Black Bird Press News & Review: HOW I WROTE FABLE OF THE BLACK BIRD, THE CLASSIC CHILDREN'S STORY OF THE 1960s Black Arts/Black Liberation Movement

Marvin X, 24 years old, underground in Harlem, NY, 1968
co-founder of the Black Arts Movement

photo Doug Harris

You remind me Richard Wright first hit Chicago on the run from Mississippi, as I did also, coming out of Oklahoma, headed straight North. Richard Wright concluded that “flight” was the theme of the black male’s existence, always “on the run,” trying to get and keep a foot outside the cage.

Nathan Hare

In 1967, I was drafted to serve in Vietnam, but refused to be a running dog for American imperialism and colonialism. Although I joined the Nation of Islam the same year, I was also under the influence of the Black Panther Party. So although the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told his followers to go to jail as he did, rather than serve in the devil's wars, the Black Panther Party said we must not only resist the draft but we must resist arrest, so rather than listen to my leader and teacher, I listened to my BPP friends from Oakland's Merritt College, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and the man I introduced to them, Eldridge Cleaver.

I had a relative playing pro football in Toronto, Canada, Ted Watkins, so I made contact and went into exile. I soon discovered racism was as Canadian as hockey--and they play a lot of hockey in Canada. The Caribbean immigrants described their journey to Canada as the Middle Passage. But it was an educational experience for a young black man outside of America for the first time. In Toronto, I was mentored by two of the greatest African writers: Austin Clarke and Jan Carew. And I was taught Shi'ite Islam by Hussein Al- Sharistani, president of the Muslim Student Association of the US and Canada. He taught me prayers in Arabic and his version of Islam which were somewhat similar to the theology of Elijah Muhammad, .e.g., he told me the Shi'ites also wanted a Nation of Islam. Hussein became a nuclear scientist and after suffering persecution and prison under Saddam Hussein because he wouldn't work on the bomb, when the US invaded and overthrew Saddam, he was offered the prime minister position but instead became Minister of Oil and close associate of the Grand Ayotollah Sistani.

I was joined in Toronto by my partner from Black Arts West and The Black House, San Francisco, Sister Ethna X. Wyatt, aka Hurriyah Asar, but before long she departed home to Chicago. She wrote me about a Chicago poet named Don L Lee and sent me his book of poems. She told me about the Chicago Black Arts Movement and suggested I should come, so I departed underground to Chicago, stopping in Detroit with the BAM family. In Chicago I initially lived with Hurriyah's family on the North side. They had a bird in a cage and the cage door was open but I noticed the bird wouldn't come out. I wrote the black bird fable from observing the bird. Even though underground and wanted by the FBI, I connected with the Chicago BAM, Don, aka Haki, Gwen Brooks, Hoyt Fuller of Negro Digest/Black World, Chicago Art Ensemble, Phil Choran at the Afro-Arts Theatre, et al.

I go a job in the Loop, downtown Chicago and moved to a room on the South side, 57th and Kimbark, not far from a main intersection, 63rd and Cottage Grove. I was on 63rd and Cottage Grove the morning after MLK, Jr. was assassinated. The West side was burning. The South side was under National Guard occupation. When my people on the North side left a letter on my door saying the FBI had come there looking for me, I knew it was time to depart Chicago, so I contacted my friend, playwright Ed Bullins, who was now in residence at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, He offered me a job as associate editor of Black Theatre Magazine, so I departed Chicago, a Black bird on the run!

In the 60s, there were few black children stories, so the black bird became a classic by default. It was choreographed by San Francisco dancer Raymond Sawyer. While underground, I read it at the Black Power Conference in Philly under the name O. Black.

FYI, Marvin X was arrested on a visit to Montreal, Canada, and returned to San Francisco to stand trial for draft evasion. After being found guilty and after being banned from teaching at Fresno State University by Gov. Ronald Reagan, who also banned Angela Davis from teaching at UCLA, 1969, Marvin X went into exile a second time. This time to Mexico City and Belize, from which he was deported back to America where he served five months in Terminal Island Federal Prison. His court speech was published in the Black Scholar Magazine, cerca 1970.
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
10/18/17

The cage door was always open, but the little bird wouldn't come out. He loved the cage, he had been in it so long.

Other birds would fly into the house and beg the little bird to come out, but he wouldn't. Sad, the other bird would fly away home to paradise, their hearts white with anger and sorrow for their lost brother who loved the cage. He is so hard headed!, the other birds said on their way home, "but we will get him out, we will get him out!"

He was a smart bird, nobody could tell him anything, except his master. He could sing too, when the master sang, the little bird sang too. He knew all the master's songs by heart. He didn't like bird songs!

"Come fly away with us,' the other birds would say. But the little bird did not want to go for self. ''I like being in a cage," he said, "You birds are the crazy ones, get away from me!"

From all around they came to see him do tricks. The little bird knew a lot of tricks the master trained him to do. He was a good house pet. For days and days the black bird would sit in the cage looking at himself in the mirror. 'He is such a beautiful black bird," all the visitors said. ":Yes," the master said, "I have a good bird." To himself the master said, "This black fool has made me rich doing tricks and he's too dumb to fly away to freedom. What a stupid bird!"

The master fed the little bird crumbs from his table. The little bird loved the crumbs so much, he wouldn't eat anything else, not even when the other birds sneaked into the master's house and offered the bird some righteous soul food!

One day the master's house caught on fire. nobody knew how the fire started, not even the little black bird. The master fought hard to put the fire out but there were too many flames, so he ran outside and left the little black bird behind.

The flames grew bigger and bigger but the little black bird just sat in his cage. Maybe, he was waiting for his master to return. Then suddenly, a friendly bird flew into the house. "Black bird," he yelled, "Don't you see the house in on fire? Hurry, come fly away with me!" "But I love my cage," the black bird cried, "I want to stay!" "You want to burn?" said the friendly bird.