The Black Arts Movement Conference, University of California, Merced, Feb. 28-March 2, 2014

A Tribute to Amiri Baraka

October 7, 1934 -- January 9, 2014

Invited Participants

 Dr. Cornel West

 Marvin X and Tarika Lewis

 Ishmael Reed

 Dr. Ayodele Nzinga

 Dr. Nathan Hare

 Judy Juanita 

 Ras Baraka

 Earl Davis

 Benny Stewart

 Eugene Redman

 Sonia Sanchez

 Askia Toure

 Ptah Allah El

Producer Kim McMillan

Co-Producer Marvin X

Negro es Bello (Black is Beautiful) by Elizabeth Catlett Mora

Video of Amiri Baraka's Funeral

Video streaming by Ustream

Amiri Baraka Obituary

AMIRI BARAKA OBITUARY

10/7/1934 - 1/9/2014| 

Amiri Baraka (AP Photo/Mike Derer, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Amiri Baraka, the militant man of letters and tireless agitator whose blues-based, fist-shaking poems, plays and criticism made him a provocative and groundbreaking force in American culture, has died. He was 79.

His booking agent, Celeste Bateman, told The Associated Press that Baraka, who had been hospitalized since last month, died Thursday at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.

Perhaps no writer of the 1960s and '70s was more radical or polarizing than the former LeRoi Jones, and no one did more to extend the political debates of the civil rights era to the world of the arts. He inspired at least one generation of poets, playwrights and musicians, and his immersion in spoken word traditions and raw street language anticipated rap, hip-hop and slam poetry. The FBI feared him to the point of flattery, identifying Baraka as "the person who will probably emerge as the leader of the Pan-African movement in the United States."

Baraka transformed from the rare black to join the Beat caravan of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac to leader of the Black Arts Movement, an ally of the Black Power movement that rejected the liberal optimism of the early '60s and intensified a divide over how and whether the black artist should take on social issues. Scorning art for art's sake and the pursuit of black-white unity, Barak was part of a philosophy that called for the teaching of black art and history and producing works that bluntly called for revolution.

"We want 'poems that kill,'" Baraka wrote in his landmark "Black Art," a manifesto published in 1965, the year he helped found the Black Arts Movement. "Assassin poems. Poems that shoot guns/Poems that wrestle cops into alleys/and take their weapons leaving them dead/with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland."

He was as eclectic as he was prolific: His influences ranged from Ray Bradbury and Mao Zedong to Ginsberg and John Coltrane. Baraka wrote poems, short stories, novels, essays, plays, musical and cultural criticism and jazz operas. His 1963 book "Blues People" has been called the first major history of black music to be written by an African-American. A line from his poem "Black People!" — "Up against the wall mother f-----" — became a counterculture slogan for everyone from student protesters to the rock band Jefferson Airplane. A 2002 poem he wrote alleging that some Israelis had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks led to widespread outrage.

Decades earlier, Baraka had declared himself a black nationalist out to "break the deathly grip of the White Eyes," then a Marxist-Leninist out to destroy imperialists of all colors. No matter his name or ideology, he was committed to "struggle, change, struggle, unity, change, movement."

"All of the oaths I swore were sincere reflections of what I felt — what I thought I knew and understood," he wrote in a 1990 essay. "But those beliefs change, and the work shows this, too."

He was denounced by critics as buffoonish, homophobic, anti-Semitic, a demagogue. He was called by others a genius, a prophet, the Malcolm X of literature. Eldridge Cleaver hailed him as the bard of the "funky facts." Ishmael Reed credited the Black Arts Movement for encouraging artists of all backgrounds and enabling the rise of multiculturalism. The scholar Arnold Rampersad placed him alongside Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright in the pantheon of black cultural influences.

First published in the 1950s, Baraka crashed the literary party in 1964, at the Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village, when "Dutchman" opened and made instant history at the height of the civil rights movement. Baraka's play was a one-act showdown between a middle class black man, Clay, and a sexually daring white woman, Lula, ending in a brawl of murderous taunts and confessions.

Baraka was born Everett LeRoy Jones, in 1934, a postal worker's son who grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood in Newark and remembered his family's passion for songs and storytelling. He showed early talents for sports and music and did well enough in high school to graduate with honors and receive a scholarship from Rutgers University.

Feeling out of place at Rutgers, he transferred to a leading black college, Howard University. He hated it there ("Howard University shocked me into realizing how desperately sick the Negro could be," he later wrote) and joined the Air Force, from which he was discharged for having too many books, among other transgressions. By 1958, he had settled in Greenwich Village, met Ginsberg and other Beats, married fellow writer Cohen and was editing an avant-garde journal, Yugen. He called himself LeRoi Jones.

He was never meant to write like other writers. In his "Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka," published in 1984, he remembered himself as a young man, sitting on a bench, reading "one of the carefully put together exercises The New Yorker publishes constantly as high poetic art."

And he was in tears.

"I realized that there was something in me so out, so unconnected with what this writer was and what this magazine was that what was in me that wanted to come out as poetry would never come out like that and be my poetry," he wrote.

Baraka divorced Cohen in 1965 and a year later married Sylvia Robinson, whose name became Bibi Amina Baraka. He had seven children, two with his first wife and five with his second. A son, Ras Baraka, became a councilman in Newark. A daughter, Shani Baraka, was murdered in 2003 by the estranged husband of her sister, Wanda Pasha.

Amiri Baraka taught at Yale University and George Washington University and spent 20 years on the faculty of the State University of New York in Stonybrook. He received numerous grants and prizes, including a Guggenheim fellowship and a poetry award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Baraka was the subject of a 1983 documentary, "In Motion," and holds a minor place in Hollywood history. In "Bulworth," Warren Beatty's 1998 satire about a senator's break from the political establishment, Baraka plays a homeless poet who cheers on the title character.

"You got to be a spirit," the poet tells him. "You got to sing — don't be no ghost."

HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

reat:http://www.legacy.com/ns/obituary.aspx?n=amiri-baraka&pid=168995983#sthash.B6wAsClt.dpuf

NYU Honors and Celebrates the Life of Poets Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka

The Weatherman, a poem for AB; video link of Ras Baraka's Eulogy

The ice storm put him in the hospital she said

It stopped for his funeral

sun came out

snow drifts swirled on cremation day

He controls the weather she said

--Marvin X (Baraka)

The greatest eulogy ever! Ras will replace his father at the Black Arts Movement Conference, University of California, Merced, Feb. 28, March 1-2, 2014

Amiri Baraka's Funeral

www.ustream.tv

Ras Baraka speaking at his father Amiri Baraka's Funeral Recorded on 1/18/14

Ras Baraka takes baton from father, Amiri Baraka! The revolution continues!

 Ras Baraka and his mother, Mrs. Amina Baraka, entering Newark Symphony Hall for last rites of Amiri Baraka.

Ras Baraka took the baton from his father, Amiri Baraka, in the most eloquent eulogy ever!

Actor Danny Glover was co-MC. Danny began his career in Marvin X's Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1966. In 1967 he performed in Baraka's Communication Project at San Francisco State University.

Marvin X speaks at the funeral of AB, his partner in rhymes and other crimes

Today I participated in one of the most beautiful final rites ever, the home going ceremony for my friend, the legendary poet/playwright/organizer/music critic/historian, father/husband Amiri Baraka, aka LeRoi Jones, chief architect of the Black Arts Movement or BAM. I told the audience I was changing my name to Marvin X Baraka in honor of my friend of fifty years.

It was a poetic myth/ritual in the best of the African tradition, strong on longevity and short of brevity, but after all, it was the funeral of a poet, and they are known to be loquacious, sometimes redundant and repetitious, but such is the nature of poets and poetry.

If not for the astounding finale by the son of Amiri, Ras Baraka, it could be said the evening was long winded to the point of exhaustion. And yet what would one expect at the last rites of an African griot?

We know the griot is defined as a person who has absorbed his tribe's mythology and history. Such was the personality known as Amiri Baraka, dear friend, brother, fellow worker in the Black Arts Movement that altered the consciousness of North American Africans and Americans, from the academy to the streets.

It was the consensus of those who spoke that Amiri Baraka was a revolutionary, not some Miller Lite civil rites reformer, but a full blown revolutionary who wrote, fought and organized for radical change in America and throughout the world. Those who spoke or participated included Danny Glover, Sonia Sanchez, Cornel West, Woody King, Jessica Care Moore, Michael Eric Dyson, Askia Toure, Glen Thurman, Tony Medina, Chokwe Lumumba's daughter, Sister Souljah, Haki Mahdhubuti, Marvin X and Ras Baraka.

Poet Sonia Sanchez read a poem from Maya Angelou and herself, ending with Resist, Resist, Resist!








Why don't we cut to the chase to say Ras Baraka stole the show which was only proper since it was his father's funeral and the ceremony was not only the last rites, but a rites of passage for the son to take the reins of his father as poet and political operative, i.e., we fully expect Ras to be the next Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, especially after the eloquent reading/speech he delivered to conclude this myth/ritual, including his own poem Black Fire that ended his eulogy.


Some persons may find it  hard to believe AB's son delivered his father's poetry better than the father, but know for a surety the son accomplished this task and went beyond into the region of his own mind and destiny: to shape the world in his own making and likeness, yet he never stopped honoring his father at every turn. He gave full honor to his father as Sister Souljah had done when she introduced Ras Baraka.

Sista Souljah said she met Ras Baraka when she was 19 years old, or was he 19, we forget! When she went to his house, she thought he was rich because he had a father! He had a mother, a house, so she thought Ras was rich. She grew up in the projects, food stamps, Section 8, cheese, yes, she thought Ras and the Barakas were rich. They had a house full of books and music albums. They discussed serious topics whether personal or political, and you needn't agree yet there was respect for all. Yes, she thought the Baraka's were rich! Not rich with money but soul, she said! Long live the spirit of Amiri Baraka. We shall complete the national liberation of North American Africans! Free the land!

In my remarks, we (co-producer Kim McMillan) invited Ras and his mother, Amina Baraka, to the upcoming University of California, Merced Black Arts Movement Conference, Feb. 28, March 1-2. We had invited Amiri Baraka to the conference, but we know Ras will represent his father with eloquence as will his widow, Amina. 

AB had invited me to read at New York University of Feb 4, a tribute for ancestor poet Jayne Cortez. This event is on schedule. On February 8, the Schomburg Library in Harlem will host a fund raising event for Ras Baraka, now it will also be a tribute for Amiri Baraka.

The art piece above by Elizabeth Catlett Mora demonstrates the union of the Black Arts Movement and Black Power. In my remarks, we spoke on the need to understand Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement were revolutionary, not art for art's sake in the Western tradition. The Black Arts Movement cannot be separated from the Black Power Movement, both were about the National Liberation of North American Africans. Larry Neal said BAM was the sister of the Black Power Movement, I say BAM was the Mother!
--Marvin X (Baraka)
Newark, New Jersey
1/18/14

THE ICE STORM HAS SUBSIDED BUT EAST COAST NOW READIES FOR THE HUMAN EARTHQUAKE!

Yes, the polar ice storm has subsided, but now the east coast must prepare to confront the Human Earthquake in the form of Marvin X. He has come east to celebrate  the transition of his friend and comrade Amiri Baraka. Baraka suffered a fifty year relationship with the human earthquake. After a night of drunkenness at the Baraka house, New Jersey's once upon a time poet laureate  Baraka bemoaned the next morning that the west coast father of BAM, "let the elephant out last night!"

On the west coast, a friend recently told the poet she saw five demons come out last night. "I started to tell my husband to dig a hole in the back yard ten feet deep, not six, to bury your ass."

Well, the human earthquake does party hard, usually by himself which includes a party of ten personas. If the west coast friend saw five demons, the other five were probably angelic, thus she spared him the ten foot deep grave!

On the serious side, Marvin X was deeply shaken by the sudden transition of his friend and associate who had invited him to read at a tribute for ancestor poet Jayne Cortez at New York University. This event will now include a tribute to Amiri Baraka.

Coincidently, the poet was in New York on 9/11 and during Hurricane Sandy, but if the east coast survives his wrath, he will return west to co-produce (with Kim McMillan) The Black Arts Movement
Conference at the University of California, Merced, featuring icons of BAM, including Sonia Sanchez,
Askia Toure, Umar Bin Hasan of the Last Poets, Ishmael Reed, Al Young, Eugene Redman, Emory Douglas, Tarika Lewis, Billy X Jennings of the Black Panther Party, et al.

Gov. Ronald Reagan

"Get Marvin X off campus by any means necessary!"

A few days before the BAM conference, the poet will no doubt cause shockwaves when he speaks in his hometown of Fresno, an hour south of Merced in the central valley of California, from which he was banned from teaching at Fresno State University by then Gov. Ronald Reagan, 1969. The poet has since taught at UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, San Francisco State U, Mills College, University of Nevada, Reno and elsewhere. He will speak in the community at the Hinton Center on February 22 and at Fresno City College on Feb. 24.

Marvin X removed from Fresno State University and Angela Davis was removed from UCLA by Gov.   Ronald Reagan, 1969, Marvin for being a Black Muslim, Angela for her Black Communist activities. 

A few years ago he established Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. Ishmael Reed says he is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland. He teaches at the most dangerous classroom in the world, the scene of violent protests over the murder of Oscar Grant and Occupy Oakland.

During Occupy Oakland a US Marine was shot in the head by a police projective. Unmoved by the protests, Marvin X did a video production of his Mythology of Pussy and Dick, featuring Aries Jordan, Toya Carter and himself. A customer said, "Man, I watched it over and over. I'm going to charge Nigguhs to watch it at my house!"

He established The Community Archives Project to make available for acquisition the archives of such personalities at Drs. Nathan and Julia Hare. The Hare archives are under consideration by several top universities. The project is also educational: to teach the importance of preserving the archives of common people.

The Human Earthquake is more than anything a prolific writer of nearly 30 books. The Last Poets say he writes a book a month, but he authored eight titles during 2011. East coast get ready, the earthquake has just departed JFK Airport. New Yorkers, can you feel the earth shaking?

Reflections of a "Human Earthquake" Victim

 

 

   I’m sure we all have those teachers from our past who have impacted our lives. Some have encouraged us to dig deep within and unleash untapped potential. Some have inspired us to think beyond our little world and reach new heights. I can’t remember, though, very many teachers who have shocked me into a dizzying stupor, made me laugh, then ultimately made me love them for their unbridled “Hootspa” (or as we were fond of saying in my hometown….“Huevos”)

Meet Marvin X

   I believe it was the fall semester of 1982 when I walked into the first day of my English class. I was attending Kings River Community College in the small, heavily Mennonite town of Reedley, CA. Our quaint little town was your typical white-bread, very conservative, farming community. So when we all took our seats and noticed that our instructor was not your typical white, middle-aged teacher with patches on his jacket sleeves, but was in fact an african american man, staring us down, we were all a bit off of our game.

   “Hello, welcome to my English class. My name is Marvin X. My legal name is Marvin Jackmon, but I don’t use that name because that was given to me by some white slave owner”! The classroom did a collective head scratching, while some more disturbed students got up and walked into the wall several times, then returned to their seats and joined the head scratching asking panically “Um…your just a sub, right??”

   Everyday in Marvin X’s class was like a field trip though a box of Cracker Jacks. There was always some prize waiting for our small town J.C. minds to grapple with. Mr. X always encouraged lively conversation and I took full advantage of that, because we all know that asking a thousand questions equals a passionate interest in the subject which equals a passing grade!!!!

   The thing I love most about him was that he loved…no, he fed on tossing little “shock and awe” bombshells our way. Which was always followed by that jubilant grin and sparkle in his eye’s. He kept taunting us that some day he would share some of his poetry with us. But he warned us, “My poetry is really “street” …so I’m not sure your ready for it”.

   Several more weeks passed, full of lively conversations, debate and complete pandemonium swirling through our young impressionable little minds. Finally, one day he came to class and announced that we were now officially ready for one of his poems. Once again, he reiterated that his poetry was pretty “street” and not for the faint of heart. We did a collective gulp and nodded our heads.

This poem is called…

(wait for it)

“Confession of a Rapist”

(Oh dear Lord!!….um…uh…OK,, I can handle this! I can be street…or at least avenue)

He looked up with that sly grin and glimmer in his eyes, then proceeded with the opening line…

“I took the P***Y”

(we’re not talking about sweet little kittens here, folks.)

   He just piloted his Enola Gay B-29 and dropped a bomb (a “P” bomb at that) amongst us citizens of Hiroshima Junior College!

   Visualize those old black & white films of Atomic bomb testing somewhere in the deserts of Nevada. The “Shock Wave” was so insanely intense, our faces were wobbling and contorting to the massive G-forces, that I’m pretty positive not one person heard another line from that poem. Outside, after class, we quickly and hastily put together an emergency Triage unit to asses the damages and re-attach any limbs or brain matter that may have needed attending to.

   Some fellow Christian students from the class were discussing the possibility of assembling a mob with torches and pitch forks, the likes of your typical Frankenstein movie. We soon realized that we were all fine. A little shaken, but fine.

   Oddly enough, there was maybe one complaint in class from a student, and he very patiently and lovingly discussed it with us. In the end, we all came through it like old trench buddies. Mr. X helped lift, perhaps rather firmly, us out of our little comfort zones.

   In the last few remaining weeks of class, we had several more great conversations and debates. One sunny day he even held class outside under a tree and we studied the book of Job from the Bible. I believe he said he loved it because it read like a screenplay. He had lots of great insight and challenged us daily.

   There are only a handful of teachers from my two and a half years of college (and no degree to show for it) that I have maybe a millisecond of memory of them. Mr. X, however, made such an impact on me that his memory is burned into the synapses of my brain. Was he shocking? Yes! However, even more, he loved reaching through to us. He made us think….really think!

Before I began writing this, I Googled him. Sure enough, there he was…

 

with that sly grin and glimmer in his eyes!

Thank you, Mr. X!

BAY AREA BLACKS SEND MARVIN X EAST TO CELEBRATE AMIRI BARAKA'S JOURNEY HOME

With the help and support of Bay Area North American Africans, Marvin X has departed for the east coast to celebrate the transition of his friend and comrade in the Black Arts Movement, Amiri Baraka.

The poet is grateful for the assistance of the following persons: Dr. Nathan Hare and Dr. Julia Hare, Paul Cobb, Publisher of the Oakland Post Newspaper; Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Dr. J.Vern Cromartie,

Suzzette Celeste, MSW, MPA; Mrs. and Mrs. Leon Teasley, Geoffery Grier, SF Recovery Theatre,

Aries Jordan. 

Marvin X will report of the funeral proceedings for KPOO radio on the Donald Lacey Show, Saturday morning. 

He will remain on the east coast for the February 4 tribute for poet Jayne Cortez at New York University, an event organized by Amiri Baraka. This will also be a tribute to the chief architect of the Black Arts Movement.

Marvin X returns to the west coast in late February to co-produce (with Kim McMillan) the Black Arts Movement Conference at University of California, Merced, February 28, March 1-2, 2014. Invited participants include Sonia Sanchez, James Smethurst, Askia Toure, Umar bin Hasan of the Last Poets,

Eugene Redman, Ishmael Reed, Al Young, Adilah Barnes, Mrs. Amina Baraka, Emory Douglas, et al.

Call 510-200-4164 for more information. email Marvin X at jmarvinx@yahoo.com.

Marvin X on Amiri Baraka, KPFA Monday; Marvin X speaks with Terry Collins, KPOO.com, Tuesday, 10pm

KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley: Listener Sponsored Free Speech Radio
Marvin thought you would like to see this page from the KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley: Listener Sponsored Free Speech Radio web site. Message from Sender Marvin X interviewed by Greg Bridges on Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement Transitions On Traditions with Greg Bridges - January 13, 2014 at 8:00pm

AB and MX, a hapi moment in NewArk