Queen Phavia at Laney College Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration

Black Arts Movement--West

Celebrating 50 years

focusing on Bay Area contributions 

to the Black Arts Movemen

Special Guest Phavia Kujichagulia

If you think I am just a physical thing, wait till you see the spiritual power I bring....

--Phavia

Letter from Assata Shakur, Black Liberation Army Warrior Woman

 Assata Shakur : An Open Letter To The Media -

 My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave.
Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than
to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that
dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an
ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since
1984.

I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S.
government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not
a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in
various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights
movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the
Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the
number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program.
Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black
people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal
security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and
activists.

In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United Nations
Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference of Black
Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression,
and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, exposing
the existence of political prisoners in the United States, their
political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman treatment they receive
in US prisons. According to the report:

“The FBI and the New York Police Department in particular, charged and
accused Assata Shakur of participating in attacks on law enforcement
personnel and widely circulated such charges and accusations among
police agencies and units. The FBI and the NYPD further charged her as
being a leader of the Black Liberation Army which the government and
its respective agencies described as an organization engaged in the
shooting of police officers.

This description of the Black Liberation Army and the accusation of
Assata Shakur’s relationship to it was widely circulated by government
agents among police agencies and units. As a result of these activities
by the government, Ms. Shakur became a hunted person; posters in police
precincts and banks described her as being involved in serious criminal
activities; she was highlighted on the FBI’s most wanted list; and to
police at all levels she became a ‘shoot-to-kill’ target.”

I was falsely accused in six different “criminal cases” and in all six
of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges were
dismissed. The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were
dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that was
certainly not the case. It only meant that the “evidence” presented
against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence became evident.
This political persecution was part and parcel of the government’s
policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes
and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.

On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were
stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a “faulty tail
light.” Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were
stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came
to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were
black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he
became “suspicious.” He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told
us to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see
them. I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came
from outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once
with my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back.

Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Foerster was killed,
and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd
Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged
with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and
comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Foerster. Never in my life
have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to
get to a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying
to protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the
gun that killed trooper Foerster was found under Zayd’s leg, Sundiata
Acoli, who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths.
Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial We were both
convicted in the news media way before our trials. No news media was
ever permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the
FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was convicted
by an all- white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison.

In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I
would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by
committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my
case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life.

The U.S. Senate’s 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence
operations inside the USA, revealed that “The FBI has attempted
covertly to influence the public’s perception of persons and
organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press,
either anonymously or through “friendly” news contacts.” This same
policy is evidently still very much in effect today.

On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference to
announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to Pope John
Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having me
extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey State Police
refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they had probably
totally distorted the facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the
devils work in the name of religion, I decided to write the Pope to
inform him about the reality of’ “justice” for black people in the
State of New Jersey and in the United States. (See attached Letter to
the Pope).

In January of 1998, during the pope’s visit to Cuba, I agreed to do an
interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the Pope,
about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the changes
I saw in the United States and it’s treatment of Black people in the
last 25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret
letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity maneuver on the part
of the New Jersey State Police, and as a cynical attempt to manipulate
Pope John Paul II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was
completely out of touch with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of
the establishment media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years
ago.

After years of being victimized by the “establishment” media it was
naive of me to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell
“my side of the story.” Instead of an interview with me, what took
place was a “staged media event” in three parts, full of distortions,
inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the facts.
Not only did NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting this “exclusive
interview series” on NBC, they also spent a great deal of money
advertising this “exclusive interview” on black radio stations and also
placed notices in local newspapers.

Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not have
a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real freedom of
speech, no real freedom of expression and very little freedom of the
press. The black press and the progressive media has historically
played an essential role in the struggle for social justice. We need to
continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create media outlets
that help to educate our people and our children, and not annihilate
their minds. I am only one woman.

I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that
people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand
the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression
in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the
truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of
you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in true
freedom, to publish this statement and to let people know what is
happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.

Free all Political Prisoners, I send you Love and Revolutionary
Greetings From Cuba, One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most
Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face
of this Planet.

Assata Shakur
Havana, Cuba

SOURCE:
Free All Political Prisoners!
nycjericho@gmail.com • www.jerichony.org

North American Africans in the Bay cannot afford to miss Ayodele's production of Jitney by August Wilson

 Marvin X associate Hopie, MX and his chief student, Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, director/producer of the Lower Bottom Playaz
photo Adam Turner

From SF Gate

With little fanfare, Oakland theater company the Lower Bottom Playaz has been working through August Wilson’s “Century Cycle,” an extraordinary series of 10 plays depicting aspects of African American life in each decade of the 20th century.

The company, founded by Ayodele Nzinga, started the cycle in 2011 with “Gem of the Ocean,” set in the 1900s, and has moved all the way to the 1970s with “Jitney,” opening Friday, Dec. 26, at the Flight Deck in Oakland.

“As far as I can verify, we are doing something no one else on the planet has done,” Nzinga says. “We are doing the entire cycle with fully produced plays in chronological order. Other companies have done the plays but not in chronological order, and others have mixed full productions with staged readings.”

Nzinga, who grew up in the East Bay, was a self-described theater kid whose life took her in directions that she calls “destructive.”
--SF Gate

As we begin celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, we are honored and humbled to know the BAM revolution continues through writers such as August Wilson and playwright/director/producer Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, a student of mine since I taught theatre at Oakland's Laney College, 1981. Although August Wilson was one of the few acceptable Negroes on Broadway, his plays deal with the lower side of Black life in America. Perhaps we should say he delineates the life and times of the wretched of the earth colonized in these United Snakes of America. Now Wilson is not an Ed Bullins, my associate at Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1966, and at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, NY, 1968--Bullins deals with the wretched of the wretched in his plays based on life in Philadelphia. August Wilson centers his dramas on life in Pittsburgh, PA, a little distance from Philly. Both men deal with the workers and non-workers, drunkards and murderers. They plays of both are virtual rites of passage, especially for North American African men. In Jitney, the setting is a taxi company in use by NAA's up and down the east coast, a way for men to hustle as unofficial taxis. It is a community about to be gentrified, but in those days the term was redevelopment or Negro Removal. The action centers around the coming closing of the building by the City and resistance to the closing by the men. In between we see the rite of passage of fathers and sons, manhood and womanhood training, especially male responsibility, but the wife of one character speaks of her duties and responsibilities as well as the couple purchase a house to move on up. 

In the language of August Wilson, I hear my writing style. Indeed, at another Wilson play, my daughter said, Dad, did you write this--it sounds like your style. In Jitney, I heard the ghetto speech rhythms--for sure, Wilson does not employ my use of socalled profanity, but the linguistic music is there for those who have ears. After the Jitney company manager is killed, the play ends with his recently released from prison son, answers the business phone, signaling the baton has passed to him, especially after a dramatic scene between father and son on male responsibility. 

Jitney is a must see. If you can, rush, run, fly downtown to the Flight Deck Theatre at 15th and Broadway, go pass the boarded up buildings from I Can't Breathe & Hands UP, Pants Up! and take a seat at the 2pm Sunday matinee. It runs next weekend as well.

--Marvin X

Dr. Ayodele Nzinga introducing the cast of August Wilson's Jitney. They are all outstanding performers.

Playwright August Wilson by James Gayles. We place Wilson in the Black Arts Movement tradition of focusing on the common Black people. Some say since he didn't rant and rave about white oppression, he was acceptable to whites, even a hit on Broadway. But however subtle, we cannot watch his plays and not see white supremacy in the deep structure.

SAVE THE DATE: February 7, Noon til 10pm, Laney College Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, the most radical artistic and literary movment in American history. For more information, stay tuned to www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com or call 510-200-4164.

Queen Mother of the Black Arts Movement, Mrs. Amina Baraka speaks on the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement

Everybody who say they in the Black Arts Movement ain't in the Black Arts Movement. BAM is a revolutionary movement!--Mrs. Amina Baraka

 Mrs. Amina Baraka and Amiri Baraka

 Nisa Ra, Amina Baraka, Muhammida El Muhajir

 Marvin X and Sun Ra

In my conversation with widow of BAM chief architect, Ancestor Amiri Baraka, as per her participation in the Bay Area Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration at Laney College on February, 7, 2015, Mrs. Amina Baraka said the proper thing would be for the Mayor elect Libby Shaaf to invite Mayor of Newark, NJ, Ras Baraka, to attend the Laney College 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, Feb, 7, 2015, Noon til 10pm. Mayor Ras Baraka will be allowed time to speak on Newark as well as the Black Arts Movement and any issues he feels are of critical importance. 

He will be able to participate in the panel Black Arts/Black Power Babies, moderated by Davey D of KPFA Hardknocks Radio. Other invited panelist: Danny Glover and son, Phavia Kujichagulia and daughter, Emory Douglas and daughter, Ayodele Nizinga and son; Marvin X and daughter; Walter Riley and son, et al. 

Exhibits will include art work from community artists expressing the BAM theme of liberation and from inmates at San Quentin Prison, Open Mike, Speakers on Critical Issues, and performance by Marvin X with the Poet's Choir & Arkestra and Special Guests from the Black Arts Movement, the most radical literary and artistic movement in American history.For more information or if you would like to make a generous donation to the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration, call 510-200-4164. Or go to Indiegogo, Black Arts Movement.