The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience
A Video/audio documentary based on the archives
of Marvin X
The Life and Times of a North American African
Poet/Playwright/Activist/Educator/Producer/Publisher/Editor/Philosopher
“Most of all, I’m a thinker. I’m thinking 24/7. Even when I’m making love, I’m thinking about a poem, or about how nice it would be if there was another beautiful woman beside me (Divine Discontent or the addictive personality?). Sometimes I think it is one of my multiple personalities who desires that other woman, not me. For sure, that other guy ain’t gonna be satisfied until the other woman appears!” LOL
--Marvin X
Brief Bio
Born May 29, 1944, Fowler, CA
Parents: Marian Murrill Jackmon and Owendell Jackmon I
Maternal grandparents: John and Eva Murrill, Fowler CA
Maternal great grandfather: Ephraim Murrill, his death at 99 was noted in the Fresno Bee Newspaper, 1941, “....he was respected by both whites and blacks….”
But he is most comfortable at his Academy of Da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland or Lakeshore Ave.
Co-Founder of the Black Students Union, San Francisco State University, 1964
Co-Founder of Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1966
Co-Founder of the Black House, San Francisco, 1967
Co-Founder of the National Black Arts Movement, 1960s
Founder of Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, 1972
Co-Founder of the Black Men's Conference, Oakland CA, 1981
Founder of Recovery Theatre, San Francisco, 1996
Co-Founder of the Black Arts Movement Business District, Oakland CA, 2016
Marvin X's archives were acquired by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, also by Dr. Ellen McLarney, Chair, Islamic Studies Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. See her chapter on Marvin X in her forthcoming book on Black Arts Movement writers inspired by Islam. On Marvin X as the father of the genre known as Muslim American literature, see Dr. Mohja Khaf, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
"When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express Black male urban experiences in a lyrical way."
--James G. Spady, RIP
"The USA'S Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz!"
--Bob Holman
"His writing is orgasmic! ...He reaches in and pulls from a life lived hard, deep, wide, high, low, i.e., a sacrifice in blood. At the root of sacrifice is sacred, which is of God and for God. He has lived and examined the lives of the proverbial 10,000 black men and women. His writings give us the truth of that experience, lived and examined."
--Fahizah Alim
"He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!"
--Ishmael Reed
"He's the African Socrates teaching in the hood!
--Dr. Cornel West
"Marvin X has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the founders and innovators of the Revolutionary School of African writing."
--Amiri Baraka, RIP
"The starting point for Muslim American literature is Marvin X!"
--Dr. Mohja Kahf, Professor of English and Islamic Studies, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
"...Highly informed, he speaks to many societal levels and to both genders—to the intellectual as well as to the man/woman on the street or the unfortunate in prison—to the mind as well as the heart. His topics range from global politics and economics to those between men and women in their household. Common sense dominates his thought. He shuns political correctness for the truth of life. He is a Master Teacher in many fields of thought—religion and psychology, sociology and anthropology, history and politics, literature and the humanities. He is a needed Counselor, for he knows himself, on the deepest of personal levels and he reveals that self to us, that we might be his beneficiaries.
--Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal
The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience
Written and directed by Marvin X
Executive Editor Ken Johnson
Academy of Da Corner Production
from the archives of Marvin X, aka El Muhahjir
Featuring
Dr. Cornel West
Amiri Baraka
Sonia Sanchez
Fillmore Slim
Dr. Nathan Hare
Rev. Cecil Williams
Mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco
Mayor Libby Schaaf, Oakland
Muhammida El Muhajir
Amira Jackmon
Nefertitti Jackmon
James Rhodes
Tacuma King
Phavia Kujichagulia
Kumasi
Umar Ben Hasan
Geoffery Grier
Dr. Ayodele Nzinga
Rudi Mwongozi
Destiny Muhammad
Raynetta Rayzetta
Mechelle LaChaux
Kele Nitoto
Suzzette Celeste
Dr. Julia Hare
Ishmael Reed
Tarika Lewis
Bobby Seale
Elaine Brown
Pam Pam
Doris Knight
Hunia Bradley
James Sweeney
Cat Brooks
Mrs. Amina Baraka
Nisa Ra
Val Serrant
Zaid Mwongozi
Sam Anderson
Donald Lacy
Davey D
Mutima Imani
Rev. Andriette Earl
David Murray
Earle Davis
Akbar Muhammad
Abdullah Muhammad
Tentative Segments, 60 minutes each
Narrator Marvin X
1 Intro by Marvin X
2 Conversations with Dr Cornel West, Parts I and II
3 In the Crazy House Called America Concert, African American Cultural Center, San Francisco, cerca 2002
4. Interviewed by Pam Pam, KPOO Radio, San Francisco, audio
5. Conversation with Black Panther Party Co-founder Bobby Seale
6The Black Arts Movement: Conversation with the Last Poet, Umar Ben Hasan
7Black August and the American Prison Movement, Marvin X interviews Black August Griot, Kumasi
8Introduction and Conversation with Amiri Baraka At Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2009, Audio
9Audio Interview with Donald Lacy on the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party
10Marvin X performance at Yoshi's SF, opens for Amiri Baraka and Roscoe Mitchell of the Chicago Art Ensemble
11Forum on Drugs, Art and Revolution, Sista's Place, Brooklyn NY, participants: Sam Anderson, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Amina Baraka, Elombe Brathe, Marvin X
13 Talk at Black Caucus of California Community Colleges
14 Reading at UC Berkeley with Amiri Baraka
15Marvin X in Concert at Black Repertory Group Theater
16 Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness, SF State University, April 1, 2001
17 Marvin X at SF Juneteenth
18Marvin X, producer of BAM 50th Anniversary, Laney College, Peralta College Television
19Marvin X at Sun Ra Conference, Symposium on Afro-futurism, University of Chicago
20Marvin X in Concert at Warm Daddy's, Philly, accompanied by Marshall Allen, Danny Thompson, Noel,members of Sun Ra Arkestra; Elliott Bey, Alexander El, Ancestor Goldsky, Rufus Harley on Bagpipes
21Marvin X In Concert with Amiri Baraka, Black Repertory Group Theater, Berkeley
22Amiri Baraka 75th birthday party, Yoshi's SF
23 Marvin X reads Amiri Baraka's Dope at Malcolm X Jazz festival Oakland, accompanied by
David Murray, Earle Davis and the BAM Poets Choir and Arkestra
24 Tenderloin Black Radical Book Fair, 2004
25SF Theater Festival
26Memorial for Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka, New York University
27Docudrama One Day in the Life, Banam Place Theatre, North Beach, SF
28Talk at Berkeley City College
29Interview by Junious Ricardo Stanton, Philly Locks Conference
30Interview and Reading at WBAI, NYC, National Poetry Month
31 Reading Nigga Wanna Pimp on Wall Street
32. December 12 Movement Press Conference at NY City Hall
Photographers, Videographers
Ken Johnson
Khalid Waajid
William Hammons
Kamau Amen-Ra, RIP
Adam Turner
Gene Hazzard
Peralta Television
Berkeley City College
Greg Fields
Amadi Ajamu
Travion Cotton
Leon Teasley
Sponsors of past Marvin X projects
Mayor Willie Brown’s Office
Zellerbach Family Fund
SF Arts Commission
Marin County Board of Supervisors
Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission
Columbia University
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
California Endowment
Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union
Black Arts Movement Business District, CDC
Akonadi Foundation
WBAI Pacifica Radio, NYC
Hard knock Radio, KPFA Radio, Berkeley
Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s Office
If you would like to be a sponsor of this documentary,
call Marvin X: 510-575-7148
Your sponsorship can be tax deductible. Here is a final
comment from our recently departed ancestor, James
W. Sweeney: "Courageous and outrageous, Marvin X
walked through the muck and mire of hell and came
out clean as white fish and black as coal! He is the
freest Black man in non-free America!"
--James W. Sweeney, RIP
(c) Marvin X 2020
All Rights Reserved
Contact: mxjackmon@gmail.com
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com