Hapi b day, Sonia Sanchez, Queen of the Revolutionary Black Arts Movement, BAM, the most radical literary and artistic movement in American history

Sonia is my revolutionary lover, would give my life for her as I know she would do the same for me. I have no doubt about this. Our revolutionary black national liberation was/is not about money, being in the system, fame, fortune, ego, brand, none of the above stupid shit. When they closed down, i.e., defunded the Black Arts Theatre in Harlem, this was the model for the national black arts movement, then and into the now, except some don't smell the coffee. Nothing, absolutely nothing has changed since they defunded the Black Arts Theatre in Harlem. In our delusion, we think we can work with the City, State and Governmental Agencies, but why don't you smell the coffee. When they decide to defund you, they defund you and you are surprised, perplexed, thinking you were down with the political pimps in black face. Alas, doesn't Africa, the Caribbean and the US have a plethora of black politicians who are white men dipped in chocolate?

--Marvin X, Co-founder of the National Black Arts Movement and Oakland's Black Arts Movement Business District

Hapi b day, Sonia Sanchez, Queen of the Revolutionary Black Arts Movement

Hapi b day, Queen Sonia

my revolutionary comrade

poet priestess of liberation

I salute you

your freedom chants wails

calls from the wild of your mind

lifting sisterhood on high

like Harriet making brothers stand tall

no kneeling shuffles passive actions

going nowhere

you are still here my dear

calling us to freedom

dancing into the upper room

qualified to be there

let your words confound the fools

let the wise rejoice the love you shared

coast to coast

black arts

black studies

black life

--Marvin X

9/9/20

Marvin X visited his long-time friend and revolutionary comrade earlier this year during his east coast book tour sponsored by Duke University Professor Ellen McLarney, Chair of the Islamic Studies Department. She is writing a book on the Black Arts Movement Poets inspired by Islam, with chapters on Amiri Baraka, Yusef Iman, Askia Muhammad Toure, Umar Ben Hasan of the Last Poets, Sonia Sanchez, Marvin X, et al.

L to R: Mrs. Amina Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Marvin X, Amiri Baraka, New York Riverside Church, Memorial for Dr. Betty Shabazz

photo Risasi

Let me share a story of black poets. No, change my mind. Ok, well, if truth be told, one night at the Baraka's house in Newark, we were drunk, Amiri, Amina and myself, not Sonia, and were playing poker. The next morning Sonia informed me, "Marvin, that was not poker you were playing last night. I don't know what that was." Of course as. drunk you don't remember shit. But I do remember we decided to do a reading and I told Sonia I wanted to read, with her, her dramatic dialogue poem. She agreed to read her poem for male and female characters, but when I began reading the male lines, she went over to the piano that the Baraka's had bought for Nina Simone when she briefly lived with them, and began playing some avant-garde shit. She was avoiding reading with me, so I read both parts since I am a dramatist, yes, in the house with dramatists (Amina, Amiri, Sonia and myself). Sonia continued accompanying me on the piano so I continued reading both parts of the poem dealing with painful male/female relationships. I sensed the poem was too traumatic for her but was therapeutic for her to play the piano. The poem is in her collection Wounded in the House of a Friend. My review of the book is in my forthcoming Mythology of Pussy and Dick.

--Marvin X