Huey P. Newton, The Rain Man
photo art Gene Hazzard
"Marvin X was my teacher. Many of our comrades came through his Black Arts Movement Theatre, i.e., Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Emory Douglas, George Murray, Samuel Napier, Judy Juanita, Jo Ann Mitchell, Ellendar Barnes, et al."
--Dr. Huey P. Newton, Co-Founder, Black Panther Party, Oakland CA, October, 1966
Dr. Huey P. Newton, Co-Founder of the Black Panther Party, was assassinated on August 22, 1989 on Center Street in West Oakland, a few blocks from what was the Cypress freeway. On October 17, 1989, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit the Bay Area, crashing the Cypress freeway, the Bay Bridge and other structures, causing more than $5 billion in damages. The Cypress freeway was replaced as the Mandela Parkway. Today, on the 55th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, a. bust of Dr. Huey. P. Newton was unveiled on the parkway. The ceremony occurred despite a drenching storm. Was Huey saying to those attending the unveiling of his bust, "I departed as the earthquake, I return as the storm!"?
As I approached the event full of people under umbrellas and tents, the first person I ran into was novelist Cecil Brown, author of The Life and Love of Mr. Jive Ass Nigga. Cecil, a Stanford University Professor, said, "Marvin, they should have a bust over there of you!" I didn't answer him but thought to myself would that mean I would be dead? As we chatted in the rain and I scanned the crowd, Cecil remarked that President Biden is pitiful. I retorted, "Do you think he's a Chinese agent?" No, Cecil said, I think they're working together. But, he continued, don't you think this Covid19 is germ warfare? I shoot back, "Absolutely. Do you think the Chinese are so stupid they would fight the white man with guns? The Chinese have ten thousand years of culture and can easily outthink the white man." Cecil said, "You're right, whitey just got out of the cave a few years ago!" I asked him where was the bust, he pointed where I could see Huey's natural above the crowd. We departed and I eased my way toward the bust but the crowd was tight so I took refuge under a tent that turned out to be the stage where Fantastic Negrito was doing a sound check. I love Fantastic Negrito and his neo-blues, but more so because Oakland's three-time Grammy winner is so humble, perhaps because he was in a terrible car accident but miraculously survived. He appreciates life. His first song was entitled From Dark to Light. But his song was interrupted by Sista Akua on another mike, and she was demanding to be heard. Apparently the MC tried to prevent her from speaking but this Chicago Black Panther woman was determined. Of course she was only the widow of Fred Hampton and you know she was pregnant in the bed with him when the Chicago pigs assassinated him with detailed information supplied by a black snitch. Akua gave a brief history of her and Fred's work in the Chicago Black Panther Party. She noted how Fred had established his rainbow coalition. After her short speech, Fantistic Negrito resumed his song From Dark to Light with a female backup singer, drummer and keyboard player.
As I stood under the tent swaying to the beats of Fantastic, a masked man approached me that I recognized as D'wayne Wiggins of the band Tony Toni Tone. Although I already knew, he informed me of his trip to Accra, Ghana and meeting my daughter, Muhammida El Muhajir. I asked rhetorically, "How was she?" He replied, "She's powerful, powerful!" I wish I was humble as Fantastic Negrito and my children too, but Muhammida told me to tell North American Africans don't think they can come to Accra and not deal with her. Dad, I run this! She said her Howard University school mate, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, came to Accra and tried to get past her. They ended up at the same house party!
After enjoying the neo-blues of Fantastic, I made my way toward the bust of my buddy, Huey P. As I recall in my conversation with Cecil Brown, he'd asked me about my play One Day in the Life with the scene of my last meeting with Huey in a West Oakland Crack house across from the Acorn Projects a couple of blocks away. The scene was made into a one-act play entitled Salaam, Huey, Salaam, co-authored by playwright Ed Bullins and myself, produced off-broadway by Woody King's New Federal Theatre. I said, "Cecil, they don't want to see my play because it's not a romantic version of Huey, it's reality. Nigga's want fantasy not reality!"
I made it to the bust and put my hand on the rock. Like the earthquake and rain, was the rock symbolic as well? Was it the Crack rock, the rock of chemical and germ warfare the USA's Cointerpro machine made pervasive in its war against the Black Liberation Army and North American Africans in general? Was it simultaneously the Rock of Sisyphus he was condemned to roll up the mountain for eternity, only to have it fall from his hands thus he had to begin anew. Both W.E.B. DuBois and Amiri Baraka deconstructed the Greek myth of Sisyphus as a critical myth-ritual in the North American African narrative of how I got ovah or why we didn't get ovah!
As I departed the bust of Huey, several photographers took my pic at the bust, so I told them I will pay the first one who sends me some pics like yesterday. Gene Hazzard was the first. Thank you Gene.
Before I could head to my car and go home since I was pretty much dripping wet, I brother on security informed me that Akua and her son Fred Hampton, Jr. were in the car to my right and wanted to speak with me. I went to the car and embraced Akua. Tell me what mother, what wife in America has been through more trauma and grief than Akua? I embraced her and then hugged her son, Fred, Jr. who told me how much he loved me and I did the same. And then I said, "Big Fred, you know who we love and who love us too: Mrs. Amina Baraka!
Fred shouted yes, yes, yes. Oh, Marvin, you know I love me some Mrs. Amina Baraka!"
I said good-bye to Akua (Isis in Kemit mythology) and her son (Horus) as they search to liberate the revolutionary vitality of Fred Hampton (Osirus, crucified but resurrected and ascended on a rainy day in the Bay). Power to the People!
--El Muhajir/Marvin X
10/24/21