Peralta Colleges honors Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party; Bobby Seale honors Marvin X

 Black Panther Party co-founders Bobby Seale and Dr. Huey P. Newton

Tonight at Oakland's Marriott City Center, the Peralta Colleges Foundation honored one of their own, former Merritt College student Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, along with fellow student Huey P. Newton. Bobby Seale was ill, so he sent Virtual Murrell, another Merritt College student and first president of the Soul Students Advisory Council, that morphed into BSUs across America. The first thing Virtual Murrell read was a note from Bobby to let those in attendance know that the Soul Students Advisory Council began after a performance of fellow Merritt student Marvin X's (Jackmon) play Flowers for the Trashman. The anti-Vietnam play recruited students into the Black consciousness and activist movement at Merritt College. Marvin X stood at the $175.00 plate dinner, a benefit for the Peralta College Foundation that gives scholarships to needy students.


 Virtual Murrell, accepted award for Bobby Seale. Virtual was first president of the Soul Students Advisory Council that later became the BSU at Merritt.

Speaking for Bobby, Virtual also said Peralta College students and instructors must tell the true story of Merritt, not the watered down, Miller Lite version so often heard, although attendees did view a trailer of the award winning Peralta College TV documentary on Merritt College as the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and student activism, especially in the Bay Area.


Rt. Col. Conway B. Jones, Jr., Charles Brown, political activist (former student leader at UC Berkeley) and Marvin X

Marvin X's autobiography Somethin' Proper, narrates the student struggle at Merritt, one of the few sources on the history of the Black Arts/Black Power Movement, especially on the West Coast. Laney College Professor, Judy Juanita's novel, relates some of the history as well. See also the writings of Donald Warden of the Afro-American Association, the key organization that preceded the Black Panther Party and the Black Arts Movement on the West Coast and nationally.



Ch

Marvin X and Paul Cobb have been friends since childhood in West Oakland

Ossie Davis, Dr. Nathan Hare, Bobby Seale and Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett

Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale and fellow Merritt College student, Marvin X, 1962-64. Bobby Seale performed in Marvin's Black Arts West Theatre before joining the Black Panther Party. He played a young revolutionary Black man trying to find himself in Come Next Summer, Marvin's second play.