Tuesday, August 28, 2018

White supremacy in defining mental health in America



It is amazing how quickly white men who commit acts of violence, including mass murder, are labeled suffering mental disabilities, but North American Africans are simply sane hoodlums, thugs, or suffering lack of parental authority and guidance, but sane (and what is sane in this insane world?).

It will be a great surprise to some when the black psycho-social pathology  of pervasive violence in Chicago and other US cities is classified as rooted in some degree of mental illness, along with drug abuse and economic inequities.

Does not Black violence stem from traumatic slave syndrome--not post, but modern day mental slavery? If white boys propensity for homicide is due to estrangement in the rapidly transformation of patriarchal white culture into the multi-cultural reality, including the fluid gender identification crisis, why are young Black men exempt from suffering severe trauma at attempting to navigate through the American cultural matrix, quagmire, conundrum? White the best of Hip Hop culture delivered cultural and revolutionary consciousness to some, other in Hip Hop culture gravitated or were directed to the most base, reactionary elements of this culture, from pedophilia to the world of make believe with its conspicuous consumption of blind bling and pimp/ho. Even the conscious sector is in confusion due to the plethora of isms, schisms, religiosity and mythology.  Hip Hop celebrants are suffer mental paralysis when unable to synchronize the intellectual, ideological and mythological morass, usually a combination of Kemetic thought, Islamic, Yoruba, Moorish Science, Five Per Center, Rastifari and Hebrew mytho-religiosity. Don't leave out York, Super Sunnis and Sufism to make the pot of Gumbo complete, including North American African Christian myth/ritual.

But the dominant white supremacy false narrative tipping the scale of our mental equilibrium appears in the drug crisis, with Crack heads labeled criminals and imprisoned, while opioid addicts
(mostly white) qualify for mental health programs to recover. 

Such linguistic and concomitant program disparities have long labeled Black addicts as criminals. This criminalizing of Blacks extends throughout social and institutional culture. In political economics, we are attacked as welfare cheats, while white farmers were recently granted welfare checks totaling 12 billion dollars to alleviate their losses in Trump's tariff wars, even when the farmers cry they want trade not relief checks.

White supremacy is pervasive in the American criminal justice system. While serving time in federal prison, my job was in the yard office, mainly to announce inmate visitors. I had to first look up their names that included their crimes and sentencing. I saw that white bank robbers got three to four years, black bank robbers seven. Is a black bank robber worse than a white one?

American white supremacy has always been about identity, the black body versus the white body, e.g., three-fifths of a man versus the 100% white human white being. Only as chattel slaves (personal property slaves) did North American Africans have value. Even when the slave catchers killed an African for resisting, the catcher had to compensate the master for loss of property.

But in our current and long persistent nothingness and dread, i.e., being only of value as cannon fodder in the military or incarcerated commodities on the stock exchange, the Black identity crisis is internal as well as external.

Dr. Nathan Hare delineates White Supremacy Type I and II. We suffer the oppressed syndrome, while Type I is the oppressor's syndrome. It is the oppressor's disparity in identifying mental disorders based on white supremacy that so often dominates the narrative until we accept his definitions of criminality and mental health, of course, far too often are mental health issues are in denial, to the point of not permitting the family member to see therapy. This is due to shame, perhaps guilt, but as a result, the matter does not become a communal or community affair, even though mental illness impacts most North American African families. I know cases of  conscious Black bourgeoisie families that never acknowledged or celebrated their child who committed suicide. I acknowledge one of my sons, Darrel, aka Abdul (RIP), committed suicide at 39 years old. His manic depression and medication made him walk into a train. Dr. Frantz Fanon, Dr. Nathan Hare, et al., tell us the oppresssed suffer situational disorders and manic depression is among them. Of course Dr. Fanon said we can only regain our mental equilibrium by engaging in revolution, national liberation.

There is no consensus of the road to our liberation, some have long sought assimilation, integration, others champion separation, national sovereignty, others seek repatriation to the Motherland as my daughter has done. She is now living in Accra, Ghana. She attended and graduated in Microbiology from Howard University on a track scholarship. In her interviews on Al Jazeera and the BBC, she has said, "I ran track to win, so I am not going to be in any situation where I don't have a chance of winning. They might not have electricity 24/7 in Ghana, but they don't have white supremacy 24/7. 
They have it but not 24/7."

Too often we buy into the white supremacy narrative and become blind to our traumatic neo-slave syndrome mentality, refusing to acknowledge our young men and women are just as sick as the white-boy school mass killer, church killer or night club mass murderer. Yes, those who shoot and kill every weekend in the hood, along with their plethora of partner abuse, often a critical cause of homicidal and suicidal violence, especially sexual improprieties, are no less sick than those white boys, but the diagnosis of the Black person is criminal, the white boy suffers a mental health disability. The white boy can kill nine persons in a church but is depressed thus afforded a meal at McDonald's on the way to jail, while the surviving victims immediately forgive him in the most grand manner of the Cross and Lynching Tree, as Rev. James Cone taught us (RIP).

We thus suffer psycho-linguistic maladies far beyond usage of the "N" word, or even "B" word, MF word, et al. Most importantly, in 2018, we have no consensus on whether we are Americans, African Americans (I hear continental Africans are now African Americans); we are Negroes, so-called Negroes, Bilalians, Moors, Aboriginal Asiatic Black men and women, etc. With North American African, I try to give us a geo-political identification. We are Africans in North America as distinguished from Central and South American Africans, Caribbean Africans, European Africans, et. al.

In sociology 101, we were taught about the cultural lag. We must admit in this era of high technology, events are changing rapidly and language as well. As I said at the top, some language is cunning and vile, determined to maintain the last vestige of a dying order called White Supremacy, although we are not tricked by this term which is a misnomer in the era of Globalism that transcends white domination, alas, Globalism is multi-cultural, e.g., Chinese, Arab, Latino, European. This mixed portfolio can again confuse those trapped in the low information vibration, still thinking White Supremacy is White, while it has clearly morphed into the multicultural variety, still cunning and vile.  After all, ethnicities are all able to express Type II and even Type I White Supremacy. If this is confusing, Nelly Fuller is right, "If you don't understand white supremacy, everything else will confuse you!"

Language is indeed fluid and dynamic, so one can try to maintain a basic language to complete our daily round, yet if we reject the linguistic and societal changes because we find some of them morally abhorrent, we may find ourselves further alienated from a world hostile to us for the last few centuries. And yet, the final question rests, not with "them," but with US as a people who must recognize our national liberation aspirations, for the African proverb says, "Wood may remain in the water ten years but it will never become a crocodile."

If a marriage partner remains in an abusive relationship, their mental health is called into question and recovery, often long term, is needed so the abused person can regain their mental equilibrium.
Do you not think North American Africans need a total break from our marriage with the USA, from four hundred years of traumatic slave syndrome psychosis, yes, a complete, total and full blown break with reality. Frazier described it best in Black Bourgeoisie, "The world of make believe" enjoyed by the black bourgeoisie and grassroots as well. We've all been hoodwinked and bamboozled.

Language is the primary instrument in the propaganda war to continue the domination of North American Africans, no matter whether utilized by perennial white supremacists or the new boys and girls on the block,i.e., the globalists and their running dogs, sycophants and sell-outs among our own kind.

For us suffering Type II White Supremacy, we must face the myriad traumas head on, without fear of relapse due to clear knowledge of our horrific condition, past and present. Shall we tell the sufferers of oppression an Aspirin will suffice? We should not tell the patient the cancer is final stage without a vigorous therapeutic recovery regimen? At minimal, we must tell the patient to guard against being deceived, even from the doctor himself! Dr. Nathan Hare says follow the Fictive Theory, i.e., everything White supremacists say is fiction until proven to be fact, most especially anything relating to our condition, but the general reality as well. Mrs. Amina Baraka said, "Don't drink the Kool Aid. Well, Marvin, you and I drank a little bit!" LOL
--Marvin X
8/28/18










Friday, August 24, 2018

Prison Lyrics of Marvin X, 1970, in honor of the 2018 Black August National Prison Strike

In  Honor of the Black August 
National Prison Strike, 2018



Marvin X: The Prison Lyrics, 1970


Marvin X underground in Harlem, NY, 1968. 
photo Doug Harris

He was wanted by the FBI for refusing to fight in Vietnam. In Harlem he worked at the New Lafayette Theatre as Associate Editor of their Black Theatre Magazine. His Black Arts Movement associates included Amiri Baraka, Askia Toure, Sonia Sanchez, Sun Ra, Last Poets, Nikki Giovanni, Milford Graves, Haki Madhubuti, Ed Bullins, Robert Macbeth and the Lafayette Theatre family, Larry Neal, Mae Jackson, Barbara Ann Teer, et al. 
His chapbook Fly To Allah is a seminal work of the BAM and Muslim American literature, according to Muslim American literature scholar, Dr. Mohja Kahf. 

When he was captured returning from a visit to Montreal, Canada, after his release and knew his Harlem sojourn was ended, he penned the following poem before his departure for a court appearance in San Francisco.

Al Hajj Harlem

In sha-allah
I go from here
soon
studied theory practice of blackness
University of Harlem
greater than Timbuctu
farewell Harlem
Mecca of the West
saddened moved
smile
see my children
I am a child
rising taking control
I am moved to be here
a star
Allah's heaven
As Salaam Alaikum
wa rah matu llahi
wa barakatuh.
--Marvin X

After the court convicted and while awaiting sentencing, Marvin X went into his second exile (first was Toronto, Canada), this time to Mexico City and Belize, Central America, from which he was arrested for teaching Black Power and suspected of being a Communist. When the plane from Belize landed in Miami, Florida, he was taken to Dade County Jail, later Miami City Jail, then San Francisco County Jail and sentenced to five months at Terminal Island Federal Prison. He wrote the following lyrics while in San Francisco Country Jail and Terminal Island, 1970. 

We are the revolutionaries!

In memory of James McClain, William Christmas and Jonathan Jackson. In their slave revolt of August 7, 1970, at the Marin County Courthouse, shouted, "We are the revolutionaries!"

We are the revolutionaries

Days go slow in here
don't let us out for air
can't even tell morning night
they read our mail
don't have no rights
try to make us feel less than man
don't work don't work
I know who I am
We are the revolutionaries
We are the revolutionaries
They got us down
not for long
feed us food fit for pigs
put us in cells with the insane
never go outside can't tell when it rains
nobody comes to see us, nobody seems to care
in spite of everything we hold on
We are the revolutionaries
jails filled with brothers black and brown
must be conspiracy to keep us down
won't work won't work won't work
gonna break out free the town
Can't make me feel less than man
bars mean nothing
I know who I am

Days go slow in here
don't let us out for air
what kind of people are these
really make you wonder
hurry Allah fire and water

Devils won't give up
til six feet under
We are the revolutionaries
We are the revolutionries

They got us down
not for long
power to the people death to the devil
power to the people death to the devil
We are the revolutionaries
We are the revolutionaries
We're going to make a new world for everybody
We're going to make a new world for everybody.
--Marvin X

Chained and Bound

for Luciano Marcellius 15X Bel-Lee, Terminal Island FOI Captain.

Three of us NOI brothers held an election on the  Big Yard. Marcellius said I was
the minister since I was the smartest. He appointed the other brother secretary
and himself Captain. Next Sunday we met in the chapel and I lectured on Africans in the Americas, based on Africa's Gift to America, J.A. Rogers, a book I found in the prison library that was marked Contraband, but I put it in my property when I was released from Terminal Island. 


You got me chained and bound
but can't keep me down
Born to be free
have my liberty
by any means necessary

Our time has come
our day is here
black man stand
have no fear
got me chained and bound
but can't keep me down

Dare to struggle dare to win
then the world will be ours again
devil is a paper tiger
rules with the gun
no law and order
til black justice done

Got me chained and bound
can't keep me down
Come my brothers
seize the time
no more dope no more wine
no no no no no no

Got me chained and bound
but you can't keep me down
Come my brothers
breako  the chains
no peace til freedom reigns

You got me chained and bound
can't keep me down
no no no no no no no no no.............

Allah Loves a Warrior

Allah loves a warrior
hates a coward
Allah loves a warrior
hates a coward
Want to serve the Mighty God
Got to be a mighty man
Allah loves a warrior
hates a coward
When battle gets rough
got to be more tough
Allah loves a warrior 
hates a coward
When the deal goes down
Don't turn around
Allah loves a warrior
hates a coward
If you can't give everything
Can't serve this King
Allah loves a warrior
hates a coward
Total submission
He asks of you
Make His will your will
that's what you gotta do
Cause Allah loves a warrior
hates a coward
You gotta be strong in times like these
can't turn around
can't try to flee
Allah loves a warrior
hates a coward

If you say you believe
don't you know you will be tried
cause Allah loves a warrior
hates a coward.
--Marvin X


from Take Care of Business, musical drama, Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, 1972, music arranged by Sun Ra and his Arkestra. Choreography by Raymond Sawyer. Directed and produced by Marvin X.

Afterword




Marvin X in Georgetown, Guyana, South America, interviewing Prime Minister Forbes Burnham at his residence, 1972. PM Burnham gave North American Africans citizenship upon request, especially those escaping US white supremacy. Julian Mayfield, Tom Feelings and other artists joined his government. Herman Ferguson was a political refugee from NYC, along with Nassar Shabazz from San Francisco. Other North American Africans who found refuge in Guyana were Mamadou Lumumba and others associated with RAM or the Revolutionary Action Movement.  

After enduring exile twice and jail, prison, Marvin X was awarded a writing fellowship from the National Endowment of the Humanities that enabled him to visit Afro-Mexicans in Southern Mexico and attend Carifesta, the Caribbean Festival of the Arts, Georgetown, Guyana, 1972, at which he interviewed Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, a socalled Black Power advocate we later learned the American CIA used to forestall another Cuban-style Marxist regime in the Americas. Black Power was more favorable to the USA than Communism. One of our greatest Pan African scholars, Dr. Walter Rodney, was assassinated under PM Burnham's watch, along with the Rev. Jim Jones massacre of 900 mostly North American Africans so desperate to escape US White supremacy they fed their children poison laced Kool Aid. Marvin's interview was published in Black Scholar Magazine and Muhammad Speaks Newspaper. 

Sunday, August 19, 2018

In Memoriam: Notes on Oakland Afro American Association founder, Attorney Donald Warden, aka Khalid Abdullah Tariq al Mansour, mentor of the Black Panthers

His Black Consciousness Program
Rocked the Bay Area like no other
black panthers black arts black studies kwanza




Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour
AKA, Attorney Donald Warden
January 1, 1936--December 15, 2016


Comments from the people on Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour

Marvin -Wonderful historic overview of those important times - thanks for continuing to chronicle our history.

Dezie Woods Jones
BWOPA

-----------------------------
Marvin,

My career started with the shooting death of Melvin Black where I concluded that the shooting was wrongful.  Like most I listened to Don Warden aka Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour  every Sunday evening.  The last time I spoke with him which was 5 to 7 years ago, I told him that his words and deeds were an inspiration for my career as a lawyer representing people abused by the police and various radio programs that I have hosted. Long live his memory in our minds and hearts.

John Burris

-------------------------------------
Brother Marvin, 
Thank you for the thoughtful tribute to Khalid Al Mansour . I had the unique opportunity to be present during the formative time of the Afro-American Association while attending Oakland City College in 1961-1963. Although, I have no pictures or documents to share, there is yet an abiding place in my heart and soul filled with powerful and positive images of this most trans formative period in my life. The AAA discussion meetings, debates and street corner speeches by Khalid Al Man-sour and others awakened me and set my life on a different path toward personal growth and development. I am grateful for the consciousness-raising experiences that helped inform my educational and career decisions which always included the thought of how my actions could benefit my family and my community. My involvement in the Movement expanded my vision beyond the few blocks in West Oakland where I grew up.  I give thanks to Khalid Al Mansour, the AAA, and all the sisters and brothers of the SF Bay Area civil rights and Black Nationalist movements who helped raise my social and cultural awareness, stimulated my intellectual curiosity and made me a better person. What we all experienced is worthy to be remembered, valued and shared with the generations of now and those that follow. Peace
--Ann Williams Willis

-------------------------
I still have the papers of the Association that were written in the 1960s. Some of the Association's philosophy came froleft out the 7th keym several other people besides Khalid, including some from the original 12 members of the "book club", which evolved into the Association.

A few of us are planning to have some sort of gathering to express the legacy of the Association, probably within 6 months. Time is needed to collect as much info as possible and get the word out to as many people as possible.

I am writing a book about the Association because many of us are very old. This book will contain some information; but no one book could contain all information about the Association. Each attendee has his/her perspective and memory about this vital organization. Originally I did not want to write this book because I knew we were still being watched. An example: Loye Cherry introduced Roger Holmes to the Association and Don. Roger and John Anderson  at San Jose State College in 1968 presented "Black is Becoming" conference, where Don debated Shockley (who stated that Black people were inferior). Others on the panel included Mr. Forman of CORE, Al Poussaint. However Don stole the audience with his excellent debating skills. Roger went on to attend law school at Santa Clara University. While attending this school, Roger played tennis with a young man who he found out was a Prince in Kuwait. Roger told Don and they shortly thereafter got involved with the Arabs. Roger and Don became law partners. Both changed their names.  I could go on and on. Don and Roger left out the 7th key....the dark side. We always used RISEPE; but I added the dark side. OPEC is controlled. The Saudi Family was enhanced by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940s, under the condition of controlling the oil in exchange for protection. The darkness continues. Another ex.: Knorvel Cherry was responsible for getting McClymonds to allow the Association to hold the "Mind of the Ghetto" Conferences in 1963 (Malcolm X) and 1964 (Cassius Clay). Knorvel also got Tillman to to produce the Association's newspaper in 1964.

Anyway, my book is being reviewed.

Please, gather whatever information you have, so we can share our information with each other.


Thank you,

Lee O. Cherry
--------------------------------------

Very missed. Dr. Al-Mansour took personal interest in my international pursuits back in the 90's. I remember receiving a call from him on a Sunday evening back in 1998 and saying to meet him in the lobby of the Shangrila Hotel in Kuala Lumpur that Wednesday. I scrambled things together and made it. Although many influential people also arrived there from various parts of the world, he was quite attentive to my needs and introduced me to the Chariman of Renong Berhad, Tan Sri Halim Saad. That company was responsible for, what was at that time the tallest building in the world, Petronas Towers. Everything went well and if not for the fact that just 2 months later, the Asia money crisis hit, the project I was developing in China would have become a reality.

His books opened my interest in ancient African history, and his contribution to the Black world was enormous.

--Barry Pierce
-------------------------

Ser Seshs Ab Heter-Boxley My person used to listen to him on radio KDIA on his Black Montage Program on Sunday afternoon way back in the 1960s. He and the Late Huey Newton used to talk about "Jesus being black" it was a mind blower for a then "Negro" minded young black man from Natchez Mississippi who was indoctrinated by Catholic school and church.



Kweli Tutashinda The only person I've seen out talk Minister Farrakhan! Lol

Manage




Itibari M. Zulu Thanks Marvin. I also remember him on KDIA, back in the day. He was on point as a critical thinker and consciousness builder. His story need to be told.


El Muhajir/Marvin X:

Thank you for all of this important history!! Of course I grew up listening to Bro. Khalid (Donald Warden) on Sunday evenings broadcast from his Afro American Historical Society on KDIA. When I entered Berkeley, I frequently saw him and Donald Hopkins in academic and social settings. After he converted to Islam, he came to Sacramento in the early 90s to lecture and offer evidence to the African American Muslim community of the presence of Africans in ancient Arabia.  The last time I saw him was in the 2000s at Yoshi’s when Pharoah Sanders was performing. He was walking swiftly past the restaurant and i didn’t get a chance to greet him. May this Giant Rest In Peace and Power.
--Fahizah Alim

Marvin X and his Muse, Fahizah Alim


When I graduated from Edison High School, Fresno CA, 1962, I wanted to attend Howard
University. When I came to Oakland and told my father, he suggested I go see his friend, Oakland Post Publisher Tom Berkley. When I told Tom my desire, he told me to forget about Howard, you don't need to go to Howard, we have good schools out here. I forgot about Howard and enrolled at Oakland City College, aka, Merritt College, on Grove Street, now Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave.

By the time I graduated from OCC, I had to admit maybe Tom Berkley was right, especially after I was initiated into revolutionary black nationalism that I would carry with me to San Francisco State College/University and beyond for the remainder of my life. en

But unlike Howard, there were few Black instructors and no Black Studies. My Black consciousness came from listening to brothers and sisters rapping on the steps of OCC. Rapping was not beats and rhymes, but extemporaneous speaking on revolution by a variety of speakers, including Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Ernie Allen, Maurice Dawson, Richard Thorne, and Attorney Donald Warden, head of the Afro American Association.

I was fascinated at the brothers rapping. I don't recall sisters rapping but sisters were involved. There was Ann Williams, partner of Richard Thorne. Richard Thorne introduced me to Huey Newton. Carol Freeman, Mississippi poet, married to Ken Freeman, aka, Mamadou Lumumba. Sisters Ellendar Barnes, Judy Juanita, and others whose names I can't recall. There were elder sisters like Mother McKenya, Mother Ruth Hagwood, et al.

From the steps of the college, the rap sessions would move to a campus room for an AAA meeting, or across the street to a greasy spoon .cafe for hamburgers, fries, milkshakes and more rapping. From the cafe we might gather in a fellow student's room. From the steps of OCC, AAA meetings, greasy spoon cafe sessions and meetings in our rooms, we had non-credit independent peer group study, discoursing on black nationalism, the black bourgeoisie (Dr. E. Franklin Frazier), Dr. Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, the writings of Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism. We discussed Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Congo, assassinated by African neo-colonialists at the behest of the West, Belgium, America, et al. We talked about the Sharpesville Massacre in South Africa, about Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress.
In Cultural Anthropology, we studied Jomo Kenyatta's ethnography of his Kikuyu tribe. Outside of class we were enthralled by the Mau Mau fighters in Kenya, guerrilla fighters who attacked the European colonialists  and the reactionary colonial elite who resisted the call for independence. "They" say the Mau Mau had to kill more African resisters to independence than Europeans.

In order to extricate North American Africans from this American matrix, quagmire, conundrum of tricknology, lies, fake news, world of make believe Hollywood CIA propaganda films, arresting our development, keeping us on the low information vibration, we must confront our domestic neo-colonial elite, if necessary with the Mau Mau model. See my Parable of Black Man and Block Man.
Imagine the Catholic Church has sexual psychopathic priests abusing children. Aw, we say the Black Culture Police are even worse, Jesse Jackson, Bill Cosby, et al., moral hypocrites. I was a moral hypocrite once. I spoke at Berkeley High School about Crack addiction. A few days later I was buying Crack in North Oakland. The youth selling me the Crack recognized me from his class at Berkeley High, "Hey teach, wasn't you in my class at Berkeley High talking against Crack? How could I lie? I was busted. I vowed to myself to never be a contradiction. From reading my critics, I know I am my worse critic. I seem to learn best by experience. At OCC we also studied the writings of Ho Chi Minh, leader of the North Vietnam national liberation movement. We saw our struggle and theirs as one international movement for the nation liberation of oppressed peoples. Not only did our peer group independent study sessions include dialouge on the Cuban revolution and the writings of Che Guevara. We especially like Fidel Castro's court speech History Will Absolve Me!

Malcolm X was our hero on the West Coast, not Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, although we connected with student Rights workers in SNCC, Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Toure, John Lewis, H. Rap Brown/Imam Jamil Alamin, Kathleen Neal Cleaver.

The Afro American Association sold sweat shirts with revolutionary fighter Jomo Kenyatfta on the front. Kenya won independence 1963. The AAA rapped on the streets of the Bay Area, from Oakland to San Francisco's Fillmore District, usually on corners, speaking on liberation, cultural consciousness and do for self economics. Aside from students, the AAA had some heavy minds, intellectuals, lawyers: Donald Hopkins, Fred and Mary Lewis, Henry Ramsey and Eleanor Mason, Paul Cobb, Ed Howard, et al. It may have been too many great minds in one space that was the ultimate undoing of the AAA. Khalid was charismatic, for sure, and a great speaker. He was humorous. I recall him saying if you can make the people laugh, you got your audience.

Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour and the Afro American Association was critical to the spread of revolutionary Black and African consciousness in the Bay Area. We must give thanks and praise for the AAA, from which the Black Panther Party leaders were nourished; the West Coast Black Arts Movement evolved from the AAA influence that impressed Marvin X, Judy Juanita, Ellendar Barnes and others who were budding artists and writers. Surely the AAA inspired the call for Black Studies, along with students who were not associated  with the AAA, although the AAA's influence was pervasive. Revolutionary students, inspired by the AAA and the explosive world revolution for national liberation from colonialism and neo-colonialism, when the colonial elite take power without decolonizing their Euro-African minds, connected with the national black student revolution, from SNCC in the South to RAM in the North. RAM or Revolutionary Action Movement was founded by Robert F. Williams, North Carolina NAACP leader who believed in arm self defense (see his classic Negroes With Guns). Max Stanford/Muhammad Ahmad was a co-leader from Philadelphia, helped organize RAM at Howard University, connecting RAM with SNCC in the South. At OCC RAM had members and associates who helped publish SoulBook, Edited by Kenny Freeman/Mamadou Lumumba, Donald Freeman (Kenney's brother, although there is another revolutionary brother Donald Freeman of Cleveland, Ohio. Other editors included Isaac Moore, Ernest Allen, Caroll Holmes Freeman, Bob Hamilton. My first published story won a prize in the Merritt Student Magazine, actually I won a prize for Delicate Child, and Soulbook published it.  Growing in Marxism and black revolutionary nationalist thought, the AAA was not a place for Soulbook people, so they/we moved on. Donald Warden held us in his tender caring arms until we could walk on and we did. Thank you Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour for your leadership. Thank you for your talks on Black and African consciousness on radio stations KDIA and KPFA. Thank you helping brothers in San Quentin Prison, at the request of Malcolm X. We were among the seven thousand students outside Sproul Hall when Malcolm X addressed seven thousand students.

Maulana Ron Karenga was the Los Angeles representative of the AAA. AAA member Ed Howard says Kwanza came from Oakland. Mother MrcKenya is said to have produced the first Kwanza ceremony in Oakland.

At some point Donald Warden converted to Islam, in fact, became a lawyer for OPEC, the oil cartel, then a lawyer for the Saudi Arabian royal family. At the direction of the Saudi Royal family, Khalid is said to have steered Barack Hassien Obama into Harvard. Khalid wrote many books you can Google.

Our last interaction with Khalid was 1979 at the Oakland Auditorium, a rally to protest the OPD killing of 15 year old, Melvin Black, actually they were killing a Black monthly, until they killed my close friend's Melvin Black. While teaching English, Creative Writing and Technical Writing at the University of Nevada, Reno and Nevada Community College, I read the San Francisco Chronicle Newspaper to keep up on events in the Bay. One morning I looked at the SF Chronicle to see another killing of a Black man by the OPD. I threw the paper down in disgust, but later I turned to the back page to finish the article and their was a picture of my close friend and best Elementary Arabic student, Mustafa/Lawrence McKinney, along with his sister Charla Black, outside Oakland City Hall protesting the OPD murder under the color of law of their 15 year old brother Melvin Black.

We formed a planning committee for the rally. Speakers included Minister Farakhan as featured speaker, along with Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, Monsa Nitoto, Paul Cobb, Dezzie Woods Jones, Jo Nina Abram, Oba T'Shaka, et al. The rally was from noon to midnight, five thousand attended. Journalist Edith Austin wrote about the rally in her Sun Reporter column, said it was without incident.

But let me give you the untold story. We were behind schedule and running late, it was ten o'clock when Minister Farakhan sent an FOI with a message to come to the Green Room. 'When I got there, the Minister said, "Marvin, if you don't get Khalid off the mike, I'm leaving for Chicago right now."
"Yes, Sir, Brother Minister," I said. As MC, I went up on stage and gently grabbed the mike from Khalid who had been rambling on and on about a Wakandan style state in South Africa. Minister Farakhan came on stage with his entourage, Minister Khalid Muhammd, Minister Billy X/Rabb Muhammad.Khalid departed the stage. I handed the mike to Minister Farakhan. It was the last time I saw Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour.


Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour speaking at the 1979 Melvin Black Forum on Human Rights at the Oakland Auditorium, attended by 5,000 folks to protest the OPD monthly killing of Black men in Oakland. He went off focus about a Pan African Republic, sounded like the Kingdom of Wakanda, but inside South Africa? No matter, we love you Khalid and may Allah be pleased with you.


--Mavin X/El Muhajir
8/19/18
This essay will appear in the forthcoming Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X, Introduction by Dr. Nathan Hare, Black Bird Press, Oakland CA., Introduction by Dr. Nathan Hare, PhD., 2018.



Marvin X reading from his play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, about his last meeting with Huey in a West Oakland Crack House, Odell Johnson Theatre, Laney College, Oakland CA.
photo

Friday, August 17, 2018

Davey D's Manhood training session at Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore


 DJ, San Francisco State University lecturer, Davey D

Today, Friday, August 17, 2018, DJ Davey D enjoyed a manhood training session at Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. The session began when D was standing at X's Wake Up Table conversing as many brothers do when Marvin X sets up shop.  Even when Marvin X is not there, brothers gather, often with sisters too, to converse at the spot near Peet's Coffee and Trader Joe's. Brothers from throughout the Pan African Diaspora converse on a myriad topics at this liberated space, from Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo, Ghana, Jamaica and all parts of Oakland, West, North, Deep East.

Before Davey arrived a couple from Harlem, NY, stopped to check out X's literature exhibit that includes large framed pictures of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, August Wilson and Amiri Baraka. On one table is a large photo of Dr. Julia Hare, called the female Malcolm X (See her performance on Tavis Smiley's Black Forum, Youtube). Dancer Sister Amina came through and told Marvin X she and her children just saw him in Stanley Nelson's documentary film Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, PBS.

Others who have stopped at Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore, include Angela Davis, Fania Davis, Erika Huggins, Fredericka Newton, Odell Johnson, President Emeritus, Laney College, Fantastic Negrito, Kev Choice, et al.

As Davey D conversed with Marvin X on their upcoming discussion about Black Power for the benefit of D's students at San Francisco State University, an OG brother came up saying Black Power Black Power Black Power. The brothers  returned the greeting. Then the OG said, "What's the word?" He was speaking to OG Marvin X and OG Randy sitting with him behind the table. Davey D stood silently as the OGs went into an automatic  call and response:

What's the word?
Thunderbird!
What's the price?
Thirty twice.
Who drink the most?
Colored folks?

Then Marvin and Randy sang the Grass Roots National Anthem of the 50s and 60s:
WPLJ
really feels good to me
It's really good wine
make you feel so fine so fine so fine
W fada wine
P fada Port
L fada Limon
J fada juice
W P L J
really feel good to me
It's really good wine
make you feel so fine so fine so fine
Ohoooo ohooo ohooo.

Hip Hop Davey D was dumbfounded. He admitted he'd never heard the song before. The OGs acknowledged one had to be in a certain age-grade to know this song. They were sorry this Hip Hop Master had no knowledge of it since it is an iconic song of the 50s and 60s generation in the Hood. The song was included in Marvin X's first play Flowers for the Trashman, produced by the Drama Department at San Francisco State University, 1964. See the Black Arts Movement anthology Black Fire, 1968, and the Black Arts Movement Reader, 2014.

When one of the OGs told Davey D he was traveling in high cotton, again D was dumbfounded. "What are you OGs talking about? I grew up in New York, I don't know nothing 'bout no damn cotton!" OG Randy told him being in high cotton was a metaphor that one was doing good."

Marvin X, who partly grew up in Fresno, California, told Davey D there was more cotton in Fresno than Mississippi. "What you don't want to do is go through the cotton field for the third picking, when there is hardly any cotton left but one had to pick it none the less. I wouldn't have survived slavery, they would have killed me. I picked cotton in Fresno, my mother picked cotton, my grandparents, uncles, even my great-grandparents who were pioneers to the Central Valley from the South. Dr. Nathan Hare told me in Oklahoma they put so called Negroes on buses to Fresno to pick cotton and many never returned to Oklahoma."

Between the song WPLJ and cotton, Davey D was astounded. He had received his manhood training session for the day, a necessary lesson on Black History and Culture for the Hip Hop generation.

--Marvin X
Academy of da Corner, Lakeshore, Oakland
8/17/18


Marvin X on stage at Laney College, Odell Johnson Theatre, X's former classroom, 1981, where he taught and produced his play In the Name of Love, directed by student Ayodele Nzinga

photo Alicia Mayo





Aretha, Angela Davis, Marvin X and the White Farmer from the Central Valley

 



In 1969, Governor Ronald Reagan removed Angela Davis and Marvin X from teaching in academia: he removed Angela from UCLA because she was a black Communist; Marvin was banned from Fresno State University because he was a black Muslim who refused to fight in Vietnam.



Speaking on Aretha Franklin this morning with Amy Goldman, Angela Davis recalled that although Aretha Franklin offered to pay her bail, it was a Central Valley White farmer who put up his land to free her. This reminded me that it was this same White farmer who supported my struggle to teach in Black Studies at Fresno State University, 1969. He also spoke on my behalf at my San Francisco draft trial for refusing to fight in Vietnam. He was attacked viciously by white racists for assisting Angela and myself. They called him a nigger lover and I think he eventually lost his land. For his support, I thank him, honor and respect Roger McAfee for his John Brown consciousness.
--Marvin X
8/17/18

February 24, 1972, Page 1The New York Times Archives



PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 23 —Angela Davis, jailed for 16 months while facing murder charges, was released on $102,500 bail here tonight.
As she left the North County Courthouse at 7:09 P.M. she raised a fist in salute and smiled broadly to some 100 cheering supporters before speeding off in a white Mustang automobile.
Her release came several hours after the decision to grant her bail was reached during a four‐hour closed session in the chambers of Judge Richard E. Arnason of Superior Court in San Jose, about 20 miles south of here.
Judge Arnason, who denied a request for bail for the black activist last June, ruled that a state law prohibiting bail in “capital cases” had been invalidated by the State Supreme Court decision last Friday eliminating the death penalty in California.
Miss Davis, who is charged with murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy, was required to post $2,500 bail in cash and the rest in a surety bond.
Continue reading the main story

Roger McAfee, the director of the cooperative, which runs a dairy farm with 60 cows, put his property up as collateral in the belief that “the stands Miss Davis has taken will further the cooperative movement in this country.”
Miss Davis, upon learning of her impending release, was “elated and very happy to be out.”