Malcolm X/El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
Marvin X in Harlem NY, 1968
photo Dough Harris
"It wasn't nothing nice being in Harlem in 1968 and a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I was on Malcolm's holy turf and all sides wanted to know where I was coming from. The Malcolmites were my fellow Black Arts Movement artists, but the politico ideologues and the Nation of Islam members came to check my Black Arts Movement readings to hear what I was saying. After all, his assassination caused a great majority of the North American African nation to suffer grief and trauma, perhaps similar to the anguish and grief Shia Muslims suffer in their annual ritual bloodletting as an act of mourning at the death of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Prophet Muhammad. As in the split between Sunni and Shia Islam, North American Africans were divided, especially the Sunni or Orthodox Muslims, and for sure the followers of Malcolm X, whether Sunni Muslim or not. History has revealed the US government was the most critical actor in the death of Malcolm X. And after he was prevented from departing his plane in France, did not Malcolm say his adversaries were beyond the Nation of Islam since the NOI did not run France?
Nevertheless, in Harlem, I told the truth as I knew it. When Malcolm was assassinated, 1965, I was a student at San Francisco State University, and like most of us Black students, I considered myself a Black Nationalist and follower of Malcolm X. I didn't join the Nation of Islam until a brief association with Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and their Black Panther Party. After a problematic experience with Eldridge at the Black House, San Francisco, 1967, I fled into the Nation of Islam before going into exile as a draft resister who refused to be a running dog for American imperialism in Vietnam. I went to Canada, but soon returned to the US underground to Detroit, Chicago and Harlem, 1968.
Marvin X's first book of poems, Fly to Allah, marks him as the father of Muslim American literature. (See Dr. Mohja Khaf, University of Arkansas, also, Dr. Ellen McLarney, Chair, Islamic Studies, Duke University. "He's the USA's Rumi, the wisdom of Saadi, the ecstasy of Hafiz," according to Bob Holman.
Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra, Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland Ca, 2015, Eastside Arts Production
When my Harlem mentor and guide, Askia Muhammad Toure', introduced me to Malcolm's widow, Dr. Betty Shabazz, she turned her head away from me, although she was more friendly when we met again years later when I was out with saw Amina and Amiri Baraka, our mutual friends. When I discovered she was a Gemini like myself, I loved everything about her because I understood everything about her! And astrologically, I understood Malcolm too, i,e., as a Taurus, he was a real man, loyal and true."
A Day for Malcolm
A day for Malcolm X
El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
For the good he said and did
Hapi b day Warrior King
You woke the deaf dumb blind
You came from Royal line
Yo mama and daddy worked
With Garvey
Elijah mentored you
Like Shams and Rumi
Jealous ones are true
No matter the devils
You did what you came to do
We love you honor you praise you
A true trooper through an' through
Ishmael Reed says, "He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland." Dr. Cornel West says, "He's the African Socrates in the hood...a combination Thelonious Monk and Marianne Williamson!"
Look at the people born same day as you: Ho Chi Minh and Yuri Kochiyama
What greater two?
Ho Chi Minh ran devils out Vietnam
Yuri ran to your side
Before you died
We love you Yuri
Bandung Woman Supreme
FYI, every time I saw Yuri
she praised me to the sky
told me how much she loved me
Yuri, my love for you shall never die!
Lorraine Hansberry May 19 too!
A Raisin in the Sun
I am from the land of raisins
Central Valley of Cali
Mama born there too
After we cut them
we spread them on paper trays to dry
The sun is 110-114 degrees where I was born
Sun Maid Raisin land
Langston said and Lorraine expanded extricated
Malcolm X made it plain!
We love you Langston:
"What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun....?"
A raisin in the sun of Black Love!
"Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load
Or does it explode?"
--Langston Hughes
Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra, Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland Ca, 2015, Eastside Arts Production
Oh, Malcolm
We heard you speak before
7,000 students at UC Berkeley
Malcolm X at Sproul Hall, UC Berkeley, 1963
before 7, 000 students
Heard you again that night at the mosque in West Oakland
7th and Henry
Never saw you again
But you rocked my world
I became X because of you
Like millions of Xs
You taught Elijah's Message
To The Black Man
The devil always splits the atom
If we listen to Shaitan
Who whispers into the hearts of men
Minfadlik, Sami Allahu liman hamida
Rabbana laka Al hamd
Please, Allah hears those who praise Him
Our Lord to Thee is due all praise!
--MARVIN X/El Muhajir
5/19/21
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