I had the privilege of experiencing first hand the talents of most of the scholars you mentioned who were alive in my time. Chancellor Williams taught the Intro to Sociology course in the Howard U. Honors Program. He published two books on the politics and culture of contemporary Africa in the 1950's before the wave of newly independent states. He gave me signed copies of each in the hope that Africa would soon get the attention it deserved. The Destruction of Black Civilization solved that problem.
I have a picture of Chancellor and Nana Nketsia in my living room a decade later. I had invited Chancellor and Nana to lunch on the occasion of Chancellor giving a lecture at Amherst College. Chancellor, along with St Clair Drake and Lorenzo Turner, my favorite
teachers at Roosevelt University, were most generous, in and out of the classroom, in sharing their knowledge of Africa.
Dr. Clarke and Dr. Ben were delights to be in the presence of. I could ask one question then sit back and listen to their hour long answer. I once persuaded Dr. Clarke and Harold Cruse to share a panel on Cruse's Plural But Equal at a meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. They both promised me that they would behave and act scholarly in front of the younger folk. That lasted all of five minutes when Dr. Clarke opened up with a blistering attack on Cruse's book, politics and personal life. Harold fought back and it was intellectual pandemonium for an hour and a half. I passed on Cruse's request for a "rematch" since he felt he had been ambushed by Dr. Clarke.
In 1956 my mother dragged me to a lecture by Dr. DuBois at Rankin Chapel at Howard U. I was fifteen years old and Friday night was party night.
I grew up on a campus surrounded by many of the nation's leading artists and thinkers, e.g., E.Franklin Frazier, John Hope Franklin, Sterling Brown, Frank Snowden, Dorothy Porter, Merze Tate, Margaret Just Butcher, Lois Malliou Jones, James Porter. My sister and I had been going to lectures and other events since elementary school.
Though almost 90 years old, Du Bois was different. On the way home I asked my mother had he written anything she thought I should read. She said try The Souls of Black Folk. I read it in one evening and never looked back. I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
Bear with me for going on so long. Your email stirred up a lot of fond memories.
Stay safe and well.
Peace,
John Bracey