In the Name of Love, a play by Marvin X, Laney College Theatre, 1981

This scene is from Marvin X's 1981 classic In the Name of Love, a Laney College
production. Marvin X taught at Laney in the drama department at this time.

Marvin dealt with male/females relations in a White Supremacy culture, while the
descendants from the Slave System try to transend the box of patriarchal white supremacy culture, no matter that it also appears in African mythology and ritual as practiced by North American Africans.

Several of his students from his theatre class have gone on to greater things.
Ayodele Nzinga co-directed his 1997 production One Day in the Life, as well as co-directing this production at Laney. Ayodele has established her own Lower Bottom Playaz at the Thea Bowman Theatre in West Oakland at the Prescott Joseph Center, 10th and Peralta. Presently she is directing and
producing the works of August Wilson--the Piano Lesson is coming soon.

Marvin X says Ayo is his brightest student. "Ayo is so smart she simply observed my creative activities
and took what she could use and ran with it has been successful. A teacher doesn't want his students to hang around the nest but take the knowledge from him and go for self! Oyo is a prime example.

Please don't make me list my other outstanding students. This is not some ego trip but we want our students to continue the tradition of their teaching, don't corrupt his teachings or water them down with Miller Lite interpretations.

Recently, Ayo revived my first play Flowers for the Trashman, produced by the Drama Department at San Francisco State University while I was an undergrad, circa 1965. The script was written for Professor John Gardner, a novelist teaching in the English/Creative Writing Dept.

Marvin was flunking Professor Gardner's class, so the professor asked him to do what he liked as an assignment. Marvin wrote Flowers and the professor thought is should be produced by the drama department. Terrence Tyrell directed the production.

Another student, J. Vern Cromartie is a sociologist at Contra Costa College. See his research paper on Marvin X teaching at UC Berkeley. FYI, the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley has acquired the Marvin X archives.