Thursday, December 27, 2018

Emergency support needed to purchase Black Arts Movement Retreat and Recovery Center



On Wednesday, December 26, 2018, 7:41:22 PM PST, Marvin X Jackmon wrote:



Poet/essayist Marvin X in the door of the apartment where he spent five years in solitude in Cherokee CA, down the road from :Paradise Ca. that was totally destroyed in the Camp Fire.
photo Adam Turner


Marvin X reading on the bench where he often wrote in solitude for five years, 99 per cent of the time he was alone. nor did he have sex during his five years writing and healing from the death of his son and partner, Oakland High School English teacher Marsha Satterfield. Kwame Satterfield is the first cousin of Dr.;Cornel West and the stepson of Marvin X. When Cornel comes to the Bay, Marvin often sits with the West family.



Dear friends, comrades and fellow artists:

In the name of the Black Arts Movement, we need your support to purchase a 11 1/2 acre property in Cherokee CA. This property was owned by my Patron Abdul Leroy James RIP. It is now owned by his brother Hasan Larry M James. The main house burned down in the recent Camp Fire that destroyed the entire town of Paradise. This property is a few miles away in Cherokee CA. The one bedroom apartment and two guest rooms remain in tact. I lived in solitude on the estate and occupied the still standing apartment for five years during which I wrote the   following five books: 

How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, a manual based on the 12 Step Mode of AA
Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality, essays
Land of My Daughters, poems
In the Crazy House Called America, essays
Wish I Could Tell You the Truth, essaysa

After five years of solitude, I experienced neural placidity, i.e., the transformation of my brain cells. BAM Master Sun Ra once said, "Where can the black man/woman go for RR?" Let us reply to Master Sun Ra, co-founder of BAM and Afro-Futurism, in the affirmative. Sunny, we have a space. But we must moveb expeditiously for investors made offers to Larry James on the day of our inspection of the property. Only minutes after Hasan James signed a modification of selling price. We may be able to convince Mr. James to grant us a 90 day option on the property, although is exhausted and suffering grief and sorrow at the transition of his beloved brother, Abdul. 



West Oakland product, Real Estate investor Abdul Leroy James

Marvin X's Patron RIP, also patron of the Bay Area Black Arts and Liberation Movements.

Aside from supporting Marvin X's literary projects, Abdul helped produce Marvin's community projects:

Melvin Black Forum on Human Rights, Oakland Auditorium, 1979

National Conference of Black Men, Oakland Auditorium, 1980

One Day in the Life, a docudrama of Crack addiction and recovery, including Marvin's last encounter with his friend Black Panther Co-founder, Dr. Huey P. Newton, in a West Oakland Crack House, 1996-2002, the longest running black play in Northern California Black theatre history, a recovery community cult classic.

Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness Concert, San Francisco State University, 2001.

San Francisco Black Radical Book Fair, Tenderloin, San Francisco CA., 2004.



I give all honor and respect to my Patron Abdul LeRoy James RIP and his brother Hasan Larry James. 

As result of the fire, the property is up for sale for $275,000. We would like to purchase the property for an artist's retreat and recovery center. 




Most often in his five years of solitude, Marvin wrote on this bench, usually in the nude as there was nothing nearby except deer, wild turkeys, hawk. Visitors came and wanted to kill all living things. Marvin told them to kill nothing, e.g., birds, bees, ants, flies, spiders, nothing. When the bee comes into my house, I tell him to leave, tell the fly the same, even gnates. 


If you would like to make a generous donation to obtain this beautiful land as a community property, please let me know ASAP. Your donation can be tax deductible. Thanks.
Sincerely,de
Marvin X
BAM Co-founder
510-575-7148
jmarvinx@yahoo.com




Dr. Cornel West and Marvin X 
in Philly to support Mumia Abu Jamal

I applaud Cornel West for  his critique of Prez Obama. No one is above criticism. Cornel is right: we must respect him, secure him but check him!

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Philly musician Elliott Bey on Marvin X's Notes

Elliott Bey, Philadelphia musician and student of Marvin X, describes his teacher's Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X as a dose of, "Literary fentanyl, opioid and heroin combined! It will kill the pain of oppression and inspire the oppressed to seek liberation, personal and national. Marvin X takes no prisoners, leaves no crops standing in the manner of David. Marvin X is solid, he don't bend!" 

Some time ago, Elliott Bey instructed people on how to read Marvin's work. "Read it like you go to a buffet, i.e., read a little then let his words digest in your brain. Then go back for more. If you read too much at one time it can be overwhelming and may lead to overdose."


Elliot Bey, Philadelphia keyboard genius and associate of Marvin X, performed with Marvin, members of the Sun Ra Arkestra and Rufus Harley on a classic recording at Philly's Warm Daddies, Marvin X calls 37 Minutes of Jazz History. Bey performs with Marvin X coast to coast, e.g., Penn University Poetry Session produced by Maurice Henderson; the Germantown WMCA with Marvin, Sonia Sanchez and the Sun Ra Arkestra. On the West Coast, Bey accompanied Marvin's production of the Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness, also the San Francisco Theatre Festival at Yerba Buena Center.

Poet/Essayist/Educator/Activist Marvin X after his lecture/discussion in Davey D's Hip Hop class at
San Francisco State University, Marvin X's alma mater. He was a founding member of the Black Students Union.
photo Davey D

Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X 
Now Available
Order your copy from
Black Bird Press
requested donation
$29.95
call 510-575-7148
credit cards accepted

New Logo and Identity for PayPal by fuseproject

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Marvin X new poem: The Smart People

The Smart People


Marvin X reading at the University of Chicago, 2015
photo Burrell Sunrise

The smart people
smarter than God people
God did not create Smart people
Smart people created God
gave birth to the God idea
There was no God before smart people
They are the mothers and fathers of God
Smart people made God in their image power glory
They define God
He does not define Smart people
Smart people marry trees dogs horses cows
do anything their hearts desire
murder lie steal rape plunder lands
destroy souls of men women children
The lands of smart people
havens of every filthy unclean bird
God cannot save smart people
nor will smart people save God.
--Marvin X
12/19/18

Monday, December 10, 2018

Now Available from Black Bird Press, Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X

Poet/Essayist/Educator/Activist Marvin X after his lecture/discussion in Davey D's Hip Hop class at
San Francisco State University, Marvin X's alma mater. He was a founding member of the Black Students Union.
photo Davey D

Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X 
Now Available
Order your copy from
Black Bird Press
requested donation
$29.95
call 510-575-7148
credit cards accepted

Marvin X
Poet, playwright, essayist, educator, activist
speaking/reading
University of Chicago, 2015
photo Burrell Sunrise

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Marvin X speaks at San Francisco State University and reads at the Beat Museum




Marvin X spoke at his alma mater 
San Francisco State University
12/4/18

Poet/activist Marvin X with San Francisco State University Students after his lecture/discussion in Davey D's class on Hip Hop
photo Davey D

This afternoon (12/4/18) Marvin X spoke for two hours in Davey D's class on Hip Hop, informing students on the connection between the Black Arts Movement and Hip Hop.
Before he began, Davey D showed the video of Marvin X reading at Yoshi's San Francisco, introduced by Amiri Baraka before Baraka and Roscoe Mitchell of the Chicago Art Ensemble performed. Marvin read his poem In the Name of Love. 

Although Marvin X participated in the Black Arts Movement coast to coast, West coast folks want to claim him, although he was critical in the formation of BAM coast to coast. His writing career began at Oakland's Merritt College when he won a prize in Merritt's literary magazine. His short story Delicate Child was reprinted in the Revolutionary Action Movement's journal SoulBook, edited by Kenny Freeman, aka Mamadou Lumumba. SoulBook was a critical journal of the revolutionary black nationalist movement. 

Davey D asked him to explain differences between Black Arts Movement West and East. The poet said firstly, as per the West coast, we must begin at Merritt College on Grove Street, aka MLK,Jr., Drive and the Afro American Association under the leadership of Khalid Abdullah Al Mansour, aka Attorney Donald Warden. We cannot discuss culture and consciousness without explaining the importance of the AAA. It was critical to African and Black consciousness in the Bay. The Black Panther Party evolved from the AAA, the Black Arts Movement and Black Studies. Kwanza no doubt originated with the AAA, especially since Maulana Ron Karenga was the Los Angeles representative of the AAA. 

The AAA held rap sessions on the steps of Merritt or Oakland City College, along with book sessions in the community and on street corners. Merritt students, whether associated with the AAA or not, were influenced by it and also had independent study sessions on such topics as the deconstruction of such books as Black Bourgeoisie by E. Franklin Frazier,Wretched of the Earth by Dr. Frantz Fanon, Facing Mt. Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta and Neo-colonialism: the Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah. We also studied the writngs of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong.

---continued--




Marvin X on Tour
Now booking coast to coast


Marvin X reading at University of Chicago Sun Ra Conference, 2015
photo Burrell Sunrise

December 4
San Francisco State University, Davey D's Hip Hop Class, 4pm

December 5
Reading at the Beat Museum with other anti-capitalist poets from anthology Overthrowing Capitalism Vol.5, Columbus and Broadway, North Beach, San Francisco




Marvin X opened the event with his contribution to the anthology: Sunrise Over Damascus
photo Deon Whitmore

Sunrise Over Damascus


Sunrise Over Damascus
Saul fell on damascus road
became paul
persecutor to liberator
paul's christology mythologized slavery
servants be obedient to your masters
official sermon of black slave preachers
mlk's mentor howard thurman mama told him
boy read me the bible
stop when you get to paul
don 't wanna hear bout obedient servants
yes mama
howard thurman said
mlk plagiarized his mentor in I have a dream
sunrise over damascus
primordial city rich history
down road to Jerusalem
house of peace with no peace
land of Canaan
brother of Egyptians
then came Abraham
Sarah Hajar
Jews Arabs
Isaac Ishmael 
ancient times no peace
no peace now
land of prophets
Jeremiah Isaiah 
told us wickedness
where are the prophets of now
so needed at the gates of Jerusalem Damascus
Lebanon Egypt Iraq Persia
armies near Jerusalem to destroy what
what is not destroyed already
the people are dead souls in the dead sea
cedars of lebanon burn sweet incense of death
frankincense myrrh burn in the holy temple for naught
biblical prophesy
end is near
who is there to see sunrise over damascus
isis
israel
saudi arabia
russia
lebanon
turkey
usa usa 
iran
gulf states
egypt 
turkey
kurds
where is saladin the kurd
who is richard lionhearted
who is not 
neo-crusade
persia rises again
from Tigris Euphrates to Mediterranean
can we stop history
fulfill whose mythology
jewish christian islam
myth is myth
my story his/her story
sunrise over damascus
a million dead
how many poison gas dead
dead is dead
no matter how
blood bones is blood bones
a million dead
bullets bombs poison gas no matter
what mind game is this
dead are dead
no matter how
no matter why
we cry for syria
we cry
sunrise over damascus.
--Marvin X
4/13/18



Marvin X holding the Beat classic poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg
photo Deon Whitmore



Beat sign


December 15
Reading from Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X, Charles Wright Museum, Detroit, Michigan
Saturday, 2-4pm.



January 2019
Brothers Network brings Marvin X to Philly for reading and book signing. Musical genius Elliott Bey will
provide sounds to accompany his beloved Master Teacher.
TBA
February 2019
BAMFEST Oakland
Dr. Ayodele Nzinga Producer
Marvin X, BAM Co-founder
Senior Consultant


In Concert: Marvin X reading from his dramatic works
TBA
Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam
Woman on Cell Phone
Fictional interview with President Obama
Driving Miss Libby
Parable of a Real Woman
Parable of the Heart

Note: Marvin X will exhibit his archives as a founding member of the National Black Arts Movement, the most
radical literary and artistic movement in American history.

Late 2019
Austin, Texas
Marvin X reading, accompanied by the Sun Ra Arkestra on the 400th Anniversary of Africans arriving in the Americas as captured Africans in the American Slave System (Ed Howard term, Oakland).
TBA

Now booking for lecture/dramatic readings coast to coast at colleges, conferences, festivals, workshops

Contact Marvin X:
send letter of invitation to:
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Detroit: Marvin X, the Human Earthquake will hit December 15, 2-4PM at the Charles Wright Museum, reading from his latest book Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X

I Wish I was a weak nigga

Marvin X reading at the University of Chicago Sun Ra Conference on Afro-futurism, 2015
photo Burrell Sunrise



I wish I was a weak nigga and I don't even know why. But I'm standing on the shoulders of so many strong niggas, I can't be a weak nigga if I wanted. I'm standing on the shoulders of so many warrior men and women, including Mama and Daddy, I can't be a weak nigga!



I'm standing on the shoulders of prison niggas who told me on the big yard, "Marvin X, you the smartest, you the minister." He told the other brother he was the secretary and he, himself, was the captain. Election over, meeting Sunday in the prison chapel. And we met!

I'm standing on the shoulders of strong niggas. Captain Edward X of Los Angeles FOI, drilled us chanting, "We FOI, we ain't no punks, no sissies, no squares, we FOI, soldiers in the name of Allah! March, march time march. left right left. about face, left right left, about face, march time march!"

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Norman Richmond on Afro-Canadian History

Remembering Garfield Belfon Fourteen Year –Old youth killed by Toronto Police in 1953

Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali





“The police become necessary in human society only at that junction of human society when it is split between those who have and those who ain't got.” -- Omali Yeshitela, Chairman African People's Socialist Party



Before Black Lives Matter Toronto there was the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC). Sherona Hall, Dudley Laws, Charles Roach, and Lennox Farrell founded BADC). These groups were created to deal with the question of police brutally in the Canadian context. 


Little or nothing has recently been written or discussed about the shooting of a 14 year- old Black youth in Toronto in the 1950s. The front page of the Nov. 30, 1953 edition of the Toronto Daily Star could have been written in 2018. The headline reads “Charge P.C. As Boy, 14 Shot Died.” This event took place in the basement of the S.S. White Co. dental building at 250 College Street. The officer had never fired his gun on duty before, told detectives that his gun went off when a pile of packing boxes toppled toward him. The bullet hit Belfon in the neck, killing him almost instantly. Press reports repeatedly said that the police officers' gun went off accidentally. It is noteworthy that the Star reported, “Belfon was the second person killed in four months by police gunfire. George Hurst was shot jumping over a fence in an attempted burglary in the east end. Constable Earl Snyder charged with manslaughter was freed at the preliminary hearing.”

Three other youths were found in the building at the same time as Belfon. Frank Fuzz, George Marshall and Douglas Richardson all were 16 and were charged with shop breaking. Many will know Douglas as Dougie Richardson who went on to become one of Canada’s foremost jazz artists.


Dougie Richardson

The Toronto Star’s Ashante Infantry wrote in Richardson’s 2007 obituary: “A veteran who'd worked with stellar acts such as Freddie Hubbard and the O'Jays, Richardson was best known as co-leader of the award-winning hard bop group Kollage with boyhood pal drummer Archie Alleyne.” It should be remembered that Richardson also worked with the legendary Chicago comedian/actor Bernie Mac.


Dougie’s father Sam Richardson was a legendary Track and Field athlete. At 15, in London’s Commonwealth Games in 1934, he won his gold medal in the long jump with a leap of 23 feet 8 inches (7.21 metres), and silver in the triple jump. I wrote an article about Richardson for the Globe and Mail in 1983. The late Gwen Johnston reflected on this historical event. I wrote: “Gwen Johnston, a co-proprietor of Third World Books and Crafts and Richardson's first cousin, remembers how Toronto's small but enthusiastic black community reacted to Richardson's victory when he returned. Says Johnston: "You couldn't get to him, the crowd was so great at Union Station. The community welcomed their young son home. We had a big reception for him at a place called Belvin Hall, which was on College near Spadina. I'll never forget it."

A historical event took place on February 15th. A Street in downtown Toronto was named Sam Richardson Way. That day also happened to be Richardson’s oldest son Norman Richardson’s 80th birthday.

he killing of Belfon was headline news in the corporate press in Toronto. Nineteen Fifty-Three was a deplorable year for African people in Canada and the people of the world - period. The year of Belfon’s death was also the same year that the immortal James Baldwin’s award winning semi-autobiographical novel Go Tell It on the Mountain was published.

The Cold War was pretty hot. Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes President of the Empire. Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union dies. The Land and Freedom Army so-called Mau Mau were on the move in Kenya. General elections were held in “British Guyana” April 27, 1953. They were the first held under universal suffrage and resulted in a victory for the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), which won 18 of the 24 seats in the new House of Assembly. Its leader, Cheddi Jagan, became Prime Minister.

In the US Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed. They were accused of conspiring to commit espionage and passing nuclear weapons secrets to Russian agents. In the United States the first color television sets go on sale, for around $1,175. The New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers who had Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella on their roster. The Yankees were white, on white, in white.

            Bromely Armstrong


Bromely Armstrong came to Canada from Jamaica in 1947. Armstrong remembers the merits and demerits of living in Canada. There were issues with the police when he came here. He talks about this in Bromley Memoirs of Bromley L. Armstrong by Sheldon Taylor. Says Armstrong: “Before the Buddy Evans shooting, some police officers allegedly would abuse and brutalize minorities and First Nation’ peoples. However, in such instances care seemed to have taken by those police officers to ensure that their somewhat racially motivated actions were not fatal. This was not the case with the 1950s Belfonshooting. 

James Belfon was a barber with a business located near Huron and Dundas streets in Toronto. His son Garfield was shot as it is alleged, when he and a number of other youths were caught in the act of breaking and entering a dental warehouse in Toronto.

A Toronto Chapter of Black Lives Matter was organized in 2013. BADC was founded in 1988 in response to the killing of Lester Donaldson a Jamaican born Canadian, which was the last straw in a series of police shootings of Black men in Toronto. B. Denham Jolly came to Toronto for the first time in 1956. Jolly reflected on how the shooting of Buddy Evans, a 24 year old Nova Scotia born man affected Toronto’s Black community.

Evans was shot dead by a police officer in 1978 during a fight at a Toronto disco. This event led to an 11-week inquest and mobilized African Canadians. The government responded by creating a civilian complaints commission pilot project in the 1980s. Jolly tells the story in his award winning memoir, In The Black: My Life.

The African People's Socialist Party has declared February 21th as the Day of the African Martyr. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was killed inside the Audubon Ballroom in New York City on February 21, 1965. “The African People’s Socialist Party calls on all African revolutionaries of all countries to raise high, in a revolutionary manner, the heroic memory of all our fallen martyrs, of all those in every city, village, community and country where they fell as evidence of the determination of our people to fight every battle on every front until liberty has been won.”

During this time we should also remember Toronto’s Garfield Belfon and Sandra Bland. Bland was a 28-year-old black woman who was found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13, 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. 

Many maintain that African people are oppressed wherever we are. Some go so as far saying that black people are the footstools of humanity.

The great Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh wrote this in 1924: “It is well-known that the Black race is the most oppressed and the most exploited of the human family. It is well-known that the spread of capitalism and the discovery of the New World had as an immediate result the rebirth of slavery. What everyone does not perhaps know is that after sixty-five years of so-called emancipation, American Negroes still endure atrocious moral and material sufferings, of which the most cruel and horrible is the custom of lynching.”

Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali is a Toronto Arts Award winner. Richmond is the producer of the weekly radio show Diasporic Music on https://blackpower96.org/ His column Diasporic Music appears monthly in the Burning Spear newspaper. Richmond recently received the Jackie Robinson Fortitude Award from 1st Friday’s.