Marvin X.mov

Happy Birthday, Dr. Huey P. Newton

Happy Birthday, Huey P. Newton

As we celebrate Black History Month, it is important to note the importance of self-study on the part of students at Oakland's Merritt College prior to the establishment of the Black Panther Party by my Merritt College comrades Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. We had off campus study groups to decolonize our consciousness of white supremacy. These study groups were independent and not connected with Merritt College. There was no black studies so we had to study on our own, although there were white professors who gave us an inkling of Black History, but most of our knowledge was gained independently. This is the lesson for students of today, even those majoring in black studies since such courses can be watered down, diluted and polluted by reactionary tenured professors who are part of the colonial elite of state intellectuals allowed to give a revisionist history of our history and struggle.

Some of the books we read on our own and discussed in independent study groups are the following:

Black Bourgeoisie, E. Franklin Frazier
Facing Mount Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta
Wretched of the East, Franz Fanon
History Will Absolve Me, Fidel Castro
Neocolonialism, the last stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah
Negro Slave Revolts, Herbert Apteker
Myth of the Negro Past, Melville J. Herskivits

--Marvin X
2/17/11



Black History Month: Remembering Huey P Newton
Posted: February 17, 2011 by Davey D in 2011 Daily News

Today February 17th 2011 is the birthday of Huey P Newton-co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense..Since its Black History month we figured it be good o give folks some insight on who Huey was and who the Panthers were.. Below are some clips that give some insight.. Here's a bio on Huey…

Huey Newton, the youngest of seven children, was born in Monroe, on 17th February, 1942. His father, who named his son after the radical politcian, Huey P. Long, was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).

At Merritt College in Oakland, California, Newton met Bobby Seale and in 1966 they formed the Black Panther Party. Initially established to protect local communities from police brutality and racism, it eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group. The Black Panthers also ran medical clinics and provided free food to school children. Other important members included Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Fred Hampton, Bobby Hutton andEldridge Cleaver.

The activities of the Black Panthers came to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Hoover described the Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and in November 1968 ordered the FBI to employ "hard-hitting counter-intelligence measures to cripple the Black Panthers".

The Black Panthers had chapters in several major cities and had a membership of over 2,000. Harassed by the police, members became involved in several shoot-outs. This included an exchange of fire between Panthers and the police at Oakland on 28th October, 1967. Newton was wounded and while in hospital was charged with killing a police officer. The following year he was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter.

After being released from prison Newton renounced political violence. Over a six year period 24 Black Panthers had been killed in gun fights with the police. Another member, George Jackson, was killed while in San Quentin prison in August, 1971.

Newton now concentrated on socialist community programs including free breakfasts for children, free medical clinics and helping the homeless. The Panthers also became involved in conventional politics and in 1973 Bobby Seale ran for mayor of Oakland and came second out of nine candidates with 43,710 votes (40 per cent of votes cast).

Newton published his book, Revolutionary Suicide in 1973. The following year he was arrested and charged with murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Released on bail, Newton fled to Cuba but in 1977 he returned to the United States and was freed after two hung juries.

Newton returned to his studies at the University of California and in 1980 he received a Ph.D. in social philosophy. His dissertation was entitled:War Against the Panthers: A Study in Repression in America. Huey Newton was shot dead on 22nd August, 1989, while walking along a street in Oakland.

courtesy of http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAnewtonH.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhTD1CY1COs&playnext=1&list=PL0B8A60B9092950FA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuU7bEqKcLk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ypqCYPduI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oIWjbhZI-A&feature=related

Bay Area Black Authors March for Chauncey Bailey

Bay Area Black Authors Meet and March for Chauncey Bailey
Saturday, February 19, 2011,
at the Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival
and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair
at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street,
downtown Oakland, Noon til 6pm
Admission Free
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

http://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/

The Bay Area Black Authors Black Bailey Project will march in his honor to the site of his assassination by a conspiracy of the OPD on Saturday, Feb 19, Noon til 6pm, during the Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street, downtown Oakland. The BABA Black Bailey Project says the media, especially the Chauncey Bailey Project, has focused on the Black Muslim Bakery brothers, but BABA agrees with what James Baldwin said on the assassination of Malcolm X, "The hand that pulled the trigger didn't buy the bullets!"

BABA's Black Bailey Project wants to investigate the real reasons Chauncey was killed, not the phony reasons the CBP has disseminated in the media, focusing solely on the BMB brothers. Why would he be killed for investigating what was public information, the bankruptcy proceedings of the BMB? Why and how were the BMB brothers brainwashed into believing that the man who was their father's longtime friend and colleague at Soulbeat Television, was suddenly the mortal enemy of his sons?

Bay Area Black Authors will publish an anthology of their writings on the assassination of Chauncey Bailey, one of the very few journalists killed in American history. Oakland Post Publisher Paul Cobb says, "Chauncey was our soul, blood and bones. And we take authority on the matter of facts concerning his assassination. We are taking authority on his legacy to our community and the world.We do not accept the OPD's, the DA's, the CBP's explanation of his cold blooded murder." Marvin X concurs, "We think the BMB brothers were used as patsies by the OPD, just as the kidnappers of Patty Hurst brainwashed her and turned her into a revolutionary named Tanya. The OPD mentored the BMB brothers into doing devious acts, reminding us of Iago's tipping the scales of Othello's mind to make him kill his beloved wife Desdemona in Shakespeare's classic drama.

And then the media concurs with the conspiracy to make millions off the blood and bones of Chauncey Bailey. The Bay Area Black Authors and the Post Newspaper Group ask for an accounting of how much money the CBP has received and want an equal share of any future monies derived in his behalf. BABA and the PNG will establish a fund for the future education of Chauncey's son and a trust fund for BABA. Royalties from the forthcoming anthology by BABA will be divided between the two. BABA and PNG want to know how many million were received in the name of Chaucey by the Chauncey Bailey Project, the UC Berkeley School of Journalism and the Robert Maynard Foundation?

The March by Bay Area Black Authors may include a stop at the 6th floor of the Tribune building where Chauncey worked before he was fired for frivolous reasons. According to reports, he was fired because then Mayor Jerry Brown said he was going to stop that nigger from snooping around city hall and the OPD. Thus, the real reason Chauncey was smoked was his investigation of City Hall corruption and corruption at the OPD. There are witnesses willing to testify that the same officer who mentored the BMB brothers was part of a Black OPD shakedown squad, similar to the Riders, who robbed dope dealers, planted false evidence and conducted false arrests.

Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair Program

12 Noon
Social/refreshments

1p.m. Open Mike

2.p.m. Authors Speak

2:30pm Walk for Chauncey to 14th and Alice

3:30pm

Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival

The primary purpose of the Poetry festival and book fair is have the community purchase books from local authors for donation to juvenile hall, country jail and prisons. The Post News Paper Group has pledged $1,500.00. The Center of Hope Church has pledged $2,000.00, including producing a forum at their church so youth can meet authors to gain a better appreciation of literature.

Men Who Read Books in Prison

Men Who Read Books in Prison and transformed their lives

This Saturday, the Journal of Pan African Studies and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair will have Bay Area Black Authors selling books that will be donated to juvenile hall, county jail and prisons, also after school programs. The public is invited to attend to help decrease illiteracy and promote literature as a tool of transformation in the lives of incarcerated men and women.

Festival organizer, author, poet, activist Marvin X says, "Many imprisoned brothers write to me for books. And I don't mind sending books because they have come by Academy of da Corner and told me books have transformed their lives. Ideally, I wish they would, as Paul Cobb says, crack a book before they are booked for Crack.

FYI, the American prison movement began at Soledad Prison's Black Culture Club that championed reading conscious literature. Eldridge Cleaver was a member of that club, along with Alprentis Bunchy Carter, both became radical activists upon their release, joining the Black Panther Party. George Jackson was a petty criminal before incarceration but became self educated from books. The author of Soledad Brother, he is regarded as the messiah of the prison movement. Books elevated his consciousness.

My brother, Ollie, a lifelong criminal, said he was never the same after reading John Hope Franklin's From Slavery to Freedom. We know Tookie Williams gave up the gang life and after reading began a writing career that got him nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature. The world knows how books changed the life of Malcolm Little, the man who became Malcolm X after reading.

The short time I spent in prison for refusing to fight in Vietnam, I read. One of my friends at the federal prison made an announcement to the brothers, "Listen up, brothers, if you want a book on any subject come to Marvin X's locker. He's got books on every subject!"

The Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival and Chauncey Bailey Book Fair is Saturday,
February 19, Noon til 6pm. Admission free. The will be an open mike/speak out, along with music, exhibits and performance by the Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre.

Program

12 Noon
Social/refreshments/music

1pm
Walk for Chauncey Bailey
2pm
Open Mike
3pm
Authors speak
3:30
Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Reading & Reader's Theatre

Participants: Jerri Lange, Michael Lange, Al Young, devorah major, Geoffrey Grier, Ptah Allah El, Eugene Allen, Renaldo Ricketts, Anthony Spires, Paradise Jah Love, Tureadah Mikell, Ramal Lamar, Hunia Bradley, Alona Clifton, Mechelle LaChaux, Timothy Reed, Fritz Pointer, Aries Jordan, Phavia Kujichagulia, Ayodele Nzingha, Itibari M. Zulu, Niyah X, Maisha, Cecil Brown, Marvin X. Music by Kwic Time, Augusta Collins, Rashidah Sabreen.

Sponsors: Post Newspaper Group, Black Bird Press, Journal of Pan African Studies, Academy of da Corner, Hug a Thug Book Club, It's About Time, East Side Arts, Kakakiki Slave System, San Francisco Recovery Theatre, Lower Bottom Playaz, Oakland Local, Black Hour, Black Dialogue Brothers, San Francisco State University Ethnic Studies Department. email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

That Old Black Magic: Black Arts West

That Old Black Magic: Black Arts West

On Saturday, February 19, Noon til, something exciting will happen at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street at Franklin, downtown Oakland. Something magical will occur when the poets and writers hit the mike. Earthquake, tsunami , hurricane, all of the above and more, for in the beginning was the word and the word was God. Thus when the poets gather, especially the conscious poets, just know a balm in Gilead is about to be dispensed, a balm of conscious literature by some of the most powerful poets and writers in the world.

As Guest Editor of the Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Issue, Marvin X made it his duty to collect material from the most powerful poets in the world, and most especially from the Bay Area. Without question, they are top of the line: Al Young, devorah major, Ayodele Nzingha, Tureada Mikell, Phavia Kujichagulia, Fritz Pointer, Itibari M. Zulu, Ptah Allah El, are about the business of spreading consciousness in the land.

You will hear them and many more, young and old, who will spit truth to the winds for radical change. Can you spare some change, Ptah asks. Marvin X asks can you change? Al Young reminds us of Emmitt Till. Fritz Pointer recalls how Oakland responded to the killing of four OPD officers, sadly, he says the oppressed masses experienced an obscene pride after years of abuse under the color of law.

Phavia describes a human race to the finish line. Ayo asks how will she be remembered and reasons, reasons.... Paradise Jah Love tells us they love everything about us but us! Jerri Lange shares her narrative of a black woman's life in the media.

Just a few of the tales that will be told on Saturday at the Joyce Gordon Gallery poetry festival and book fair. The event will benefit the incarcerated. Books will be purchased for donation to juvenile hall, the country jail and local prisons.

You can support this project by attending and purchasing books written by local authors. You should support them whether you have heard of them or not. They are the continuation of the Black Arts Movement of the 60s, that originated here in the Bay Area as well as on the east coast, midwest and south. But the Bay Area was special since the predominate poetry journals and magazines of consciousness were published here, namely the Journal of Black Poetry, Black Dialogue and Soulbook, three of the most radical journals of the time. The Journal of Pan African Studies continues the tradition online. It receives over 14,000 hits per month. Itibari M. Zulu is the Senior Editor.

Poetry, music, parables, dance, and more will be part of the celebration on Saturday. The event is supported by the Post Newspaper Group, Bay Area Black Authors, Journal of Pan African Studies, School of Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University, Kakakiki Slave System, Oakland Local, Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre, Black Bird Press, Eastside Arts, It's About Time, Black Hour, San Francisco Recovery Theatre, Lower Bottom Playaz, Hug a Thug Book Club and Black Dialogue Brothers.

Program

12 Noon

Social, refreshments, book signings

1pm

Walk to 14th and Alice for Chauncey Bailey
Authors Speak

2pm

Open Mike/Speak Out

3pm

Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Festival and Reader's Theatre Performance

Music provided by Kwic Time, Augusta Collins, Mechelle LaChaux, Rashidah Sabreen

For more information, email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

Chauncey Bailey Book Fair

Chauncey Didn't Need a Byline

Every writer wants an attribution to his story, a byline. Chauncey Bailey wrote thousands of stories with no byline. It only said California Staff or Sun Reporter Staff or Oakland Post Staff or Oakland Tribune Staff, yet it was all Chauncey Bailey, multiple personality, yet one essential message, truth.
Chauncey, we love you,
Oaktown for the get down!

Chauncey was so bad!
He didn't need a tape recorder
his mind worked
in the tradition
he listened
he looked into your eyes
then told your story
no notes
you could look at Chauncey
interviewing
writing nothingoo
you wonder
what dis nigguh doin
but he got it all
gist of it for sure
that's Chauncey
my man
my brother
I love you Chauncey
I miss you.
--Marvin X
2/12//11

The Reactionaries Will Never Put Down Their Butcher Knives

The Reactionaries will never
put down their butcher knives--Urgent News:
Pharaoh Mubarak flees Cairo, the people triumph!

We have heard the defiance of Pharaoh Mubarak. It is the arrogance of the king who refuses to leave his throne when his time has come, who is blind to the fact that his divinity arises from the consent of the governed. Such hardheadedness is one of those classic tragic flaws so well delineated repeatedly in the plays of William Shakespeare. And yet Diop told us the central theme in African drama is not tragedy but comedy, and for sure Mubarak is the clown and his actions are comedic to the extreme because his words were full of sound and fury but signified nothing except the wisdom of a fool.

The people have decided his fate and they are absolute and resolute that his reign has ended. The only person who is not clear that a new day has dawned is the president himself. Thus, this is a classic African comedy, for in the end we know the people shall triumph. Mubarak is not alone in his intransigence, it is the same performance by the madman in the Ivory Coast who lost the election yet refuses to go. So there are African clowns from the North to the West and all points in between. Yet the comedy is that the people shall triumph, they shall win in the end. All's well that ends well. The tragic elements are the past horrors and the momentary conflagration , the comedic element is the reality of a new tomorrow, a tomorrow that will reconnect the people with their eternal history of glory.

This Egyptian tragi-comedy of obstinacy reveals a personality totally delusional and separated from reality. We know the people shall not be moved, that their will must be done. His benefactors in the West should advise him that the show is over, that there is an airplane awaiting his arrival. And they should advise him to take his vice devil, Omar Suleiman, with him. And on the same plane reserve a space for other reactionaries throughout the region and the world. Mao was right,"The reactionaries will never put down their butcher knives, they will never turn into Buddha heads!"

This tragi-comedy is so very different from the Osirian drama that Egypt originated, and yet it is similar, for it is about change, the annual inundation of the Nile, the harvesting of the corn, the triumph of life over death, yes, we are witnessing a resurrection drama of the first order. It is the self crucifixion of the pseudo savior and the resurrection of a people orchestrated by their children as Horus.
--Marvin X (El Muhajir)
2/10/11