Subject: Seeking Visiting Professorship
Marvin X is author of 25 books.He is one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement and the father of Muslim American literature. Bob Holman calls him the USA's Rumi, Hafez and Saadi.Ishmael Reed calls him Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.
Marvin X (b. 1944), poet, playwright, essayist, director, and lecturer. Marvin
Ellis Jackmon was born on 29 May 1944 in Fowler, California. He attended high
school in Fresno and received a BA and MA in English from San Francisco State
College (now San Francisco State University). The mid-1960s were formative
years for Jackmon. He became involved in theater, founded his own press,
published several plays and volumes of poetry, and became increasingly
alienated because of racism and the Vietnam War. Under the influence of Elijah
Muhammad, he became a Black Muslim and has published since then under the
names El Muhajir and Marvin X. He has also used the name Nazzam al Fitnah Muhajir.
Marvin X and Ed Bullins founded the Black Arts/West Theatre in San Francisco in
1966, and several of his plays were staged during that period in San Francisco,
Oakland, New York, and by local companies across the United States. His one-act
play Flowers for the Trashman was staged in San Francisco in 1965 by the drama
department at San Francisco State University, later at Black Arts West
Theatre, and was included in the anthology Black Fire (1968); a musical version (with
Sun Ra's Arkestra), Take Care of Business, was produced in 1971. The play
presents the confrontation between two cellmates in a jail—one a young African
American college student, the other a middle-aged white man. Another one-act
play, The Black Bird, a Black Muslim allegory in which a young man offers
lessons in life awareness to two small girls, appeared in 1969 and was
included in New Plays from the Black Theatre that year. Several other plays,
including The Trial, Resurrection of the Dead, and In the Name of Love, have been successfully staged, and Marvin X has remained an important advocate of African American theater.
In 1970, Marvin X was convicted, during the Vietnam War, for refusing
induction and fled to Canada; eventually he was arrested in British Honduras,
was returned to the United States, and was sentenced to five months in prison. In
his statement on being sentenced—later reprinted in Black Scholar (1971) and
also in Clyde Taylor's anthology, Vietnam and Black America (1973)—he argues
that
Any judge, any jury, is guilty of insanity that would have the nerve to judge
and convict and imprison a black man because he did not appear in a courtroom
on a charge of refusing to commit crimes against humanity, crimes against his
own brothers and sisters, the peace-loving people of Vietnam.
Marvin X founded El Kitab Sudan publishing house in 1967; several of his books
of poetry and proverbs have been published there. Much of Marvin X's poetry is
militant in its anger at American racism and injustice. For example, in “Did
You Vote Nigger?” he uses rough dialect and directs his irony at African
Americans who believe in the government but are actually its pawns. Many of the
proverbs in The Son of Man (1969) express alienation from white America.
However, many of Marvin X's proverbs and poems express more concern with what
African Americans can do positively for themselves, without being paralyzed by
hatred. He insists that the answer is to concentrate on establishing a racial
identity and to “understand that art is celebration of Allah.” The poems in Fly
to Allah, Black Man Listen (1969), and other volumes from his El Kitab Sudan
press are characterized by their intensity and their message of racial unity
under a religious banner.
Marvin X has remained active as a lecturer, teacher, theatrical producer,
editor, and exponent of Spirituality. His work in advocating racial cohesion
and spiritual dedication as an antidote to the legacy of racism he saw around
him in the 1960s and 1970s made him an important voice of his generation. One of
his current projects is Academy of da Corner, downtown Oakland at 14th and
Broadway. According the Ishmael Reed, "Marvin X is Plato teaching on the
streets of Oakland. If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration,
don't spend all that money going to seminars and workshops, just go stand at
14th and Broadway and observe Marvin X at work."
Bibliography
* Lorenzo Thomas, “Marvin X,” in DLB, vol. 38, Afro-American Writers after
1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers, eds. Thadious Davis and Trudier Harris,
1985, pp. 177–184.
* Bernard L. Peterson, Jr., “Marvin X,” in Contemporary Black American
Playwrights and Their Plays, 1988, pp. 332–333. “El Muhajir,” in CA, vol. 26,
eds. Hal May and James G. Lesniak, 1989, pp. 132–133
--Michael E. Greene
poet; playwright; educator; activist
Personal Information
Born Marvin Ellis Jackmon on May 29, 1944, in Fowler, California; married; five
children
Education: Oakland City College (now Merritt College), AA, 1964; San Francisco
State College (now University), BA, 1974, MA, 1975.
Career
Soul Book, Encore, Black World, Black Scholar, Black Dialogue, Journal of
Black Poetry, Black theatre, Negro Digest/Black World, Muhammad Speaks and
other magazines and newspapers, contributor, 1965-; Black Dialogue, fiction editor, 1965-; Journal of Black Poetry, contributing editor,1965-; Black Arts/West Theatre, San
Francisco, co-founder (with Bullins), 1966; Black House, San Francisco,
co-founder (with Bullins and Eldridge Cleaver), 1967; Al Kitab Sudan Publishing
Company, San Francisco, founder, 1967; California State University at Fresno,
black studies teacher, 1969; Black Theatre, associate editor, 1968; Muhammad
Speaks, foreign editor, 1970; Your Black Educational Theatre, Inc., San
Francisco, founder and director, 1971;
Teaching Career:
University of California, Berkeley,
lecturer, 1972;
Mills College, lecturer, 1973,
San Francisco State University, 1974-5,
University of California, San Diego, 1975,
University of Nevada, Reno, 1979,
Laney and Merritt Colleges, Oakland, 1981,
Kings River College, Reedley CA, 1982.
Recent Reading and Speaking engagements:
San Francisco State University
University of California, Berkeley
Laney College, Oakland
Merritt College, Oakland
Contra Costa College, Richmond CA
Morehouse College, ATL
Spelman College, ATL
University of Texas, Houston
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
University of Virginia
University of Penn, Philadelphia
Temple University, Philadelphia
Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn
New York University
Berkeley City College, Berkeley
California College of the Arts, San Francisco
Howard University, Washington DC
San Francisco Theatre Festival
Schomberg Library, Harlem NY
Life's Work
Formerly known as El Muhajir, Marvin X was a key poet and playwright of the
Black Arts Movement (BAM) in the 1960s and early 1970s. He wrote for many of
the leading black journals of the time, including Black Scholar, Black Theater
Magazine, and Muhammad Speaks. He founded Black House with Ed Bullins (1935--)
and Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998), which served for a short time as the
headquarters of the Black Panther Party, the militant black nationalist group,
and a community theatrical center in Oakland County, California. Always a
controversial and confrontational figure, Marvin X was banned from teaching at
state universities in the 1960s by the then state governor, Ronald Reagan
(1911--). When asked in 2003 what had happened to the Black Arts Movement,
Marvin X told Lee Hubbard: "I am still working on it...telling it like it is."
Marvin X was born Marvin Ellis Jackmon on May 29, 1944, in Fowler, California,
an agricultural area near Fresno. His parents were Owendell and Marian
Jackmon; his mother ran her own real estate business. Details about when and
why he changed his name are scarce, but he has been known as Nazzam al Fitnah
Muhajir, El Muhajir, and is now known simply as Marvin X. Marvin X attended
Oakland City College (Merritt College) where he received his AA degree in 1964.
He received his BA in English from San Francisco State College (San Francisco
State University) in 1974 and his MA in 1975.
While at college Marvin X was involved with various theater projects and
co-founded the Black Arts/West Theater with Bullins and others. Their aim was
to provide a place where black writers and performers could work on drama
projects, but they also had a political motive, to use theater and writing to
campaign for the liberation of blacks from white oppression. Marvin X told Lee
Hubbard: "The Black Arts Movement was part of the liberation movement of Black
people in America. The Black Arts Movement was its artistic arm...[brothers]
got a revolutionary consciousness through Black art, drama, poetry, music,
paintings, artwork, and magazines."
By the late 1960s Marvin X was a central figure in the Black Arts Movement in
San Francisco and had become part of the Nation of Islam, changing his name to
El Muhajir and following Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975). Like the heavyweight
boxing champion Muhammad Ali (1942--), Marvin X refused his induction to fight
in Vietnam. But unlike Ali, Marvin X, along with several other members of the
Nation of Islam in California, decided to evade arrest. In 1967 he escaped to
Canada but was later arrested in Belize. He chastised the court for punishing
him for refusing to be inducted into an army for the purpose of securing "White
Power" throughout the world before he was sentenced to five months'
imprisonment. His statement was published in the journal The Black Scholar in
1971.
Despite his reputation as an activist, Marvin X was also an intellectual, and a
celebrated writer. He was most concerned with the problem of using language
created by whites in order to argue for freedom from white power. Many of his
plays and poems reflect this struggle to express himself as a black
intellectual in a white-dominated society. His play Flowers for the Trashman
(1965), for example, is the story of Joe Simmons, a jailed college student whose
bitter attack on his white cellmate became a national rallying call for many in
the Nation of Islam and other black nationalists. Marvin X's own poetry is
heavy with Muslim ideology and propaganda, but it is supported by a sensitive
poetic ear. Perhaps his greatest achievement as a poet is to merge Islamic
cadences and sensibilities with scholarly American English and the language of
the black ghetto.
Like his close friend Eldridge Cleaver, in the late 1980s and 1990s Marvin X
went through a period of addiction to crack cocaine. His play One Day in the
Life (2000) takes a tragicomic approach to the issue of addiction and recovery,
dealing with his own experiences with drug addiction and the experiences of
Black Panthers, Cleaver, and Huey Newton (1942-1989). The play has been
presented in community theaters around the United States as both a stage play
and a video presentation. He discusses his relationship with Cleaver in
Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the Devil, a memoir, 2009.
After emerging from addiction Marvin X founded Recovery Theatre and began
organizing events for recovering addicts and those who work with them. His
autobiography, Somethin' Proper (1998) includes reminiscences of his life
fighting for black civil rights as well as an analysis of drug culture. Drug
addiction and "reactionary" rap poetry are two areas of black culture that he has argued have "contributed to the desecration of black people."
In the late 1990s Marvin X became an influential figure in the campaign to have
reparations paid for the treatment of blacks under slavery. He organized
meetings, readings, and performances to promote black culture and civil rights.
He has worked as a university teacher since the early 1970s, as well as giving
readings and guest lectures in universities and theaters throughout the United
States.
Marvin X has also received several awards, including a Columbia
University writing grant in 1969 and a creative writing fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Arts in 1972.
Awards
Columbia University, writing grant, 1969; National Endowment for the Arts,
grant, 1972; Your Black Educational Theatre, training grant, 1971-72.
Recovery Theatre received grants from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's
office, Grants for the Arts, Marin County Board of Supervisors, Sacramento
Metropolitan Arts Commission.
Works
Selected writings
Books
* Somethin' Proper: The Life and Times of a North American African Poet,
Blackbird Press, 1998.
* In the Crazy House Called America, Blackbird Press, 2002.
* Wish I Could Tell You the Truth, essays, BBP, 2005
* How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, a manual based on the
12 Step/Pan African model, 2006.
* Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, BBP, 2007
* Eldridge Cleaver, My Friend the Devil, a memoir, 2009
* The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables, 2010
* Hustler's Guide to the Game Called Life (Volume II, The Wisdom of Plato
Negro, 2010
* Mythology of Pussy and Dick, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, 2010
* Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez, essays on Obama Drama, 2010
* I AM OSCAR GRANT, essays on Oakland, 2010
Plays
* Flowers for the Trashman (one-act), first produced in San Francisco at San
Francisco State College, 1965.
* Come Next Summer, first produced in San Francisco at Black Arts/West Theatre,
1966. Pre-Black Panther Bobby Seale played leading role in Come Next Summer.
* The Trial, first produced in New York City at Afro-American Studio for Acting
and Speech, 1970.
* Take Care of Business, (musical version of Flowers for the Trashman) first
produced in Fresno, California, at Your Black Educational Theatre, 1971.
* Resurrection of the Dead, first produced in San Francisco at Your Black
Educational Theatre, 1972.
* Woman-Man's Best Friend, (musical dance drama based on author's book of same
title), first produced in Oakland, California, at Mills College, 1973.
* In the Name of Love, first produced in Oakland at Laney College Theatre,
1981.
* One Day in the Life, 2000.
* Sergeant Santa, 2002.
Poetry, Proverbs, and Lyrics
* Sudan Rajuli Samia (poems), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1967.
* Black Dialectic (proverbs), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1967.
* As Marvin X, Fly to Allah: Poems, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1969.
* As Marvin X, The Son of Man, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1969.
* As Marvin X, Black Man Listen: Poems and Proverbs, Broadside Press, 1969.
* Black Bird (parable), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1972.
* Woman-Man's Best Friend, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1973.
* Selected Poems, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1979.
* (as Marvin X) Confession of a Wife Beater and Other Poems, Al Kitab Sudan
Publishing, 1981.
* Liberation Poems for North American Africans, Al Kitab Sudan
Publishing, 1982.
* Love and War: Poems, Black Bird Press, 1995
* In the Land of My Daughters, 2005.
* Sweet Tea, Dirty Rice, poems, 2010 (late)
Other
* One Day in the Life (videodrama and soundtrack), 2002.
* The Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness (video documentary), 2002.
* Black Radical Book Fair, San Francisco, DVD, 2004
* Love and War (poetry reading published on CD), 2001.
Further Reading
Periodicals
* African American Review, Spring, 2001.
* Oakland Post Newspaper
* San Francisco Bay View newspaper
On-line
* "Chicken Bones: A Journal," www.nathanielturner.com/marvinxtable.htm (April
13, 2004).
* "El Muhajir," Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April
16, 2004).
* "Marvin X," Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April
16, 2004).
* "Marvin X Calls for General Strike on Reparations,"
www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4714 (April 13, 2004).
— Chris Routledge
The Marvin X archives are at the Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley.
Ellis Jackmon was born on 29 May 1944 in Fowler, California. He attended high
school in Fresno and received a BA and MA in English from San Francisco State
College (now San Francisco State University). The mid-1960s were formative
years for Jackmon. He became involved in theater, founded his own press,
published several plays and volumes of poetry, and became increasingly
alienated because of racism and the Vietnam War. Under the influence of Elijah
Muhammad, he became a Black Muslim and has published since then under the
names El Muhajir and Marvin X. He has also used the name Nazzam al Fitnah Muhajir.
Marvin X and Ed Bullins founded the Black Arts/West Theatre in San Francisco in
1966, and several of his plays were staged during that period in San Francisco,
Oakland, New York, and by local companies across the United States. His one-act
play Flowers for the Trashman was staged in San Francisco in 1965 by the drama
department at San Francisco State University, later at Black Arts West
Theatre, and was included in the anthology Black Fire (1968); a musical version (with
Sun Ra's Arkestra), Take Care of Business, was produced in 1971. The play
presents the confrontation between two cellmates in a jail—one a young African
American college student, the other a middle-aged white man. Another one-act
play, The Black Bird, a Black Muslim allegory in which a young man offers
lessons in life awareness to two small girls, appeared in 1969 and was
included in New Plays from the Black Theatre that year. Several other plays,
including The Trial, Resurrection of the Dead, and In the Name of Love, have been successfully staged, and Marvin X has remained an important advocate of African American theater.
In 1970, Marvin X was convicted, during the Vietnam War, for refusing
induction and fled to Canada; eventually he was arrested in British Honduras,
was returned to the United States, and was sentenced to five months in prison. In
his statement on being sentenced—later reprinted in Black Scholar (1971) and
also in Clyde Taylor's anthology, Vietnam and Black America (1973)—he argues
that
Any judge, any jury, is guilty of insanity that would have the nerve to judge
and convict and imprison a black man because he did not appear in a courtroom
on a charge of refusing to commit crimes against humanity, crimes against his
own brothers and sisters, the peace-loving people of Vietnam.
Marvin X founded El Kitab Sudan publishing house in 1967; several of his books
of poetry and proverbs have been published there. Much of Marvin X's poetry is
militant in its anger at American racism and injustice. For example, in “Did
You Vote Nigger?” he uses rough dialect and directs his irony at African
Americans who believe in the government but are actually its pawns. Many of the
proverbs in The Son of Man (1969) express alienation from white America.
However, many of Marvin X's proverbs and poems express more concern with what
African Americans can do positively for themselves, without being paralyzed by
hatred. He insists that the answer is to concentrate on establishing a racial
identity and to “understand that art is celebration of Allah.” The poems in Fly
to Allah, Black Man Listen (1969), and other volumes from his El Kitab Sudan
press are characterized by their intensity and their message of racial unity
under a religious banner.
Marvin X has remained active as a lecturer, teacher, theatrical producer,
editor, and exponent of Spirituality. His work in advocating racial cohesion
and spiritual dedication as an antidote to the legacy of racism he saw around
him in the 1960s and 1970s made him an important voice of his generation. One of
his current projects is Academy of da Corner, downtown Oakland at 14th and
Broadway. According the Ishmael Reed, "Marvin X is Plato teaching on the
streets of Oakland. If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration,
don't spend all that money going to seminars and workshops, just go stand at
14th and Broadway and observe Marvin X at work."
Bibliography
* Lorenzo Thomas, “Marvin X,” in DLB, vol. 38, Afro-American Writers after
1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers, eds. Thadious Davis and Trudier Harris,
1985, pp. 177–184.
* Bernard L. Peterson, Jr., “Marvin X,” in Contemporary Black American
Playwrights and Their Plays, 1988, pp. 332–333. “El Muhajir,” in CA, vol. 26,
eds. Hal May and James G. Lesniak, 1989, pp. 132–133
--Michael E. Greene
poet; playwright; educator; activist
Personal Information
Born Marvin Ellis Jackmon on May 29, 1944, in Fowler, California; married; five
children
Education: Oakland City College (now Merritt College), AA, 1964; San Francisco
State College (now University), BA, 1974, MA, 1975.
Career
Soul Book, Encore, Black World, Black Scholar, Black Dialogue, Journal of
Black Poetry, Black theatre, Negro Digest/Black World, Muhammad Speaks and
other magazines and newspapers, contributor, 1965-; Black Dialogue, fiction editor, 1965-; Journal of Black Poetry, contributing editor,1965-; Black Arts/West Theatre, San
Francisco, co-founder (with Bullins), 1966; Black House, San Francisco,
co-founder (with Bullins and Eldridge Cleaver), 1967; Al Kitab Sudan Publishing
Company, San Francisco, founder, 1967; California State University at Fresno,
black studies teacher, 1969; Black Theatre, associate editor, 1968; Muhammad
Speaks, foreign editor, 1970; Your Black Educational Theatre, Inc., San
Francisco, founder and director, 1971;
Teaching Career:
University of California, Berkeley,
lecturer, 1972;
Mills College, lecturer, 1973,
San Francisco State University, 1974-5,
University of California, San Diego, 1975,
University of Nevada, Reno, 1979,
Laney and Merritt Colleges, Oakland, 1981,
Kings River College, Reedley CA, 1982.
Recent Reading and Speaking engagements:
San Francisco State University
University of California, Berkeley
Laney College, Oakland
Merritt College, Oakland
Contra Costa College, Richmond CA
Morehouse College, ATL
Spelman College, ATL
University of Texas, Houston
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
University of Virginia
University of Penn, Philadelphia
Temple University, Philadelphia
Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn
New York University
Berkeley City College, Berkeley
California College of the Arts, San Francisco
Howard University, Washington DC
San Francisco Theatre Festival
Schomberg Library, Harlem NY
Life's Work
Formerly known as El Muhajir, Marvin X was a key poet and playwright of the
Black Arts Movement (BAM) in the 1960s and early 1970s. He wrote for many of
the leading black journals of the time, including Black Scholar, Black Theater
Magazine, and Muhammad Speaks. He founded Black House with Ed Bullins (1935--)
and Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998), which served for a short time as the
headquarters of the Black Panther Party, the militant black nationalist group,
and a community theatrical center in Oakland County, California. Always a
controversial and confrontational figure, Marvin X was banned from teaching at
state universities in the 1960s by the then state governor, Ronald Reagan
(1911--). When asked in 2003 what had happened to the Black Arts Movement,
Marvin X told Lee Hubbard: "I am still working on it...telling it like it is."
Marvin X was born Marvin Ellis Jackmon on May 29, 1944, in Fowler, California,
an agricultural area near Fresno. His parents were Owendell and Marian
Jackmon; his mother ran her own real estate business. Details about when and
why he changed his name are scarce, but he has been known as Nazzam al Fitnah
Muhajir, El Muhajir, and is now known simply as Marvin X. Marvin X attended
Oakland City College (Merritt College) where he received his AA degree in 1964.
He received his BA in English from San Francisco State College (San Francisco
State University) in 1974 and his MA in 1975.
While at college Marvin X was involved with various theater projects and
co-founded the Black Arts/West Theater with Bullins and others. Their aim was
to provide a place where black writers and performers could work on drama
projects, but they also had a political motive, to use theater and writing to
campaign for the liberation of blacks from white oppression. Marvin X told Lee
Hubbard: "The Black Arts Movement was part of the liberation movement of Black
people in America. The Black Arts Movement was its artistic arm...[brothers]
got a revolutionary consciousness through Black art, drama, poetry, music,
paintings, artwork, and magazines."
By the late 1960s Marvin X was a central figure in the Black Arts Movement in
San Francisco and had become part of the Nation of Islam, changing his name to
El Muhajir and following Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975). Like the heavyweight
boxing champion Muhammad Ali (1942--), Marvin X refused his induction to fight
in Vietnam. But unlike Ali, Marvin X, along with several other members of the
Nation of Islam in California, decided to evade arrest. In 1967 he escaped to
Canada but was later arrested in Belize. He chastised the court for punishing
him for refusing to be inducted into an army for the purpose of securing "White
Power" throughout the world before he was sentenced to five months'
imprisonment. His statement was published in the journal The Black Scholar in
1971.
Despite his reputation as an activist, Marvin X was also an intellectual, and a
celebrated writer. He was most concerned with the problem of using language
created by whites in order to argue for freedom from white power. Many of his
plays and poems reflect this struggle to express himself as a black
intellectual in a white-dominated society. His play Flowers for the Trashman
(1965), for example, is the story of Joe Simmons, a jailed college student whose
bitter attack on his white cellmate became a national rallying call for many in
the Nation of Islam and other black nationalists. Marvin X's own poetry is
heavy with Muslim ideology and propaganda, but it is supported by a sensitive
poetic ear. Perhaps his greatest achievement as a poet is to merge Islamic
cadences and sensibilities with scholarly American English and the language of
the black ghetto.
Like his close friend Eldridge Cleaver, in the late 1980s and 1990s Marvin X
went through a period of addiction to crack cocaine. His play One Day in the
Life (2000) takes a tragicomic approach to the issue of addiction and recovery,
dealing with his own experiences with drug addiction and the experiences of
Black Panthers, Cleaver, and Huey Newton (1942-1989). The play has been
presented in community theaters around the United States as both a stage play
and a video presentation. He discusses his relationship with Cleaver in
Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the Devil, a memoir, 2009.
After emerging from addiction Marvin X founded Recovery Theatre and began
organizing events for recovering addicts and those who work with them. His
autobiography, Somethin' Proper (1998) includes reminiscences of his life
fighting for black civil rights as well as an analysis of drug culture. Drug
addiction and "reactionary" rap poetry are two areas of black culture that he has argued have "contributed to the desecration of black people."
In the late 1990s Marvin X became an influential figure in the campaign to have
reparations paid for the treatment of blacks under slavery. He organized
meetings, readings, and performances to promote black culture and civil rights.
He has worked as a university teacher since the early 1970s, as well as giving
readings and guest lectures in universities and theaters throughout the United
States.
Marvin X has also received several awards, including a Columbia
University writing grant in 1969 and a creative writing fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Arts in 1972.
Awards
Columbia University, writing grant, 1969; National Endowment for the Arts,
grant, 1972; Your Black Educational Theatre, training grant, 1971-72.
Recovery Theatre received grants from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's
office, Grants for the Arts, Marin County Board of Supervisors, Sacramento
Metropolitan Arts Commission.
Works
Selected writings
Books
* Somethin' Proper: The Life and Times of a North American African Poet,
Blackbird Press, 1998.
* In the Crazy House Called America, Blackbird Press, 2002.
* Wish I Could Tell You the Truth, essays, BBP, 2005
* How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, a manual based on the
12 Step/Pan African model, 2006.
* Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, BBP, 2007
* Eldridge Cleaver, My Friend the Devil, a memoir, 2009
* The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables, 2010
* Hustler's Guide to the Game Called Life (Volume II, The Wisdom of Plato
Negro, 2010
* Mythology of Pussy and Dick, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, 2010
* Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez, essays on Obama Drama, 2010
* I AM OSCAR GRANT, essays on Oakland, 2010
Plays
* Flowers for the Trashman (one-act), first produced in San Francisco at San
Francisco State College, 1965.
* Come Next Summer, first produced in San Francisco at Black Arts/West Theatre,
1966. Pre-Black Panther Bobby Seale played leading role in Come Next Summer.
* The Trial, first produced in New York City at Afro-American Studio for Acting
and Speech, 1970.
* Take Care of Business, (musical version of Flowers for the Trashman) first
produced in Fresno, California, at Your Black Educational Theatre, 1971.
* Resurrection of the Dead, first produced in San Francisco at Your Black
Educational Theatre, 1972.
* Woman-Man's Best Friend, (musical dance drama based on author's book of same
title), first produced in Oakland, California, at Mills College, 1973.
* In the Name of Love, first produced in Oakland at Laney College Theatre,
1981.
* One Day in the Life, 2000.
* Sergeant Santa, 2002.
Poetry, Proverbs, and Lyrics
* Sudan Rajuli Samia (poems), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1967.
* Black Dialectic (proverbs), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1967.
* As Marvin X, Fly to Allah: Poems, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1969.
* As Marvin X, The Son of Man, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1969.
* As Marvin X, Black Man Listen: Poems and Proverbs, Broadside Press, 1969.
* Black Bird (parable), Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1972.
* Woman-Man's Best Friend, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1973.
* Selected Poems, Al Kitab Sudan Publishing, 1979.
* (as Marvin X) Confession of a Wife Beater and Other Poems, Al Kitab Sudan
Publishing, 1981.
* Liberation Poems for North American Africans, Al Kitab Sudan
Publishing, 1982.
* Love and War: Poems, Black Bird Press, 1995
* In the Land of My Daughters, 2005.
* Sweet Tea, Dirty Rice, poems, 2010 (late)
Other
* One Day in the Life (videodrama and soundtrack), 2002.
* The Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness (video documentary), 2002.
* Black Radical Book Fair, San Francisco, DVD, 2004
* Love and War (poetry reading published on CD), 2001.
Further Reading
Periodicals
* African American Review, Spring, 2001.
* Oakland Post Newspaper
* San Francisco Bay View newspaper
On-line
* "Chicken Bones: A Journal," www.nathanielturner.com/marvinxtable.htm (April
13, 2004).
* "El Muhajir," Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April
16, 2004).
* "Marvin X," Biography Resource Center, www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (April
16, 2004).
* "Marvin X Calls for General Strike on Reparations,"
www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=4714 (April 13, 2004).
— Chris Routledge
The Marvin X archives are at the Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley.
Tentative Contents of Poetry Issue
Journal of Pan African Studies
December 2010
Marvin X, Guest Editor
Itibari M. Zulu, Senior Editor
Special thanks:
Louis Reyes Rivera
Eugene Redman
Bruce George
Gwendolyn Mitchell
Askia Toure
Rudolph Lewis
Amiri Baraka
Dedication to Jose Gancalves, Publisher/Editor, Journal of Black Poetry
List of contributors to JBP
Photo Essay of JBP Poets
Notes on the Poetry issue of Journal of Pan African Studies
A History of the JBP and publications during the 60s, compiled by Rudolph Lewis
A Forum in Response to Marvin X’s Poetic Mission, Rudolph Lewis
Mary Weems
Jerry Ward
Leigh McInnis
The Poetic Mission, Haki Madhubuti
The Poets
Amiri Baraka, Newark NJ
Kalamu ya Salaam, New Orleans
Kola Boof, Southern California
Louis Reyes Rivera, Brooklyn NY
Ayodele Nzingha, Oakland CA
Askia Toure, Boston MA
Marvin X, Berkeley CA
Neal Hall, MD, Philadelphia PA
Hettie V. Williams
Phavia Khujichagulia, Oakland CA
J. Vern Cromartie, Richmond CA
Jeannette Drake, Virginia
Dike Okoro, Chicago IL
Tracey Owens Patton, Wyoming
devorah major, San Francisco
Anthony Mays, Korea
Bruce George, New York City
Itibari M. Zulu, Palmdale CA
Renaldo Ricketts, San Francisco
Nandi Comer
Al Young, Berkeley CA
Ghasem Batamuntu, Europe
Mona Lisa Saloy, New Orleans
Susan Lively, East St. Louis IL
Eugene Redman, East St. Louis IL
Fritz Pointer, Oakland CA
Gwendolyn Mitchell, Chicago IL
Felix Orisewike Sylvanus, Lagos, Nigeria
Tariq Shabazz, Newark NJ
Rudolph Lewis, Maryland
Kamaria Muntu, United Kingdom
L. E. Scott, Aotearoa, New Zealand
Chinwe Enemchukwu, Florida USA
Mabel Mnensa, South Africa
Kwan Booth, Oakland CA
Rodney D. Coates, East St. Louis IL
Ras Griot, Washington DC
Tureeda Mikell, Oakland CA
Ramal Lamar, Oakland CA
Everett Hoagland, New Bedford MA
Charles Curtis Blackwell, Oakland CA
JACQUELINE KIBACHA, Tanzania, East Africa
John Reynolds III, Washington DC
Gabriel Shapiro
Darlene Scott, Delaware MD
Jimmy Smith, Jr., Chicago IL
Sam Hamod, Princeton NJ
Opal Palmer Adisa, Oakland CA
Amy ”Aimstar” Andrieux, New York City
Lamont b. Steptoe, Philadelphia PA
Avotcja Jiltonilro, San Francisco CA
Tantra Zawadi, New York City
Anthony Spires, San Francisco
Benicia Blue, Chicago IL
Neil Callender, Boston MA
Tanure Ojaide, Nigeria
Pious Okoro, Chicago IL
Nicole Terez Dutton, Boston MA
Iris Tate
Kilola Maishya
Niyah X, Oakland CA
Adrienne N. Wartts, St. Louis MO
Reviews, Views, News
Reviews
Kamaria Muntu, review of Askia Toure’s Mother Earth Responds: green poems & alternative visions
Views
Afro-Arab Dialogue on Col. Qaddafi’s Apology for Arab Slavery:
Kola Boof, Sam Hamod, Rudolph Lewis, Marvin X
A Pan African Dialogue on Cuba:
Dead Prez, Carlos Moore, North American African Intellectuals/activists, Pedro de la Hoz
Muslim American Literature as an emerging field,
Dr. Mohja Kahf
News
Chinua Achebe Wins Prize
Bay Area Writers Celebrate Baraka’s 75th
Photo Essay by Kamau Amem Ra
Letters to the Editor
No comments:
Post a Comment