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Books by
Marvin X
Love and War: Poems /
In the Crazy House Called America /
Woman: Man's Best Friend /
Beyond Religion Toward Spirituality
Books by Larry Neal
Black
Fire /
Hoodoo Hollerin Bebop Ghosts
/
Visions of a Liberated Future
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Marvin X Speaks at
San Francisco State University
By
Marvin X
Marvin X returned to his Alma Mater, San Francisco State University, for a Black History Month talk in Davey D's class on Hip Hop. Davey D asked the poet about ideological differences between the
Black Arts Movement
and the political liberation movement, especially between BAM at the Black Panther Party. The poet said much of the dispute centered around arm struggle, with the Panthers decrying all those who refused to pick up the gun. He said armed struggle became an issue in the founding of the BPP since Bobby Seale and Huey distinguished themselves from their intellectual friends when they picked up guns to defend the community against police occupation and abuse under the color of law.
It was only until the Panthers attended the Pan African Cultural Festival in Algeria that they gained an understanding of the necessary role of art and culture in the liberation movement. What was ironic was that many of the Panther leaders came through Marvin X's Black Arts West Theatre, including Bobby Seale (co-founder),
Eldridge Cleaver, minister of information; Emory Douglas, minister of culture; George Murray, minister of education; and Samuel Napier, minister of distribution.
Bobby was in Come Next Summer,
X's second play written prior to and performed before he
established Black Arts West, 1966, with playwright Ed
Bullins, Hurriyah (Ethna X), Carl Bossiere, Duncan
Barber, Hillery Broadous. This is why Marvin X disputes
Larry Neal's assertion that BAM was the sister of the
liberation movement. Marvin says BAM was more like the
Mother, especially on the West Coast.
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When Eldridge Cleaver financed the Black House with his
royalties from the best seller
Soul on Ice
(1967), after his release from prison, Marvin X and Ed
Bullins operated the cultural component with Cleaver
manning the political division, but Cleaver was exposed
to a healthy dose of culture from co-founders Bullins
and X, along with Amiri Baraka's Communications Project
that performed at Black House. Other artists were Sarah
Webster Fabio, Reginald Lockett, Avotcja and the Chicago
Arts Ensemble.
Aside from armed struggle there were differences over
the use of Marxism as a tool of analysis. Cleaver wanted
the artists to be Marxist oriented but Islam was a
greater influence than Marxist-Leninism, although the
writers and poets did indeed read Mao Tse Tung's “Talks
at the Yenan Forum on Art and Literature.”
But Islam dominated Black Arts West and Black House,
aside from Cleaver and
Ed Bullins, Black House members
Marvin Jackmon (later Marvin X), Ethna Wyatt (later
Ethna X), singer Willie Dale and his wife Vernastine
were drifting into the Nation of Islam. |
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While Cleaver
had California Communist Party Secretary Roscoe Proctor
giving seminars on Communism at Black House, Black Arts
West Guru Alonzo Batin had a profound influence on those
drifting toward Islam. Ahmedia Muslim language
instructor, Ali Sharif Bey, infused the artists with his
knowledge of Arabic and Urdu. He was Marvin's first
Arabic teacher and gave him his first Arabic name,
Nazzam Al Fitnah, organizer from persecution.
Bey said the poet is an organizer or systematizer, for
he creates a system or mythology with the body of his
work. The third Islamic influence was from Aaron Ali, a
former minister in the NOI but had been set down by the
Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Aaron Ali was a shaykh or
holy man who taught linguistics to all who entered his
domain. One could not enter without assuming the most
humble persona. He used to debate in the hood with San
Francisco semanticist S.I. Hayakawa, the English
professor who became President of SFSU and crushed the
Student Strike at SFSU, using State violence. Aaron Ali
called Hayakawa an Oriental with an Occidental Mind! By
suppressing the student strike, Hayakawa proved Aaron
Ali was right.
The issue of arm struggle exploded after Marvin X
introduced Eldridge to Bobby Seale and Huey Newton.
Eldridge immediately joined the Black Panther Party and
proceeded to evict the artists. Thereafter relations
between the politicos and artists/intellectuals
degenerated. The original split happened when Bobby
departed from the SoulBook magazine
intellectuals—Ernie Allen, Mamadou Lumumba, Carol
Freeman, Isaac Moore and others—claiming they were
cowards for not taking up arms, even though they had
founded the first Black Panther Party in the Bay
Area—the Black Panther Party of Northern California.
When Huey Newton and Bobby Seale connected, they
demanded the intellectual Panthers take up arms or give
up the Panther name.
To make their point, the BPP of Self Defense fired off
rounds at a house party in San Francisco hosted by the
intellectual Panthers. Thus began the bitter struggle
between the political nationalists and the cultural
nationalists, culminating in the assassination of
Alprentis Bunchy Carter and John Huggins in the BSU
meeting forum at UCLA.
The assailants were members of the US organization under
the leadership of Kwanzaa founder
Maulana Ron Karenga,
the supreme cultural nationalist who guided Amiri Baraka
into Karenga's Kawaida religion, a syncretized belief
system concocted by Karenga.
Apparently Karenga taught Baraka the organizing skills
necessary to put together an organization that enabled
Ken Gibson to be elected Newark, New Jersey's first
black mayor. After Karenga's men were indicted for the
murder of Carter and Huggins, Baraka severed his ties
with Karenga and after witnessing Gibson selling out to
Newark’s plantation master—Prudential Insurance—before
inauguration day. After organizing ten thousand North
American Africans at the Congress of African People,
Baraka is totally disillusioned with cultural
nationalism and elected politicians, definitely after
the Gary Convention of 1972 when they openly revealed
their sell out personas.
It is at this point that Baraka dons the Marxist hat he
wears today, thus switching with Cleaver who saw Jesus
in the moon in his Paris exile and returned home a Born
Again Christian. Cleaver switched to the right when it
was clear the left was not going to assist him in
returning from his Paris, France exile. He had fled the
US after the shootout with Oakland Police Department in
which Lil Bobby Hutton was murdered in cold blood by the
OPD.
The notes above are a more detailed account than what
was presented in Davey D's class.
I told the students revolution only happens when all
forces in society unite—the armed struggle people, along
with the non-violent persons, artists, workers,
students, elders, children, teachers, preachers,
prisoners and ex-prisoners—only then are we able to make
revolution.
The poet asked the class to give a shout out to the
people of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain,
Saudi Arabia, Morocco who are in the process of
revolution. What is ironic is that they used methods
used in our revolution, especially during the civil
rights era with Martin Luther Kings, Jr.'s non-violent
resistance. During their 18 days of deposing Pharaoh
Mubarak, the people did not fire a bullet that we know
about. They used our technique to win their freedom
[although 300 protesters were killed]. With their
million man march, they perfected our MMM and showed
what we should have done when the million black men
marched.
We should have remained in DC until
our agenda was met, no matter what, i.e., reparations,
land, self-determination, sovereignty, etc. But we got
out of town before sundown. Marvin quoted
Sun Ra who
taught him, "The Creator got things fixed, if you don't
do the right thing, you can't go forward or backward,
you just stuck on stupid."
Marvin told the students, "We may need to return to DC
with a million black men, a million white men, a mission
Asians, a million Latinos, a million gays and lesbians.
The people of the Middle East are showing us how to lay
down before tanks, if you are really serious about
shaking off the slave system. He told the students it is
their fault if they are being subjected to tuition hikes
at every turn, program cuts, and other high fees.
He told them he had met at student on the way to class
that asked what should be done about tuition and fees.
Marvin told her to do exactly what her father did when
he was a student at SFSU. He was part of the student
strike to demand justice in academia, including a fair
share of Associated Students funds, a black studies
department.
How can SFSU students have this
legacy yet accept the status quo? Close this
motherfucker down! Dr. X said. The administration,
representing the State, will come to you on bending
knees, what do you students want? Full scholarships, ok.
No program cuts, ok. No hiking of student fees, ok. Now,
will you students please go home! Please leave the
campus! If you stand up, the oppressor stands down. Look
at the Middle East. Look at the history of SFSU!
Furthermore, Marvin X said, your President guaranteed
the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan that if they will
lay down their arms and pledge allegiance to the
constitutions of their lands, the USA will provide them
with education, employment, and housing. If your
President can do this for terrorists abroad, you must
demand he do the same for youth at home.
Marvin X then gave his solution to the homeless problem.
There’s a simple solution— the life estate. This can end
homelessness immediately by giving all homeless youth
and adults a life estate, that is, a title to an
apartment or home that they own for life. The property
cannot be transferred, sold, rented, willed or any other
change of ownership. A transition of the owner, the
property reverts to a community trust. The will takes a
basic level of stress off the poor. Marvin X said he'd
watched a documentary of senior citizens in China who
lived in a senior village with a life estate. But to end
homelessness in America, the life estate can be
utilized. X said it is all about thinking outside the
box.
He told students to strive for ideological clarity, to
seek knowledge beyond their white supremacy education.
Study events in the Middle East, study economic planning
in the Americas, in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua,
Brazil. Study the complexities of Haiti. And whatever
you do, don't whip the white man's ass like Haiti did.
You see the result. He will hate you forever. It is not
much different in the American South. There are many in
the South who still can't get over that they lost the
Civil War. The South functions in a state of grand
denial, yet every one is armed, the South is an armed
camp—men and women are armed.
Brothers tell me they would never drive down those
Southern roads at night without their guns. The South
sings the blues for the return of the Slave System. The
Africans know the Whites would love to put them back in
chains. The prison system is nothing but the slave
system under the US Constitution that allows involuntary
servitude. And then the South practices the most
wretched wage slavery, forcing persons to work two and
three minimum wage jobs to survive in the prisons.
The poet turned to his book
How
to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy. The book was written
in South Carolina. When he went to copy the manuscript,
the black woman clerk asked the poet where he was from.
He said South Carolina. She said no you ain't because we
don't say that word White Supremacy down here. Yes, the
South has a way to deal with language, more polite, more
subtle, more innuendo, circumlocution, an etiquette of
the most profound degree since it is about survival.
Marvin noted that black people in the South tell Cali
Negroes not to come down there talking that talk then
leave them with the white man. They've had four hundred
years dealing with The Cracker and they don't need Cali
Negroes stirring up things then leaving. Nevertheless, X
told the students he envisions a Second Civil War to
finish the first, since the first left us in virtual
slavery or essentially still a captive of the Slave
System until today.
He told them as per their college education, don't
believe the State is broke, or that America is broke,
rather know the wealth is being hoarded by the blood
suckers of the poor. It must be seized from them and
redistributed to the masses of the people, especially
the workers, the poor righteous teachers and others.
Let's share the wealth! We shall not long endure
capitalist greed.
And don't believe the media propaganda from the Jim Crow
Media that America is broke. How can America be broke
when half the money owed China is due American
corporations who are part owners in Chinese
corporations? Dr. Nathan Hare says don't believe
anything the white man says until proven to be a fact.
As per Dr. Hare, Marvin turned to his book
How
to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy,
telling students Dr. Hare teaches us there are two types
of White Supremacy—Type I and Type II. Type II is Black
people who suffer white supremacy, who must detox,
recover and discover their true mission in life.
These are just a few of the points Marvin X made during
his talk at San Francisco State University tonight.
Source:
BlackBirdPressNews
posted 24 February 2011
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The Black Arts Movement
Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s
By
James Edward Smethurst
Emerging from a matrix of Old Left, black nationalist,
and bohemian ideologies and institutions, African
American artists and intellectuals in the 1960s
coalesced to form the Black Arts Movement, the cultural
wing of the Black Power Movement. In this comprehensive
analysis, James Smethurst examines the formation of the
Black Arts Movement and demonstrates how it deeply
influenced the production and reception of literature
and art in the United States through its negotiations of
the ideological climate of the Cold War, decolonization,
and the civil rights movement.
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Taking a
regional approach, Smethurst examines local expressions
of the nascent Black Arts Movement, a movement
distinctive in its geographical reach and diversity,
while always keeping the frame of the larger movement in
view. The Black Arts Movement, he argues, fundamentally
changed American attitudes about the relationship
between popular culture and "high" art and dramatically
transformed the landscape of public funding for the
arts.—Publisher,
University of North Carolina Press
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Visions of a Liberated Future
Black Arts Movement Writings
By Larry Neal
"What we have been trying to arrive at
is some kind of synthesis of the writer's function as an
oppressed individual and a creative artist," states Neal
(1937-1981), a writer, editor, educator and activist
prominent in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and '70s.
Articulate, highly charged essays about the black experience
examine the views of his predecessors--musicians and
political theorists as well as writers--continually weighing
artistic achievement against political efficacy. While the
essays do not exclude any readers, Neal's drama, poetry and
fiction are more limited in their form of address, more
explicitly directed to the oppressed. The poems are
particularly intense in their protest: "How many of them / .
. . have been made to /prostitute their blood / to the
merchants of war." Rhythmic and adopting the repetitive
structure of music, they capture the "blues in our mothers'
voices / which warned us / blues people bursting out."
Commentaries by Neal's peers, Amiri Baraka, Stanley Crouch,
Charles Fuller and Jayne Cortez, introduce the various
sections.—Publishers
Weekly |
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The 10 Best Black
Books of 2010 (Non-Fiction)
Gramsci"s Black Marx
Whither the Slave in Civil Society?
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The Great Divergence
America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can
Do about It
By Timothy
Noah
For the past three decades, America has steadily
become a nation of haves and have-nots. Our incomes
are increasingly drastically unequal: the top 1% of
Americans collect almost 20% of the nation’s
income—more than double their share in 1973. We have
less equality of income than Venezuela, Kenya, or
Yemen. What economics Nobelist Paul Krugman terms
"the Great Divergence" has until now been treated as
little more than a talking point, a club to be
wielded in ideological battles. But it may be the
most important change in this country during our
lifetimes—a sharp, fundamental shift in the
character of American society, and not at all for
the better. The income gap has been blamed on
everything from computers to immigration, but its
causes and consequences call for a patient,
non-partisan exploration.
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The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story
of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government
By Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer
American democracy is informed by the 18th century’s most cutting edge thinking on society, economics, and government. We’ve learned some things in the intervening 230 years about self interest, social behaviors, and how the world works. Now, authors Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer argue that some fundamental assumptions about citizenship, society, economics, and government need updating. For many years the dominant metaphor for understanding markets and government has been the machine. Liu and Hanauer view democracy not as a machine, but as a garden. A successful garden functions according to the inexorable tendencies of nature, but it also requires goals, regular tending, and an understanding of connected ecosystems. The latest ideas from science, social science, and economics—the cutting-edge ideas of today—generate these simple but revolutionary ideas: (The economy is not an efficient machine. It’s an effective garden that need tending. Freedom is responsibility. Government should be about the big what and the little how. True self interest is mutual interest. |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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