The Life and Times of a North American African Poet at 67

Born May 29, 1944, Fowler, California













Daughter Muhammida



El Muhajir and granddaughter



Mahadevi



photo Sam Anderson










The controversial



$100.00 book













Violinist Tarika Lews,



first female member



of the Black Panther Party






MX and Phavia Kujichagulia,
poet, musician, griot. "If you think
I'm just a physical thing, wait til you
see the spiritual power I bring."











Hunia Bradley,
social activist/educator
Minister of Ceremony,
First Poet's Church of the
Latter Day Egyptian
Revisionists








Master dancer/choreographer
Performed in Marvin 1981 musical
drama, In the Name of Love, Laney
College Theatre, Oakland CA. A woman
of deep political consciousness.










Rama Lamar,



Metaphysician,



Academy of da Corner,



First Poet's Church








Oldest daughter Nefertiti El Muhajir

Happy Birthday, Dad!!!!!!!!!!

As much as you are celebrating a new day, I cannot help but to hear the pain of the possibility of death. Life and death exist as one and the same of two continuum's. I thank you for being an example of one who lives out passionately what he believes in and loves.

My prayer for you today, is that you love yourself as much as you have given life to your writings. It is time to love the pain, hurt, guilt and regret away. You've done what you have done. You've caught up, I pray on what needs to be said. I know that as life continues to unfold their will be more to say, but when do you find time to love, truly?

Not a love out of passion, lust, but a love that is inspiring, less based on lust, but based on compatibility and learning how to give what you've been unable to give before. A love that is unconditional, where you give in and embrace the other and you look back and be proud of what you have done, so that you have room to love, and love is not pushed away and put on the back burner.

This is a holistic love born out of all of the knowledge of what you've learned about mind, body and soul. It doesn't look like all of the other relationships. This is a new love, not only for woman, but for man, and for yourself. I thank you for enriching my life with the knowledge that I have, about myself, my people and my history. As much as I have been proud to give credit to all that my mother had invested in me, I realize that I am a beautiful reflection of the two of you, and I love and embrace who I am.

I thank you for the beautiful people that I have met through you which have helped to constantly expand the power of my influence and my knowledge. Although we are far away, I bless you and I thank you on this day and I pray that you will continue to manifest all of the spiritual beauty that is still remaining to come forth from a man who is seeking to be all that God desires of you. With each waking day, it is a reminder that you are still here to grow and not wither. Grow.




Nisa Ra, former wife, still my very dear friend, mother of Muhammida

X, thinking of you, Bro, and giving thanks for your presence on the planet. I trust that all is well with you and that you are making "self care" a priority. Give thanks. Keep the positive works coming. Blessings to you always.
One love, Nisa




Daughter Muhammida

with hip hop diva,Mary J. Blige

A filmmaker: Hip Hop, the New

World Order.

















Poet, Critic, Novelist, Professor

Sherley A. Williams (RIP). Marvin and

Sherley grew up together in Fresno.










Marvin Ellis Jackmon circa three or four years old






















Amina and Amiri Baraka, close friends since he met Amiri in 1964. Met Amina in 1967

when she came to the west coast along with Amiri to facilitate the Communications Project

at San Francisco State University. Off campus base was Black House, the political/cultural

center founded by Marvin, Eldridge Cleaver, Ed Bullins, Ethna X. Wyatt (Hurriyah Asar).
































Mother Marian M. Jackmon

with her brother, Clarence Murrill

(may they both RIP). She taught

her son, "Use the mind God gave

you!" His father, mother and uncle
published the Fresno Voice, one of
the first black newspapers in the
Central Valley. His father was a Race Man

who fought in WWI.



Playwright Ed Bullins and Marvin X founded

Black Arts West Theatre in San Francisco's Fillmore District,

1966. Marvin would join Bullins in Harlem at the New Lafayette

Theatre, 1968. Marvin became associate editor of Black Theatre

Magazine.














Marvin was the first person Eldridge hooked up with

upon release from Soledad Prison. They organized

the Black House. Marvin introduced Eldridge to

Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, his friends from

Oakland's Merritt College, 1962-64. Eldridge immediately

joined the Black Panther Party. See Marvin's memoir

Eldridge Cleaver: My friend the devil, introduction byAmiri Baraka.







Fly to Allah is the seminal

work of the genre Muslim American literature, according to Dr. Mohja Kahf, professor of Islamic literature at the University of Arkansas. The Black Arts poets are the foundation of Muslim American literature.










Mohja Kahf says read this for Ramadan!








Cover design by Emory Douglas, Black Panther Minister of Culture.








I AM OSCAR GRANT, collection of essays on Oakland, Marvin X, focusing on the cold blooded murder of young Oscar Grant by BART police officer who received a two year sentence.

Michael Vick, NFL quarterback, got four years for killing dogs.























Marvin X first heard Malcolm when he addressed 7000 students outside UC Berkeley's Sproul Hall, 1964.

















Marvin X and Gregory Fields, legal advisor, at Academy of da Corner, Marvin's peripatetic school at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland.













Marvin joined Nation of Islam in 1967, then

fled to Toronto, Canada to resist going to

Vietnam. Returned underground to US to

join the Black Arts Movement in Chicago and Harlem.

After conviction for draft evasion, fled the US again to

Mexico City and Belize, Central America. Was apprehended

in Belize and returned to the US. Served five months in Terminal Island Federal Prison.














Painters Dewey Crumpler, Arthu Monroe; poets Ishmael Reed,

Conyus, Marvin X, Al Young

photo Tennessee Reed









Grandson Jah Amiel. At two years old, he toldhis grandfather, "Grandpa, you can't save the people but I can!"

















Marvin X in Harlem, NY, 1968
photo Doug Harris
















Videographer Ken Johnson

and journalist/professor

Wanda Sabir, Marvin.

Wanda's parents read her Marvin's

classic fable of the Black Bird.





Bay Area Black Author
honor slain journalist Chauncey Bailey a Joyce Gordon Gallery,

downtown Oakland. Marvin and

Oakland Post Publisher Paul

Cobb (far right) have established

the Black Chuancey Bailey Project

to counter the Monkey Mind Media's

"Chauncey Bailey Project" that refused to investigate the police role in the murder of Chauncey, even though he was investigating police corruption at the time of his assassination in broad daylight, downtown Oakland. He was also investigating corruption at City Hall under then mayor Jerry Brown, now governor of California.

photo Gene Hazzard and Adam Turner






Lil Bobby Hutton, murdered in shootout with the Oakland Police, 1968. Eldridge Cleaver was wounded.




Lil Bobby was 16 when he became the third member of the BPP, along with

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.








The Oakland Post Newspaper Group purchased books from local black authors for Juvenile Hall. Pastor Brandon Reems, Marvin X and poet Ptah Mitchell made presentation at Juvenile Hall.



photo Gene Hazzard





Marvin's longtime artistic associate (since 1980), poet/actress/director/producer

Ayodele Nzinga








Poet/actress Aries Jordan, Assistant to

Marvin X



















Angela Davis. At the same time (1969) Gov. Ronald Reagan

was kicking Angela out of UCLA for being a black Communist,

he kicked Marvin X out of Fresno State University for being a black Muslim who refused to fight in Vietnam. He ordered the

State College Board of Trustees to "get Marvin X off campus by any means necessary." Supposedly he was "not qualified" to teach at FSU, but two years later he was hired to lecture at the University of California, Berkeley with the same qualifications.






Daughter Amira Jackmon, Esq.

Graduated from Yale and Stanford.
Decided to do for self with her food

business.













Young men reading at

Academy of da Corner,

14th and Broadway,

downtown Oakland.

Ishmael Reed says"Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland. If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration, don't spend all
that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway and watch Marvin X at work."





Tommy Smith and John Carlos

saluting Black Power at Olympics

in Mexico City, 1968. Marvin X

played basketball against Tommy Smith

in high school. Tommy was from Lemoore High,

Marvin attended Edison High in Fresno.









Revolutionary artist Elizabeth Cattlett Mora.

She gave poet refuge in Mexico City during his

second exile, 1969. She warned him not to go down

to Belize, then British Honduras. "It's raw colonialism,

Marvin, please don't go." He was later deported back

to the US for teaching Black Power. While awaiting deportation at the Belize, BH police station, the police gathered around him and begged him to teach them about Black Power.



Marvin and Muhammad Ali both

refused to fight in Vietnam. Ali
said, "Ain't no Viet Cong callled me
a nigguh!"



























Marvin and Akbar Muhammad,
International Representative
of Minister Farrakhan.











Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party

Bobby performed in Marvin's theatre before forming the BPP.

He starred in Come Next Summer,1965.



Black Dialogue Magazine brothers,

Aubrey Labrie, Marvin, Abdul Sabry,

Al Young, Arthur Sheridan and Duke

Williams. Black Dialogue was one of the critical journals of the Black Arts

Movement.
















Poet Ptah Mitchell, Marvin, drummer Kwic Time



Black Man Listen was published

by Dudley Randall's Broadside Press,

Detroit.








Black Fire, edited by Larry Neal

and Amiri Baraka was the Bibl

of the 60s Black Arts Movement.



























Marvin at Academy of

da Corner with grandson,

Jah Amiel



Mumia Abu Jamal called Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality

"an encyclopedia of knowledge."

Obama

Obama Must Give General Amnesty to all Prisoners


There has been a long call to free all prisoners unjustly held in American prisons and jails. Ninety per cent were mind altered at the time of their arrest, at least 50% were likely dual diagnosed, i.e., suffer drug abuse and mental illness. The majority are in for petty crimes and if they'd had proper legal representation would serve little or no time at all.

Not only are their crimes petty but should be seen as economic crimes due to poverty and lack of opportunity in a system that is advancing to what must be called neo-feudalism or wage slavery with little permanent employment, no health insurance, no unionism, thus they work at the whim of bosses who earn mega salaries and generous bonuses.

Once incarcerated, they suffer sexual and physical abuse, otherwise known as torture of the worse kind, and this includes inmates of mental wards, juvenile homes, jails and prisons. Those prisoners of conscious are often the most isolated for fear they will infect the population with radical ideology. The death row inmates are usually black and poor again, again, would not be on death row with proper legal representation.

The economic and social cost is astronomical, between fifty and sixty thousand dollars per inmate per year, more than it would cost to send them to Harvard, Yale and Stanford. But incarceration is big business in the era of de-industrialisation or the withering world of work, especially jobs with a living wage. Yet these neo-slaves, i.e., under the US Constitution involuntary servitude is legal, are a valuable commodity in the economic order. Prisons and jails are big business, in many communities the only business. They are now privatized and part of the military/corporate/university complex of institutions that perpetuate the capitalist system of free market exploitation. The incarcerated are of such value that the most powerful union in the state of California is the Correctional Officers Union that obviously has a vital stake in keeping the prison population high so they can maintain their lifestyle of conspicuous consumption. The Union will fight to the death to prevent a general amnesty.

In cahoots with the correctional officers are police departments who must arrest a quota of persons to maintain their jobs and justify their budgets. In some cities the police departments consume the major portion of city funds, to the neglect of schools, libraries and employment projects that would decrease arrests, court costs and incarceration. Many times the police are guilty of planting false evidence, false arrests, engaging in prostitution, drug dealing and money laundering. This behavior by law enforcement is a common feature below the border in Mexico, but is rapidly becoming a feature across the border in the US.

In some cases the police are in conspiracy with developers to destabilize neighborhoods that soon fall to gentrification. All the above applies to Oakland, California. It is a community under siege by police and gangs connected with the police. We suspect half the black on black homicide is police conspired.

A general amnesty must become a top priority of communities, especially with so many men falling victim to the slave catching police. This leads to family disintegration by increasing single family households. It is causing personality deformations in boys and girls who suffer prolong identity crisis since they lack positive male models. A young man attending a drug recovery meeting said, "Man, you might think some of my friends are gay, but they ain't gay, they just never heard a man's voice!"

We must reclaim are people from the dungeons , hellholes and Gulags in America. We cannot continue allowing them to be commodities in the capitalist system, similar to pork, corn, wheat and oil, to be traded on the stock exchange as neo-slaves.

If the last act of Saddam Hussein was a general amnesty, surely President Obama can do the same. It may get him some much needed brownie points for his 2012 election bid. But he must do so because it is the right thing to do. To not do so is economically and socially unsustainable.
--Marvin X
1/4/11